Co-leading for community building: A program description of a dual-modality creative arts therapy group in psychiatric emergency care

Abstract

This article describes a dual-modality group, created and co-led by an art therapist and a dance/movement therapist, designed to build a sense of community among patients in a child and adolescent comprehensive psychiatric emergency program (CPEP). This program description begins to address the dearth of literature published on the provision of therapy in psychiatric emergency care by describing the goals, methods, interventions, and observations of the therapists, including the benefits of integrating two creative arts modalities by co-leaders. The method of beginning with a dance/movement therapy segment, followed by an art therapy segment to build upon themes developed during the dance/movement, and concluding with verbal processing, was observed to provide an effective structure for building community and mitigating specific challenges of the CPEP: short stays (up to 72 h), ability of patients to feel safe amid constant group population changes, a large age range, diverse diagnoses, varied trauma experiences, and necessary emergency room care interruptions. A description of a Community Building group session is included to illustrate the practices and observations discussed in the article.