Hi, I'm Carla Van Laar. I'm an art therapist from Australia. I usually live in Melbourne, but right now I'm actually in Inverloch, which is about a two-hour drive southeast of Melbourne, where I've been in lockdown. It's my fourth week now and I am continuing to work online.
So I'm seeing individuals, I'm running groups and I'm also running full day professional development training sessions as well as full days of teaching with students about therapy and one-to-one supervision as well. So I've been working online for more than five years because sometimes I've been asked to supervise people in different places and they've been individuals and groups. So you know I've been doing it for a while but I'm doing so much more of it now.
and thanks to Deborah Green and Amanda Levy from Whitecliffe University in Auckland they're the ones who prompted me to put this video together so here we are thanks for the invitation look what I'll cover today or you know what I'll sort of present or talk about a little bit The key ideas for me I wanted to go over with you are creating engagement when we're working online, creating safety and also re-learning or reimagining how to play online. I'm not going to really talk about all of the professional and ethical guidelines and the technicalities of working online. For those, I think that you can look to ANZACATA, who's our Australian, New Zealand and Asian Creative Arts Therapies Association.
And also you can refer or you can join, there's a group on Facebook called Art Therapy Online. Now... I'm sort of looking down at my controls because I thought I might share the screen. Oh I can! So I'll just show you quickly, there's the Anzacarta website, yep, where you're probably familiar with that.
They're sending out lots of really great information to members of all categories. And then there's this other group here, the one I mentioned, Art Therapy Online, and that's good. art therapists from all around the world who are you know just sharing ideas and resources and a lot of those practical legislative and IT kind of tips you'll be able to find in those two groups so I'll get back to focusing on the things I wanted to talk about yeah over the past couple of weeks actually A number of art therapists have been coming to me and asking for just one-on-one online sessions to help them imagine how they might work better in moving to online.
So some of the things that you know that they brought to me are some of the things I wanted to talk about here. One of them sort of was was sort of wondering how to even engage people with working online. And look, if we don't engage people, then we're not going to do any work anyway.
So to me, this feels like a really logical first starting place is how do we actually even get people to meet with us online to start with? So we need to go back a few steps and think about how do I get this person into this space where we can even connect online? So my tips for that are, because I've been doing the same thing myself with my group participants, some of whom I've never even met before, so it starts off engaging them maybe online.
So they might see something on Facebook or if you work within an organisation they might receive an email from you inviting them to participate in something online and they might express interest in doing that. Initially at least you'll recontact, you'll respond to them as quickly as you can online, you know, like typing and sending a message or an email back to them. But I would suggest that you offer to have a follow-up phone call with them and check in with them how they're feeling about working online and even if they have worked online or attended a face-to-face, done a video chat, anything like that. And I'm imagining that if you're going to be running art therapy online that you'll be using something like Zoom. So Zoom's the one that I use and I know that a lot of people are using that.
But there are other platforms. So whichever one that you're using, if you have the phone call and ask them how familiar they are and then offer even to do, keep them on the phone and do a practice meeting with them online. So set up a video call or a Zoom call with them and just keep them on the phone while you're talking through the steps of how to turn on their video. you know even click on the link turn on the video have you got sound now maybe do a sound check or you might have to shut down safari and re-enter through chrome so just do all that troubleshooting in a special one-on-one meeting that's just about making sure that you can actually meet online yeah um and in that meeting you can sort of start to play with the controls so like i just did before and said oh can i actually screen share with you right now Turns out I think I did.
I won't know until I've finished and watched the video myself. Just have a play. Play with the controls. And, you know, if you've got reactions down there, show them how to make a little reaction.
I'll try it now. I don't know if I can do it when it's just me in the meeting. There we go.
Oh, yeah, bravo. I managed it. Great. So I'm not quite sure how to turn that reaction off.
Oh, I might have to see if I can click on it. Yeah. Um, will I just leave it there? Maybe? I'll just leave it there for now.
I'll figure it out later. Okay, so we just go to have a little play. Actually, I think I know how to do that.
You open up the chat and it's somewhere in there. Oh, look, I'll stop fiddling with it now. Oh, look, there we go.
It went away. So, play with it. Play with it together and just get the feeling that actually this is a new medium.
Okay, it's just a medium that we're going to play with together and that if you do that little setup getting people just familiar with How you're going to meet it'll take some of the anxiety out of the first online art therapy meeting So the first goal of that very first meeting is nothing more than to just figure out the technology And how to meet and have a little play so that everyone just feels a bit more relaxed Okay. Yeah Another thing when you do then meet, or you could even do it in your first practice session, is talking about safety. So it really depends if you're going to be working one-on-one, that's something that you would just talk about with that person.
If you're working with a group, it might be something that you do want to talk about one-on-one in your practice session before you launch into having everybody present in the space in a group. In fact, I also suggest that if you're going to form a group that you do have a couple, like one or two or a few, whatever, one-on-one sessions before you move somebody into a group. And once again, that's to alleviate the anxiety, get more familiar with meeting just with one person online before you start putting people together and having a whole group in there.
So the kinds of things that you'd be attending to when it comes to safety. are of course the comfort of the room. So have you got some decent light? Are you in a comfortable chair?
Are you sure that there's nothing that's really private in the background so other people aren't seeing things that you don't want them to see? And also just thinking about other people in the house. So can you have a room where you can shut the door?
What's going to be the most private place where you can run this session? And if they're... isn't an option for a completely private space can can the person wear headphones to try and create at least a little cocoon and so that all of the sound isn't bouncing around the house and all of the sound of the other people in the house isn't coming through as well and then another thing just to be aware of it that people might feel worried about is are you recording the session so clearly I am recording this session okay because nobody else is in here with me and I'm hoping that you'll be watching it online later but it's worth having that discussion so and just reassuring people look you know, there is a record function, but I won't be recording it. And I'm pretty sure it's only the host who has the option to record.
Although I think that anyone can download chats. So it's really worthwhile mentioning that to people that if you type comments in the chat that, well, do you trust the others not to download it? Or do you have an agreement that it's okay to download it? And also that If you do download it, I believe even if you're sending a private message one-on-one, that that will be shown in the download of the group chat.
So these are things to negotiate. There's no set in stone rule, but it's just so that you do cover it and come to an agreement with the people that you are working with. So there are a couple of just setting up engagement and safety because without those things, we can't do any work.
or might do something that looks like work but is actually superficial or lacks some of the qualities of the art therapy that we know and love and this was what the art therapists who were coming to see me over the last couple of weeks were experiencing a bit of grief actually themselves so a sense of loss about having to work online and feeling like it's just not the same and we can't do the same you know, we don't have the same level of connection or we can't do that really sort of depthful, profound work that we're used to doing. And so the therapists themselves are experiencing a sense of loss around the connection when we're working online. So when I inquired into that a little bit further with one of the therapists who came to see me, she sort of described When I said to her, well, what is it that you miss? And she described that, yeah, she missed the connection and also that she felt as though some of the playfulness was gone and that the person she was working with seemed really in their head.
So this got me thinking, okay, there's something about this that's maybe... association with computers or something anyway what I'd like you to do right now and if you want to you can pause this video at any stage so you can pause it now while you do this if you like or we'll just keep rolling that's fine so just take a piece of paper I hope you have one handy yep and a pen and write down five words that come to mind when I say the word computer. Okay, let's have a look at what you've got.
Well, I can't see and this isn't in real time, so I can imagine, but some of the things that people do think of, or that words that come to mind are things like work, typing. writing essays emails Facebook I don't know so I don't know what's on your list there might be other things on there that are not in that stereotype sort of range that I just described so there might be creativity technology interaction you know worldwide web yeah information But just it's interesting to look at what's on your list and what you associate with the computer, working on the computer. And if there is anything in there that might be a like a little bit of a barrier for you to creating a space, a space of connection and safety in this online environment.
So just take notice. Is there anything on your list that could be a barrier to connection? I'll ask you again.
to write down five words that come to mind now when I say the word play play five words okay let's have a look at that list what could be on there I'm imagining fun Games, childhood, toys, spontaneity, improvisation, I don't know, I'm just guessing. Maybe there's something else. I'm sure there are things I haven't imagined.
So have a look. Maybe have a look at your to-lists and go, okay, so this is some of the stuff I think of when I think of computers. This is some of the stuff I imagine when I hear the word play. And let's just try now, we're going to try and merge these worlds, the computer and the play space. This is what our job is as art therapists, to turn this online environment into a space.
in which we can play, right? That's at the core of art therapy. That's what we do. So I have some suggestions and things even that we could try out here together and some examples that I can show you as well. So I already mentioned just playing with Zoom and treating this platform as a whole new modality.
And I thought we could try this other game. Now, one of the therapists in the online, therapy group did suggest this and lots of people have been loving it and I'm one so I'll share it with you so if you have near you a sketch pad or a journal piece of paper of any description and some kind of drawing materials I have some very basic things as you see I have my pen and some markers and more textas markers and I also have just some pastels so what I'll get you to do is to draw on your page and this is this is art therapy online this is one of the things that we can try and get a little bit used to is having a sketchbook that's got a bit of bulk because it's easier to hold up you know have it a bit rigid so you can draw on it upright screen okay so we're just gonna draw a circle don't worry too much if it's not exact that's fine and we're gonna divide the circle into quarters or something roughly like quarter ish okay that's what we've got that's our basis now we're gonna all put it down so none of us can see each other and I'm just gonna call out some shapes and colors and symbols and things and I'll would like to invite you to put one of these symbols or shapes or something into each quarter of your circular shape so i'll start with red okay i'd like to invite you to put a red flower somewhere in each quarter of what is you know could be described as bit of a mandala we're starting to make here so if you're doing that i'm doing it too and i've done it i'll show you where i put them okay just as an example so each quarter has one red flower in it okay now i'm going to do a couple more i'd like to invite you to put a squiggly green line into each quarter Okay and now I'd like to invite you to put a purple, some purple grass into each quarter as well. I hope you're doing this at the same time as I am. What else can we put? Let's put in some pink stars and let's put in some blue circles, spirals, let's put in some blue spirals.
Okay and now just to finish off let's put in some yellow dotted lines. Okay, done. So, and now let's just add in one thing that we'd really like to add so that we feel like it's complete. Enough for now.
Hmm, this is the random part. Right, okay. So you can imagine if you were doing this with one other person, you can go, okay, well, you could take turns suggesting things to add in.
So I could say a thing to add in, then you could say a thing to add in and keep going. And if you're with a bigger group, you can do the same thing and go around the whole. group until everybody's suggested one thing for everyone else to add in and then you can take turns or you can even have everyone on gallery view and hold them up all at once and show what you made out of all those instructions and you can notice the similarities and differences between all of the improvised mandalas that have been made you can experiment by turning them around I suppose And you can, I guess, just have a look.
This will always bring up interesting conversations like, hmm, is there anything that you can see in somebody else's mandala that's a bit similar to your own? Ooh, is there anything you can see that really leaps out at you? Okay, what's interesting to you? What do you notice when you see them all together?
How are they connected? Really simple. Okay, so that's a warm-up activity.
and you can see there's actually nothing that spooky or terrifying about just working in a really simple journal and holding it up to the screen you can get a pretty good look at that and i can even point to parts of it if i want to oh yeah oh i see you put your your red flowers really big but mine are really small you can make comments like that that's one idea just for a warm Sometimes these warm-ups become like something, you know, that gives you material that you just zoom into or leap into and access kind of opens up stuff and it can become a whole session. But it might just be a game to play as a warm-up. And there's lots of other games that you can play as well. So have a look at warm-up games that you already love and think about or imagine how you could adapt them for online. Now, another idea.
Well it's something I attended, so another art therapist here in Melbourne initiated something she called Painting from the Pantry and all she did was she went onto Facebook and she just live streamed and she invited people to come and join her live stream and I think there was about 20 of us, we're all sitting at home in our own kitchens and she'd given us information about how to prepare and set up and she had tips about getting paprika and turmeric and beetroot juice and other things out of the pantry and then she led us, she sort of guided us through some experimenting with using these on paper and I actually used board. So this is the one I made, but the things I liked about that particular process were just the sense of community. So we couldn't actually see each other but there was something very soothing because she was sitting in her own kitchen. And she was really quite relaxed. She was making her own artwork at the same time and just talking us through the process.
And the chat room was open. So every now and then we could write in a little message like, oh, all right, oh, does anyone have anything that's white? And somebody, I said, I'm about to grab the toothpaste.
And somebody else said, oh, what about coconut? And I said, oh, I've got some coconut cream in the fridge. I'm going to try it.
And I was like, yeah, it's great. and so these were just chats but she was commentating and saying oh Carla's saying this and oh oh Carla loves the coconut milk and so she was sort of commentating our processes as we're feeding them to her and so that was it had a meditative but a held kind of a quality as well as a little bit interactive knowing that other people around the place were doing it as well okay another idea about connecting and playing together online. I can't see anything wrong with just the idea of having a bit of a crafternoon, you know, getting together with some people who, you know, have their own creative practice and just having a little meeting, having a bit of quiet time, maybe away from the rest of the people in the house and just having a chat with other people who are making at the same time as you might.
be that could be anything really you could set it up so that people you know are all knitting Or it might be that everyone has a different thing, a different creative project that they're working on and they just like, you know, to do it in company. And that really relates to the idea of just making art in the presence of others is an expression of hope. That was lovely. Bruce Moon said that.
We'll put that one away now. Another idea is one that Michelle Amy Morgan has launched. Somebody's waving to me from outside the window while I'm filming this. Lovely.
So Michelle set up another art therapy online challenge actually and she called it Mandala a day. So I'll just quickly screen share this to you now. Here it comes.
So Michelle set up Mandala Day Challenge. She promoted it via Facebook and she created a closed group. I'll stop sharing now. She created a closed group and people who wanted to participate joined the group. And she also set up, oh, and it was sort of an online course.
It's all free. She was very kind giving it there. So you can... The challenge was to create one mandala a day for the whole month of April.
So I'm a participant and so every, I think there's about 100 people participating and so the idea is that every day we all take a little bit of time just to create our own mandala in our own time and then put it up, put a photo of it up online and share it with the rest of the group where we can all appreciate each other's artworks and you know make comments. and things for each other. So it's got that element of being a daily practice that you do in your own time, but then that you share it in an online environment.
So there's actually no one-on-one or real-time element to that one. That brings me to share with you my own community art project that I created in response to... the lockdown or to the coronavirus restrictions and so I created an online community exhibition called Lockdown Art so I'll screen share that to you in a second here there it is share screen here it comes all right so I just created on my own website a space where people can send in their artwork.
So what has happened, and I'll just keep scrolling down to give you a little bit of a glimpse of what's happening. So I did promote it through my newsletter and I also have just put the word out via Facebook and via connecting to friends. When I see people being creative I invite them to contribute.
and we've now got so many artists and from so many countries contributing so that one there in the middle really touches me that's from a woman who's in the military in Nepal and it's called my mum is a soldier and she said she drew it very quickly but it was all about her feelings in having to leave her daughter in the care of somebody else so that she can do her civil duty and help others during this time of crisis. crisis. So we've got artists from Australia, New Zealand, Nepal where I have many friends, America where there's many art therapists, from the Netherlands, from the UK, from Germany, Ireland and I hope that we'll continue to have other artists contributing, especially from New Zealand in fact. So please visit Visit the gallery. I'd love you to contribute some work.
The other great thing is that you can look at other people's artwork there and you can leave comments for them. So if you send me through your artwork, I'll post it up online. You can be part of the global community.
And as art therapy students, I would really, or practitioners, I don't know who's watching the video. It could be anyone, but anyone who's watching this video. I would welcome you to send me through some of your own artwork.
and have it seen by others, receive comments from others, but also just practice sending responses to other people's artwork and let them know what touches you, what moves you. So the Art Therapy Online, it really embodies my own love and the way I love practising, which is all about creating spaces for unseen stories to become visible and for us to feel empowered by being seen. and to connect with others as we, you know, as parts of their stories overlap with parts of ours. So I'd love you to participate and contribute to that. Look, that's pretty much all that I wanted to share with you today.
I'm making a series of little videos and they're all coming under the umbrella of Art Therapy First Aid. So they'll be up online on my website in the same place that the Lockdown Art Exhibition is. So if you would like to know more about me, it's CarlaVanLa.com and on that website if you look under professional services and go to Art Therapy First Aid, that's where you'll find the Community Art Exhibition and that's also where I'll be posting up the further videos that I'm going to be making and sharing with you.
So the take-home message for today... for this video is in moving art therapy online create safety improvise experiment and play see ya