A frente e o verso da trama

Arts and crafts activities may be used as a modality of psychological treatment based on Jungian-oriented experiential groups.Ornaments and other materials used in arts and crafts are understood as malleable and inviting expression resources for one's immersion in a psychological environment of relaxation, playfulness, acceptance, peacefulness and sharing, which is extremely valid for imagination and creative transformation purposes.Participants' interaction with the expression resources, with the group, the institutional context and with their own reality, from a broader perspective, is understood as a symbol which provides indications on the group self.The establishment of an experiential therapeutic setting is more focused on the group's experience with the expressed symbols than on verbal interpretation and rationalization.The arts and crafts activities, developed in groups of people organized in a circle, will be hence permeated by each individual's complaints, experiences, conflicts or fantasies, which shall be respectfully and democratically authenticated as real and significant.In this study, these arts and crafts 'circles' were comprised of women who accompany physically disabled children and teenagers during their activities at a special education school located in a physical rehabilitation center.Given the specificities inherent to the context, their routines implied waiting for the youngsters during class time, which was often spent either idly or amidst interpersonal conflicts.In addition, because of the limitations to their children's neurological and psychomotor development, the overwhelming number of tasks and excessive therapeutic and pedagogical recommendations, many of these women experienced the inflation of the ego identification with the persona, as a caregiver.The arts and crafts 'circles' were suggested in order to broaden the interdisciplinary therapeutic focus, still influenced by the medical-scientific perspective, and actually proved to be a flexible proposal which is open to the identification of the needs of the treated individuals and to the wide array of symbols that naturally indicate therapeutic pathways.Weekly sessions were held during one hour and a half from March 2009 to March 2010; the content thereof was transcribed for the further preparation of narratives.The discussion of the results was aimed at providing for the interlocution with the scientific community, using Jungian authors and studies published in correlated fields of knowledge such as historiography, social sciences, participant, qualitative result methodology and rehabilitation practices.The processes experiences in arts and crafts 'circles' revealed that the respectful treatment given to preferences, choices, methods and time of action encourage the pursuit for greater autonomy and integration of potentialities and neglected skills, processes largely implemented both in Jungian clinical praxis and in physical rehabilitation

Art · Handicraft · Humanities · Persona · The arts · Visual arts · Cerebral Palsy and Movement Disorders · Family and Disability Support Research · Occupational Therapy Practice and Research · Psychology · Social Psychology

• Grupos vivenciais sob uma perspectiva junguiana

  Open Access•Laura Villares De Freitas•Psicologia USP•2005

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