“I was very clear that I needed intelligence, love and beauty. Those are the three things that are going to get me out of depression.” Ana Gallego drops the statement with the weight that security gives in her own words. Such qualities she found in an art gallery; Salvadora Moya, the person in charge of the space and art therapist, and the collage. “Making collage is like doing philosophy with your hands. It is like writing in another way, writing in an unconscious way”.
With art, the human being has turned his insides out and achieved calm in moments of discomfort. Or he has shouted out loud what he could not express in words. Art is not only beautiful: art heals the soul.
Art therapy represents a quite pragmatic and contemporary branch of millennia of usefulness of the useless, with the permission of Nuccio Ordine. This form of art-supported psychotherapy is useful in hospital settings, promoting the mental health of children and young people, treating specific psychological problems such as trauma or anxiety, chronic pain or cases of dementia, among others.
The plastic arts, among which are collage or painting, are not the only tools, although they are among the most versatile. Moya began her own therapy process in the theater -she is an actress herself- and later trained as a therapist in this field. From there she would jump to collage in a self-taught way.
“I have realized that for me it is very therapeutic. In addition, you work very similar to theater, since you are creating stories. So I think that, apart from working with my hands, the fact that the collages are narrative means that people, without telling much, can capture their story and I see what is happening to them, ”he says. When one of the people he deals with expresses something in his creation, Moya continues to explain, it has a lot to do with the prize dialogue. “It’s not such a vague read because it’s based on everything we work on,” she adds.
The psychoanalytic influence emanates from his words, a school where the interpretation of speech, dreams or creations of the people treated by the therapist prevails when seeking healing from trauma. The theory that supports it is that this would seek to access the person’s unconscious.
This is something that is also applied by the so-called projective techniques, such as the famous inkblot test or Rorschach test, where the projection of the patient’s mental content is sought from free interpretation or construction. It is precisely the construction and unrestricted work when creating collages that Moya rescues for therapy and what later allows him to read in them. “From that freedom I am expressing. It has a lot to do with how I am, how I am”, says the therapist. Thus, Moya reads the people she treats.
The scientific validity of psychoanalysis as a therapy and of projective tests have been questioned since they do not fit into the positivism of current scientific practice. However, for several decades, the former has been sought to be founded by ascribing it to the historical-hermeneutical sciences, where the qualitative, discourse analysis or the inclusion of the subjective prevail.
For Gallego, however, it is precisely the therapist’s reading of his creations that is most useful to him. Not only because he “takes things” from her “that he surely would not be able to verbalize”, but because of the value of what is created.
“I need the feedback. That is fundamental. If not, I’d get out of here, make a ball out of the collage, and call my job crap. […] It reaffirms me, it gives me confidence… Then I get home and I hide the collage somewhere,” she laughs.
“—And do you disagree with the readings?
—When she proposes an activity to me, I sit down to do it and remove the theme. I start to do without a previous intention. So there can be no contradiction because there is no reading on my part”.
Each session is a world, although organized and without much imposition. Two hours during which Moya proposes activities through collage and in which she also talks, rests, learns or seeks to waste time. “First we talked and the collage is like the conclusion,” explains the gallery owner. “Sometimes I feel as if we were two ladies who sew and tell each other what’s wrong with them,” she adds.
An example of dynamics is referred to as “the dice”. It was split from a tile as a game board and from wooden dice. This time Gallego was accompanied by another girl and both made radically different creations: one covered all the faces with white and red in a very delicate way and the other glued all the dice together creating a background.
Moya explains that, faced with this rigidity, he blocked himself and in the end chose to cut and release them, something that he felt like a release and that he remembers sessions later. For Moya it is very clear how both works spoke about the two people, recounting the delicacy in healing the wound, on the one hand, and on the other the tendency to be rigid with which to break.
Something that never occurs in the sessions is forcing the person attended to carry out a specific dynamic or to speak if they do not want to. The block, both artistic and dialogical, is respected. Times are respected. And that is something that Gallego appreciates. He has been able to count things little by little, like undoing a knot with patience and without pulling. In parallel, he learns and receives suggestions about the collages he creates.
Moya is not the only professional in her care network. Gallego went to her GP in September of last year, who gave her sick leave due to depression. She had her first appointment with Psychology four months later and with Psychiatry five months later. So the doctor herself recommended that she seek professionals privately. “If you can afford it,” she told him.
“I have never gone public. I keep the low with the private ones. But the one who is really helping me is ‘Dora’, what happens is that I’m afraid to remove the other structure and that the doctor will tell me: ‘what kind of therapy is this?’”, says Gallego, who has since October 2022 in art therapy.
She explains that the approach of the sessions with the psychologist, where she goes weekly to an “aseptic room” while the therapist writes down what she says in a notebook, does not quite fit her. Although she does like the approach to the body and the sensations that she makes, she is the professional: see what she feels, how she feels it, where she feels it or what images come to her head.
“[Art therapy] is something else, it is more human. You get here and, if you want to tell, you tell, and if not, then you tell it through the collage”, he points out. There is no relationship between the two services. Each one plays the role of her trying not to interfere in the other part of the therapy, especially in the case of Moya.
But art therapy is not for everyone, according to the professional herself. For her it is necessary to start from an openness to art, to creativity, although she does believe that all people are creative.
Gallego’s good disposition has led her, little by little, to gain confidence to tell stories, which pushes her to believe in her – she has lived in constant criticism of herself – and, above all, to “get better”. So much so that, according to her account, she is opening up a whole world to even consider another way of life. That at the moment seems very far away, but in her view it is a first step in that gain of confidence.
At the moment he is going to throw himself into the pool with an exhibition related to psychological health. Along with Moya, she will discuss the architecture of mental disorders. They will create six works that will deal with different symptoms. They will also carry out collage inside several pillboxes to, according to the therapist, “talk about the fact that, in mental illnesses, the first thing they normally do is give you the pill, without treating it.”
In parallel, they work on what they have called “neurosis notebooks”, small manual notebooks where they treat depression and cyclothymia -a mild form of bipolar disorder- through cutouts and glue. They doubted if the exhibition would see the light in July or in September. In the end it will be September. In the words of Moya: “There is never a rush here…”.
Without art therapy involved, Sara Medina also extracted the psychological benefits of art, this time from painting. “I wasn’t very well. I had anxiety, which I had never felt, ”she says. She went to the psychologist, although for other issues, and the sessions ended up leading to these symptoms and how to deal with them.
In those sessions it emerged that the trigger for the discomfort was the work, related to marketing. But also that, since the pandemic, he lacked a weekday routine that went beyond said occupation.
His day-to-day life had become a vicious circle, according to his words: work generated anxiety and that anxiety extended to other activities, such as walking his dog or going to the gym, which became obligations and he stopped enjoying himself. which did not allow him to cut the anxiety.
So, with the psychologist, they began to think about how to include small moments of enjoyment during the week. Learn a language? Try yoga? Until Medina remembered that that summer she participated with some friends in an activity called “Wine and painting” (Wine and painting). This consisted of, from a model painting, painting their own while having a drink with the people who had reserved the activity.
He liked it because he did not paint to create a perfect work, but to enjoy the process “and if it turns out well, fine, and if not, I don’t care because I don’t dedicate myself to painting.” He does admit that she was a little frustrated because the painting did not turn out quite as he wanted. Taking classes seemed like a good idea “to learn to enjoy it.” Medina also adds that “when I was little I liked painting and it relaxed me a lot, but there was a moment when I stopped doing it, so I wanted to reconcile with that part of me.” So she embarked on a search for painting classes.
He currently attends two hours a week with a group and, without a doubt, the new hobby has brought him many benefits. “I disconnect because I’m not on my mobile, I don’t have my mind on other things, I’m focused on what I have to do and I don’t put any kind of pressure on myself,” he says.
Another point that stands out is the satisfaction he finds in finishing a painting. She is proud of it and that motivates her to keep doing it. As she reflects, the fact of producing something in an artistic way – “it could be a choreography if you go to dance” – is a key point in the well-being that these classes provide compared to, for example, going to the gym.
Still not considering herself an expert, little by little she is learning new things, which includes her goal of having fun with painting. “I, who don’t know about art, when they teach me techniques, I see that the paintings have their mystery, their tricks… It’s a moment of enjoyment,” she reflects.
The frustration has not completely disappeared. However, Medina is able to avoid seeking perfection and speed, something that he attributes to the origin of his anxiety. In short: painting is helping her not to be so hard on herself.
