Novel Solutions to Student Problems: A Phenomenological Exploration of a Single Session Approach to Art Therapy With Creative Arts University Students.

Elizabeth Wilson

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.600214

Abstract

Within the Australian university context, research has uncovered increasing levels of psychological distress, in the form of stress, anxiety and depression. Higher rates of psychological distress have been reported in undergraduate students specifically enrolled in creative arts programs. Despite these increasing levels of psychological distress, university students are reluctant to engage with mental health and wellbeing supports. To explore ways to meet the mental health and wellbeing needs of creative arts university students, the Creative Arts and Music Therapy Research Unit at The University of Melbourne commenced a project exploring the benefits and pitfalls of a brief creative arts therapies approach for students attending a campus based wellbeing clinic. This exploratory research study formed the art therapy component of this much broader research endeavor. Creative arts students in this research study were invited to participate in a single session art therapy encounter that involved the visual exploration of the miracle question, asking students to visually depict “what the problem looks like and how it will look when the problem is resolved or you feel like you can cope with it better?” The descriptive findings of this exploratory research study revealed how the combination of art therapy used within a single session framework was able to afford students a novel means to externalize problems, leading students to forming a less internalized view of the self.

Highlights

Increasing Mental Health and Wellbeing Needs of University StudentsResearch mapping the counseling trends within Australian universities suggests growing numbers of students are presenting with psychological distress in the form of stress, anxiety and depression (Stallman, 2012; O’Keeffe, 2013; Baik et al, 2018)
The single session approach to therapy is being trialed in youth mental health contexts here in Australia, as a way to more efficiently meet the needs of young people, and to more adequately meet young peoples’ preferences for brief and more collaborative styles of mental health support (Perkins, 2006)
The creative arts research students described the session art therapy (SSAT) encounter experience as “novel.” Novelty is described in the literature on creative thinking as encompassing any idea, process or product deemed by a perceiver as offering a feeling of “departure from the familiar” (Gillam, 2018)

Summary

Introduction

Increasing Mental Health and Wellbeing Needs of University StudentsResearch mapping the counseling trends within Australian universities suggests growing numbers of students are presenting with psychological distress in the form of stress, anxiety and depression (Stallman, 2012; O’Keeffe, 2013; Baik et al, 2018). Mental health literature exploring the therapeutic preferences of young people suggests that first therapy encounters may not be the most appropriate time to undertake medical model intake and assessment protocols (Gulliver et al, 2010; Watsford and Rickwood, 2015). The use of such problem focused assessments may exacerbate young people’s existing negative views of the self, leading to feelings of having been negatively judged and subsequent disengagement from support (Sukhera et al, 2017). The single session approach to therapy is being trialed in youth mental health contexts here in Australia, as a way to more efficiently meet the needs of young people, and to more adequately meet young peoples’ preferences for brief and more collaborative styles of mental health support (Perkins, 2006)

Objectives

Methods

Results