Expressive Therapies Summit - Quick Collages

October 14, 2017

Quick Collages for Clients of All Ages: Piecing Together Possibilities

Josie Abbenante, LPAT, ATR-BC

The quick collages workshop was my second workshop of the weekend. Unlike the first workshop I had attended, this workshop was not day long. In this workshop, I had learned the benefits and use for quick collages. Due to it's effectiveness in such a short amount of time, I have decided to base my Independent Study Assessment video using core ideas from this workshop.

Quick collages are effective in therapy due to it's flexibility. Time wise, a client can use collage over an extended period of time or during a single therapy session. In the case of quick collages, the goal is to have the client create a collage piece in the matter of minutes. Supply wise, many different materials can be used to create a collage. Supplies can range from old magazine clippings to paint and markers to scrapbooking supplies. Providing the client with a variety of materials allows the client to find exactly what represents what they want to say.

Josie Abbenante provided a list of different types of collages that an art therapist may use with their client(s) in session:

1). Collage about family

2). Collage about emotions

3). Collage about identity

4). Collages about beliefs, hopes, and/or dreams

Quick collages are basically a type of projective testing. Projective testing is the evaluation of a person's response to ambiguous stimuli. The person's response to the stimuli is a projection of the unconscious which can reveal hidden emotions or internal feelings. The goal of quick collages is to be able to reach those hidden feelings through the images they construct together on the piece of paper. One of the benefits of collage is that it is much less intimidating than drawing or painting. Clients may not see themselves as artistically gifted, so the collage allows them to still make art, but without the thought that they must reach a standard and be extraordinarily artistic. Another benefit to collage is that it engages the client in reflection. Abbenante writes in her workshop handout that "[the patient] may come across something they never would have thought to look for but that perfectly expresses what they need to say." The collage material provides possibilities while the client actively builds on their thoughts and emotions in in the form of picking pictures and arranging them.

Overall, I thought this workshop was very interesting and fun. Josie Abbenante had us make different quick collages every couple of minutes and let us participants either build on a collage we had already made or start new ones. The time limits that she gave us forced me to create collages quickly and since I didn't have much time to think about the images I was choosing and how I pasted them onto a piece of paper, I was able to create a couple collages that represented what was in my unconscious. I definitely found out some things about myself through the collage and working with other participants in the room, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Quick Collages for Clients of All Ages: Piecing Together Possibilities workshop.