Podcast Transcript

Episode 23: The Healing Power of Art Therapy in ED Recovery

[Bouncy theme music plays.]

Sam: Hey, I’m Sam!

Ashley: Hi, I’m Ashley and you’re listening to All Bodies. All Foods. presented by The Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders. We want to create a space for all bodies to come together authentically and purposefully to discuss various areas that impact us on a cultural and relational level.

Sam: We believe that all bodies and all foods are welcome, we would love for you to join us on this journey. Let’s learn together.

Sam: Hello and welcome back to another episode of All Bodies. All Foods. I’m Sam, I’m here with my co-host Ashley, and we have an awesome guest today! We have Kyle Congdon here, who is an art therapist at the residential level of care at Spring Lane. So, just to introduce you to Kyle, he is a board-certified art therapist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He’s working at the Spring Lane site, it’s a residentials site, and he is our Creative Arts Therapy Supervisor, where he engages patients in a variety of art therapy groups and experiences to aid patients in their recovery process. Kyle has been working directly in the field since 2016, with a background working in Autism Spectrum Disorders, developmental and behavioral care, inpatient psychiatric health care, neurological issues, and eating disorders. Welcome to the episode, Kyle!

Kyle: Thank you so much, Sam and Ashley. I’m happy to be here.

Sam: So, we— for our listeners out there, we just wanted to give an overview of what art therapy is, and I thought I could pull the definition from the American Art Therapy Association, because some of you out there might be wondering, “What exactly is art therapy?” So, art therapy is facilitated by a professional art therapist, and it effectively supports personal and relational treatment goals, as well as community concerns. Art therapy is used to improve cognitive and sensory motor functions, it fosters self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivates emotional resilience, promotes insight, enhances social skills, reduces and resolves conflicts and distress, and advances societal and ecological change. It really does quite a bit! Would you agree with that definition, Kyle?

Kyle: Oh, absolutely! I think they may have updated since I was in school, but I think that captures everything that art therapy does.

Sam: Yeah! So, tell me about yourself, if you would. What sort of drew you to art therapy specifically, the mental health field in general, eating disorders? And I know you also run the Sexuality and Gender Equality Support Group. So, could you tell us a little bit about how you got here?

Kyle: Yeah! I’ve had kind of an interesting road before I landed on this as my career path. So, all of my life, the arts have kind of bounced in and out of my life. I used to play the violin, I was an actor, did visual art throughout my life. But I always kind of felt like service had to be a part of my career in some way. So, it didn’t feel right for me to just go straight into the fine arts world. And I respect anyone that does, it takes a lot of courage. And I discovered art therapy when I was in my undergraduate degree. They offered some pre-art therapy courses with Mark and Michelle Dean who practiced in Philadelphia. And I just found the information just was so palatable and engaging, and I almost had like a spiritual connection to the way art was talked about. And I really enjoyed working within the mental health field, I’ve always been very analytical, I enjoy kind of diving deep into who people are. And so, it just kind of lined up that it was just like a perfect match for all my skill sets, all my interests. And then grad school came, very— it was very accessible to me, I enjoyed the experience. And then kind of, I worked in a variety of different fields, kind of by chance, and they’ve all kind of added to my repertoire in the field. I enjoy working with different types of populations. And then in terms of the SAGE group here, so when I started in 2020 here, there was a lot of instability at any site you worked at. So, I was kind of just taking any opportunities I could get here at Spring Lane. And they offered me to run the support group and I— talk therapy isn’t really my forte, but that kind of engaging in that group, which is a community I’m a part of, it made me feel like I was giving back in a way, and I felt like I could show up very transparently and honestly in a really helpful way. So, that’s been a real blessing to be a part of.

Sam: Hm, I love that. I love that we also at Renfrew, at Spring Lane, we try to create communities within the community. And I think that’s so important, and it’s just wonderful that you’ve been able to take that on. I’m very curious to hear more about art therapy. Ashley, I’m wondering, you know, what’s coming up for you?

Ashley: Yeah! I’m so curious, so, Spring Lane is a residential facility, which means that the patients that we work with that come there tend to have a pretty high or severe level of an eating disorder. There tend to be some medical issues. I’m just, I guess I’m curious, like, how do you work with clients that are experiencing that severity of an eating disorder, and what can art therapy give them? I’m super excited to hear about this, I was telling Kyle before we did this that I used to run an expressive group, but definitely I am not a certified art therapist, so I can’t wait to hear what you have to say to this, Kyle.

Kyle: Yeah! It’s been really interesting working here because I spent a lot of time in the art studio and sometimes I’m not always in the community, and when people come into the art studio, it’s like a transformation kind of happens, and they almost get put at the same level. Now, naturally, when people first get here, there’s a lot of defenses, like, “I don’t want to let go of this control I have, I don’t want to kind of just give in to it.” The peer relationships that happen here really encourage them to just express and kind of grow and accept, like, this bizarre situation that’s happening in front of them. In saying that though, there are, it does come with some challenges. So, if someone is severely into their eating disorder and is malnourished, they may not be able to take on cognitively some of the maybe deeper levels of art therapy. So, I often kind of have to scale my groups depending on who’s walking in the door. So, say I was doing a group around kind of exploring your emotional states, some people I might be able to say, like, “I want you to depict your emotional state as a landscape. What’s kind of growing around there, what’s going on in there?” Some people that might be a little bit too abstract. So, I might encourage, to kind of lower it down, it’s like, “What colors do you connect to your emotional state? See where that transports you.” So, you kind of have to kind of work with the different energies in the room in the hopes that it will all kind of come together. And I’ve really been lucky here because the amount of talent that just comes through the door, I was never expecting that. But just, like, there’s some really gifted people that I work with here and I love to kind of spark that in them, or reignite it in a way. And I think that’s how the arts can be healing and is kind of an escape out of their eating disorder.

Sam: Mhm.

Ashley: And one of the things that we do at Renfrew, that Renfrew does is, as a client, like, allows us to, we might use that work in a calendar that we create every year. And I have it hanging on my wall right here! And it’s so cool to see, like, maybe the different prompts that you’ve led with. And then to see their image and just kind of, like, what came out of that, you know. That’s really cool as a bystander to kind of see that.

Kyle: And I think adding to that, so, showing someone’s work at a scale like that can be really empowering, right? So, a person, they might leave art therapy and like, “This isn’t worthwhile, I’m not gonna save this.” But seeing it at that scale, it kind of, I see it every time I ask them, “Would you like to submit to the calendar? Would you like to show your work?” And they’re always kind of very humbled by it, and they’re very kind of happy to hear that they’re a part of it. So, it definitely has a healing component as well.

Ashley: Yeah.

Sam: Yeah, I think not only doing it, it’s also seeing the work of others, the artwork of others, helps normalize a lot of these experiences, I think that folks have. I’m just curious, you know, when we think about therapy, I mean, most people think about talk therapy. How is art therapy different? I mean, how does art therapy really help someone heal who’s struggling with food, their relationship with food, their relationship with their body? What’s different about it? You know, why should, why should they do it?

Kyle: Well, there’s a couple of things I could add to that. So, there’s kind of a scope of reference on how art therapists practice. Some art therapists like to go more of a clinical route, so, assessing, kind of integrating talk therapy into their work. And there’s kind of the way of practicing using art just as therapy, the idea of just making something that’s healing in its own merit. I think what makes art therapy unique in the mental health world is— that the idea of creating things, making things, reclaiming power is something that we forget that we’re allowed to do. And I think that’s what separates it from typical talk therapy. I think there’s some really gifted psychotherapists out there that can pull out some deep-seated information, but with art, you’re leaving with something, there’s a tangible representation of the session. I can literally see a client’s progression through their work. It works, in terms of treatment, I can assess the patient, I can help treatment teams with it. I can help a patient see themselves differently. And so there’s like, it’s almost like there’s a third party working in the room that helps the therapeutic processing a little bit.

Sam: Oh, wow! So, you can actually— when you sort of look at the artwork that someone has done maybe their first week in treatment compared to their last week, what are some of the things that you might notice that would indicate progress?

Kyle: Well, I can, like I said before, I can definitely see when a patient has become more nourished, their work becomes more elaborate, richer use of color, materials. I think the things that I look for are, is the patient exploring variety? Are they kind of pushing beyond just representational images? A lot of times people seek out control with the materials when they first come in, so a lot of, like, diagrammatic art or just kind of representing the same thing over and over again. I almost see, like, a narrative play out in their time here. And motivation is definitely part of it. I work with clients that they’re just, they’re just not into it, and I can’t push them further than they’re willing to go. But those patients that just, like, give it a go and see where the art takes them, like, I love to kind of spread out all their work in maybe a last session just to see like, “Do you notice all these changes that came up? Or all of these messages that came through in your artwork?” It’s really cool.

Ashley: That feels like that has got to be one of the most powerful things for anybody to experience, to have the collection of that artwork, and for them to see, who, you know, aren’t educated in the art therapy realm. But for them to see the changes and then for you to even reflect back the variety of materials they’re using now, like, the colors, the vibrancy, you know. That just sounds incredible. I want to do art therapy!

Sam: I know! It’s very, it’s very inspiring.

Ashley: Yeah!

Sam: I mean, I’m thinking to myself, you know, Kyle, if I were a patient and I were coming to you, maybe for, like, a one-on-one session, and let’s say, you know— I’m just sort of making this up— you know, let’s say I have a restrictive eating disorder, I have anxiety, and maybe I’m, like, one of those patients that, you know, thinks maybe I’m not good enough for, you know, to do art therapy, you know, “I was never an artist.” What is, you know, what would you have in mind for someone like that who would come in? Do you have, like, an intervention that you might try?

Kyle: Well, first off, I hear that literally once a day. So, like, so people, before I even say anything, like, “I’m not an artist, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to do this.” And then… it’s a lot of unlearning. I have to tell people, like, “This is an art class. I’m not here to traumatize you with grades or, like, tell you there’s one way of doing it. The main goal is to kind of find your inner spirit through art making, and it could be a variety of different ways.” I started doing a brief assessment before I meet with clients just so I have some framework, but sometimes I do just work in the moment with the client. And if I’m doing that, I like to kind of gauge their level of comfort, because I also acknowledge that I’m a male therapist working with the primarily, predominantly female population. So, I like to make sure they feel safe and comfortable in the room. I’ll often, like, build rapport by asking about their week and also their interests. I like to integrate the patient into the session, too. So, I like to personalize it to them. So, I’ve worked with, like— I like to integrate people’s, like, drawing interests. So, collage is a very good first step in terms of getting a person engaged because it’s so accessible. You don’t have to really worry about what the image looks like. So, that’s a really good starting point. So, if someone’s, like, particular about the way something looks, that’s kind of very rewarding because the image is already there. But I do like to challenge patients too, and I like to tell them that, “It’s OK, I’m here with them.” I even sometimes model being ridiculous, right? So, just showing that, like, art doesn’t have to be one way, doesn’t have to be like a photograph. And kind of in doing that, I give them permission to have fun, which I think is another big part of art therapy. Like, it can be enjoyable, therapy can be palatable.

Sam: Yeah.

Kyle:  But with that specific scenario that you’re talking about, it is a lot of kind of deescalating anxiety. So, I often rely on what’s called the Expressive Arts Continuum. And it’s kind of an interesting visual to kind of think about where a person’s at in the creative process. There’s a whole book about it that I definitely recommend checking out. But, like, if a person’s very kind of locked up, or feels like they can’t express their emotions, I’ll often rely on the materials. So, I often won’t hand them pencils, or erasers, or things that will bring out that controlled part of them. I’d be more inclined to at least just put out things like oil pastels, watercolors, these materials often induce a more emotive, intuitive state. Sometimes it’s too much for people and I’ll back up. And then some people, I think the main goal is just connecting to their bodies again. So, the idea of doing art that’s more about movement or sensation, that that could potentially lead into an image. But sometimes just doing something could be an art form. So, squeezing clay, ripping paper, splashing paint onto something. That has a real cathartic experience for people, and I like to compare it almost to, like, a performance piece, if you want to think of it that way. So, changing people’s perspectives on what art is, and giving permission to find their own channel within this art therapy space.

Sam: Oh, that’s fascinating. I love the idea of, like, not giving pencils, because it’s like a pencil and an eraser sends the message that, “There’s something that you might do that needs to be undone.”

Kyle: Exactly.

Sam: Yeah!

Kyle: What I’ll say to patients when they’re like, “Where are the erasers?” I’ll ask, “It’s interesting that you already think you’re going to have to erase something.”

Sam: Right!

Kyle: They come in with this idea, like, “I’m going to make mistakes and I need to be able to solve that.” And I, I honestly, I push them beyond that. It’s like, “Let’s just work with what’s in front of us.”

Sam: In a way, it’s— well, not in a way— it really is emotional exposure. It’s getting comfortable with mistakes, I mean, if that’s how you’re, you know, labeling them. Just getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and just letting yourself be without judgment, letting yourself create without judgment.

Kyle: Mhm. Exactly.

Sam: Yeah.

Ashley: Well, and for so many adults or even young adults that have kind of moved into that, like, thinking part of their brain, this is really asking them to go back deeper. It reminds me like, I started my career, Kyle, working with a lot of kids, and so we did a lot of just play therapy and a lot of child-led therapy, and half the time I wouldn’t know, you know, what we were gonna do because I let them kind of lead me. And when I started working with an older population and doing some expressive things with them too, it really was fascinating to see. There, sometimes there was that disconnect, I mean, it can be really challenging for somebody to kind of shift out of that, like, thinking part of their brain or that expectation part of their brain. And it can also still be so powerful for them.

Kyle: And I think it’s sometimes hard for people to see there’s value in those other parts of them too. So, I think I almost quietly have to show ways to kind of access that.

Ashley: Yeah.

Sam: Hm.

Ashley: So, is there a favorite group or a favorite activity, one that you like or that your clients have just, like, they want to show up for it constantly?

Kyle: Well, I mean, I’m so blessed that I get to do so many different groups. They have a different name for everyone of the 20 groups that stay here. But most of our adolescent patients, they really enjoy the open art space, they really crave those moments that are unstructured, social. In that time I get to almost do, like, mini individual sessions with them. So, I appreciate that time too. And I would say, surprisingly, my family based art therapy group is very popular.

Ashley: Okay.

Kyle: I think it’s because I create kind of a safe way of looking at family, that’s not so much like, “Let’s talk about your trauma.” It’s more about, like, “Everyone has a family and there’s no perfect family, let’s kind of look at this together,” and each week’s different and kind of exciting. I personally enjoy some of my more depth focused groups. I love getting deep with the patients. I love, like, sneaking up on them with it when I’m leading a group. It’s, like, loosely Jungian inspired. So, like, it’s called Identity and Symbolism, and I like to kind of pick a very kind of archetypal symbol, like a wave or even a tree, and kind of pull out, kind of, “What’s your projection onto that?” And kind of also let people know, we’re not just challenging the eating disorder, you’re rediscovering who you are as a person, and it’s so deep and rich.

Ashley: Yeah.

Kyle: And then a recent group I started doing, I started, they really wanted to do something around multicultural issues. So, when I was in school, we explored something called The Addressing Model. And it was a way for clinicians to explore their own dimensions of culture. So, each week it is a different letter within the acronym of “Addressing” for them to explore their relationship. So, the culture of age, the culture of religion, the culture of race, and how those layers interact with each other and how we each have a different story to bring to that. So, that’s been interesting for me.

Ashley: That sounds like a really cool— and you get to do it multiple weeks. So not just, like, one, you can build upon it. Oh, I love that.

Sam: Wow. I’m really interested in hearing more about the, like, how you work with a family in art therapy. Could you give an example of is something you might prompt a family to do?

Kyle: Well, the group I lead here, it’s more of the patients talking about their family, but I have experience working with family, my early part of my career. It’s interesting because the art sometimes can do a lot of the work for it, and a lot of it comes from assessments. So you could have a patient do a joint drawing together. So, “Let’s create a house together,” or “I want you to draw a family,” each one draws a family portrait, and you explore the differences between that. If you’re working with couples, you can explore, like, is there divisions, separations. And you could kind of help, you let them into it too, and you kind of address all of these things happening in the session, to kind of explore where they’re at. And it can often be really emotive, but the ultimate goal is to get them working together again. I remember one of my earlier internship experiences, I used to work um briefly at the Family Court of Philadelphia. It was court mandated art therapy.

Ashley: Wow!

Kyle: And so people that had lost custody, they come in and they’d work together for an hour. And it was, it was a lot of conflicting feelings I had doing it. But it was really, really beautiful to watch how, like, for that 50 minutes of their day, maybe of their lives, they got to share this moment together and they got to make something. And maybe that’s all that came of that relationship, but being a part of that was really beautiful.

Sam: Hm. So really even just the act of creating something together can have a healing impact.

Kyle: Absolutely.

Sam: Yeah.

Ashley: Well, I think it allows for, like, what you’re saying, having them both kind of creative, it allows for both perspectives to come together, which might be something that has been challenging in the family system in the past.

Sam: Kyle, I, you know, I’ve been to some educational sort of presentations about art therapy. As a psychologist, I have to do these continuing ED sort of credits, and art therapy has always been interesting to me. So, I’ve been to some before and it’s my understanding, and you talk about this, how symbolism sort of plays a big role in the process. And I was just wondering if you’d be able to give some examples of how symbolism shows up in art therapy, and how you work with a patient to maybe uncover some of that, because it seems like with art therapy, sometimes those emotions that maybe are really hard to put into words, or maybe those emotions that aren’t even fully conscious, might come out in therapy, kind of like the way they come out in dreams. And dreams can be very symbolic. So, I’m just curious, like, how would you work with someone who’s creating something and maybe you’re picking up on all this symbolism? It’s like, how do you sort of help the patient kind of realize that?

Kyle: That’s one of my favorite parts of working as an art therapist because I almost feel like an investigator at times. But I think— so, you have to tread lightly. So, every person has their own visual language, and just like our dreams have their own language based on who we are as people. And some things like more are more archetypal than others, they’ll just come up again and again. And what way I work with that in a group setting is, I’ll first kind of, I can ask the group, “Is anything kind of sticking out to you, is this reminding you of anything?” I actually like to bring in things from pop culture even. So like, “This is reminding me of this character in this movie or this book.” And I’m curious how they respond to that. You want to be careful as an art therapist of kind of killing an image by labeling it as something, because then that’s all anyone sees.

Ashley: Sure

Kyle: So, giving options and variety of seeing it, almost like looking at a cloud shifting in the sky. There are a lot of art therapists, and I think previously my career, I wanted to be one of them, they work very diagnostically. So, they’re constantly looking for these symbols that show up. One of the kind of setbacks in art therapy, it’s hard to research, and there’s not a lot of research done around the symbolism. So right now, it’s just kind of a lot of things that just show up again and again, that is more than just coincidence. And another thing that I like to assess and bring the patients aware of is how they work with the materials and what they’re drawn towards. And interestingly enough, I find again and again here, the type of eating disorder manifests in the way they use the materials and the things that show up in the imagery.

Sam: Really?!

Kyle: I would love to do research around it one day. It’s just kind of, figure out how I go about that.

Sam: What have you noticed?

Kyle: Well, I don’t wanna kind of label it because everyone expresses it differently. But what I do see a lot of times, Anorexia Nervosa kind of comes across only controlled materials. Pencil, a lot of erasure, taking up small amounts of space. It often overlaps with indicators of depression. I find patients that struggle with Bulimia Nervosa, there’s a lot of taking of the materials, like, gathering everything they can that they think they might use, kind of sometimes the canvas or the paper is oversaturated, and some dislike of what they create. I find that pattern come up a lot. And something more recently, some of our patients that we’re seeing recover out of ARFID, very particular about the materials. They use a lot of sensory aversion, there’s some overlap with autism spectrum. But just some things that just kind of stuck out, and there’s a lot of indicators for a variety of mental illnesses that can help me talk to the treatment team. So, often I’m reinforcing theories already out there within the team, or I’m kind of helping if someone’s feeling stuck working with the client. If it’s showing up again and again in the artwork, that’s the way the art can be helpful assessment-wise. And it can also help a patient feel a bit validated in their experience and knowing that, like, this happens a lot to people, and it comes up in other people’s work as well.

Sam: Wow. So, you, is it fair to say that sometimes you feel like you can look at art that someone has created, an image, and be able to even have a sense of what’s happening diagnostically. You know, you can say, “This looks like someone who likely has a restrictive eating disorder.” “This is someone who looks like they’re possibly depressed,” and then you can bring that back to the team and then they sort of say, “Yeah, that’s what we think too.”

Kyle: Yes. I mean, I try not to kind of overstep my bounds because there are limits to what you can assess in art. And like I said, every individual is different. But I can actually share a vignette. When I worked in psychiatric care, a woman came in struggling, or was perceived as struggling with neurological issues. And in the artwork, they made quite a lot of indicators of restriction. And I brought it to the team, I shared the artwork, and they found the patient was very malnourished. And once they kind of got them back on their feet, they kind of determined that an eating disorder was the primary diagnosis. So, it can really kind of have an effect, especially if you’re lost working with a client, with a lot of overlap. The subconscious has a way of coming out and I see it time and time again

Ashley: Can I piggyback on that, Kyle? Like, have you had the experience or seen it where— so that unconscious comes out, something comes out and it may be… the client maybe takes a step back like, “Whoa, that was really intense.” What— I guess, one, how would you handle or navigate that? And then also, you mentioned earlier, like, it’s a tangible thing, like, they can walk away with it? What if they don’t want to walk away with it? Like, yeah. Could you speak to any of that?

Kyle: Absolutely! I’m glad you brought it up because it’s definitely been a learning curve for me working here, because a lot of the people I treat have significant trauma.

Ashley: Yeah.

Kyle: And I think that is, that’s really what comes up when the art can go in a negative direction. I work with several patients where it’s hard for the imagery not to kind of evoke memories of a trauma, dissociation. I’ve had to kind of really work to deescalate clients. So, working backwards. So, the imagery immediately came up and I have to work back to kind of the body again. Feeling, like, squeezing clay again or just kind of helping them transition. You have to be really careful with the imagery, that’s why it’s a big issue um for non-art therapists to be cautious of how they’re working within this domain. But what I’ve found in working with these types of patients is trying to not be too direct, of course. So, using the art as a channel to talk through, almost like you’re watching a film or you’re… these are characters outside of yourself. I can think of multiple occasions where I could have just directly asked, like, “Is this related to this? Is this this what happened?” Even sometimes labeling something as looking like something can really cause someone to spiral. So, getting them to be more playful and gentle with the art. And even if it comes up in me to just want to just dive into the trauma work, or whatever is happening to the patient, I found it to be much more beneficial to just always return to the artworks. Like, “Where would you find yourself in this image? What are some other elements going on?” You even work with some reparative works, like, “What are some things that would make—I don’t know—this figure feel safer?” Or “What would it be like to contain damage?” I do a lot of containing work. So, with boxes, envelopes. Every patient I try to give a portfolio for, so they keep everything in the art room. The room itself can act as a container.

Ashley: Yeah.

Kyle: I think that is one of the biggest struggles I have working with eating disorders is helping the patients realize they have more power to contain than they realize, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be through their bodies.

Ashley: Gotcha.

Kyle: So, that that is one thing that I’m always keeping an eye out for because it, it can be a real struggle.

Sam: I’m just wondering, and I’m imagining that maybe there’s times where you offer to hold on to the artwork.

Ashley: Yeah.

Kyle: Really often.

Sam: Yeah. And it just reminds me, you know, in the definition that I read in the beginning of the episode about how… we can’t ever ignore the power of the relationship that you have with the client. It’s not just the art, it’s the relationship also.

Kyle: Yeah, I find working here, it definitely evokes a part of my personality that maybe doesn’t show up in other settings. So like, I appreciate that patients feel safe with me and I hope that each one I work with, that that’s evoked for them. I find my gentleness comes out, and almost like a fathering sense comes out, which is kind of novel to me. But yeah, I do hope that my personality and my type of therapy does offer something unique to the experience too.

Ashley: Yeah.

Sam: Yeah.

Ashley: So, kind of to piggyback on something that you alluded to a little bit earlier, you were talking about how you wanted to, you know, research the diagnostic material, I guess, when looking at the artwork. So, if somebody is there working on an emotional issue, obviously working on their eating disorder, but let’s say they’re working on some trauma or some depression as well. And they’re doing that in their individual therapy path and, of course, in their group therapy, how does the art therapy complement that work?

Kyle: Well, I think that it often mirrors whatever they’re doing, whether that’s relationally, whether it’s something they’re working on specifically in therapy. I’ll often, like, especially if I have a real, like, visceral response to a work of art or just a patient, I’ll reach out to their primary therapist or their team and share what I’m seeing. And more often than not, the things that I’m seeing are showing up in other situations. So, it lets me know what to challenge, what to work on with them. And it builds that collaborative effort. So, I’m not just operating in isolation, like, the work that we’re doing is definitely complimentary to all of the other things they’re doing. And I even kind of, I’ve developed certain groups that are scaled higher. So here at residential, we have something called “A Stage” where the patients are more ready for deeper exposures, deeper emotional work. So, those groups kind of help with that. Yeah. Does that answer your question?

Ashley: Yeah, yeah, yeah! For sure.

Sam: Yeah. It seems to me like, you know, whatever they’re working on in therapy, whether it’s building distress tolerance, or expressing emotions, or whatever it may be, figuring out their identity, it’s sort of like that work plays out in art. And you can give them certain, you can invite them to try certain things in art that help them practice, you know, tolerating that distress, or taking risks, or managing impulses. You know, I’m just sort of thinking like, you know, sitting with urges is a big part of the work in eating disorder recovery. You know, being able to manage when you feel that urge to act on, you know, act on your emotions, to be able to sit with that. And I’m curious, like, how might you work on that in an art therapy session?

Kyle: Well, sometimes just the act of just staying in the room is a lot for patients.

Sam: Yeah, yeah.

Kyle: I had worked with someone this week and they found the art room just, they said, “So chaotic. There’s just so much going on here. I don’t think I could sit here.” And then I chose to kind of model exactly what the group was about, and just kind of giving them the tools they need. Some patients need more structure than others, and I try to create that safe environment. I think that what’s difficult is working with the variety of needs in the room. So, like I said, I like to kind of pivot and I don’t like to go in with too much of a high expectation of what a group should look like. I like to leave room for adaptability and ultimately creativity, because I’m not here to say this is one way to be, but I’m also here to challenge them on what they think their art and what their ability is, because I kind of see the potential each time.

Ashley: If you had a client that just, I mean, just fell in love with this and, you know, maybe was leaving the program, but you could tell, like, really, really connected with this form of expression, with art therapy, would there be activities that you would encourage them to do? Would there be resources that you would point them in the direction of? How would we be able to leave you knowing that they wanted to continue this work?

Sam: That’s such a good question, Ashley. Because I can tell you, Kyle, there are so many patients who are like, “Art therapy was so powerful.”

Ashley: Yeah.

Kyle: Yeah. So, we’re lucky that we have a lot of art therapists working at our variety of sites. But what I like to offer is, each state should have a listing of their credentialed art therapists. You can go to the American Art Therapy Association website, or you can look up your state. You just want to look out for the correct credentials, because if you go on something like Psychology Today, everyone will say, like, “I’m practicing art therapy,” but they mean they don’t really have the background. So, you just watch out for that.

Sam: What are the credentials they should look for?

Kyle: So, every state is a little bit different. You want at least to look for the ATR following their master’s credential.

Sam: A-T-R. Okay, what does that stand for?

Kyle: Registered Art Therapist. So, that means that they’ve completed the required supervision and they’ve kind of been put into the system as a working art therapist.

Sam: Got it.

Kyle: Pennsylvania, and I’m not exactly clear which states specifically, we take an exam to get a board certification and that shows that— well, that exam can count towards licensure in states, you could charge insurance eventually, you can work independently. Some— New York works through the education department, I believe. So, you just wanna make sure you’re looking out for people that have those credentials, some people might be working towards them. That tells you that they have the background in it and, like, their degree is specifically in art therapy or expressive therapy.

Sam: That’s so important. But I think that’s true across all professions, too. It’s sort of like, you know, we tell our patients be careful of people who claim to be “nutritionists,” you know. It’s really important that they’re registered dieticians!

Ashley: Yeah.

Sam: So, yeah, thank you. That’s a really important piece of information. Kyle, I’m curious, what’s your favorite part about being an art therapist?

Kyle: Well, I think as a career, I mean, like I said, it definitely accesses all of all of the parts of myself that I appreciate, and like, it’s a way for me to give back. But to be honest, like, I’ve always wanted a career where I could leave at the end of the day knowing that I did something that made a difference. And in mental health, it’s so hard to tell, like, the impact you have, but like, I can’t tell you how many days I leave here and I know that the arts left an impact. And I know that they change in some ways and I can’t predict the ripple effect of that. I’m so grateful that, like, I’m not seeing people again and again, because I know there’s something else, hopefully, has happened to them. But, just kind of knowing that they were impacted in a positive way, that really kind of keeps me going, keeps me motivated on even those difficult days.

Sam: Hm. I love that.

Ashley: I love that so much. Thank you so much! Kyle, is there anything else you would love to share with us about art therapy or the work that you do as we close out the podcast?

Kyle: I guess I’ll just close with, like, if any of you are considering art therapy, know that for every art therapist, there’s a different way of practicing. So, each experience is gonna be very unique, every person has a different theoretical background they’re coming into. So, just go in with an open mind, and I encourage any of you interested just to try it, it could kind of evoke something very new in you. But I really appreciate being a part of this, this is a lot of fun.

Ashley: Yeah! Thank you so much for joining us. And I know that our listeners have been eager to hear and learn more about art therapy and creative ways that we work with clients anyway. So, thank you for everything that you’ve shared with us.

Kyle: My pleasure!

Sam: Thanks, Kyle!

Ashley: And thank you listeners for joining us for this episode of art therapy with Kyle Congdon. We hope you enjoyed this deep dive into art therapy, and if you did love the episode, you can subscribe, rate, and leave us a review. Also, feel free to share it with others. And if you want more information, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok at @RenfrewCenter. For free education, events, trainings, webinars, resources, and blogs, head over to our website at www.renfrewcenter.com. And if you have any questions or comments that you would like to talk with us about for future episodes, please be sure to email those to us at [email protected]. Thank you again!

Ashley: Thank you for listening with us today on All Bodies. All Foods. presented by The Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders.

Sam: We’re looking forward to you joining us next time as we continue these conversations.

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