Sometimes sitting there talking and listening to people just doesn’t seem to work. Maybe it’s because what we experienced, what we are trying to communicate, is having to be processed by the language areas of the brain ( just above your left ear, in case you ever wondered ).

Sometimes the things we want to describe, happened when we had a different level of language comprehension, sometimes we have become so used to an internal dialogue or a repeated description of what happened, that we just can’t seem to make progress. This is when it is great to be able to look at our issue through a different media.

One of the ways that people can make a breakthrough is via a collage. In a collage, a client may be asked to use magazines and materials to show what they experienced, or what they want even. It’s good for people like me who probably don’t have much artistic skill but if I look through enough images I can see those that relate or evoke some feeling relating to the subject of the collage.

I can give you an example of the sorts of things that people might do a collage on from my own treatment experience. I was given a collage title of my past present and future. I chose to put images of my life in active addiction on the left-hand side.

These were typically images of what I now see as rather shallow pursuits, glitz, glamour and a lot of fantasy ( ironically my addiction was anything but glamorous but these are the fantasies that I had  at the time ). I don’t remember the images that I had in the middle section, but they were trying to represent the pain of trying to face my addictions and, more difficulty, the painful feelings behind them.