Project Proposal

I am interning in San Francisco, California. I am helping preschool-age children do art after I learn about art therapy. I want the work done at my internship site to include assisting young people express themselves because I believe this is an important skill.

My mentor is an art teacher at the preschool. This person can offer insight and experience dealing with the people I am working with. I can offer my mentor help with dealing with the kids.

My career goal is to gain understanding and experience working with kids and authority figures. It is a lot of responsibility to show up to work every day, on time, in an unfamiliar city, and this, along with communicating with my mentor, will help me with future jobs. My academic goal is to gain knowledge from the kids and the experience. I feel that this will widen my perspective and understanding of my own life and will be a tremendous learning experience.

The project that I wish to do is, as I stated previously, conduct art therapy with children. Ideally, I would like all the kids to work together and make a mural that could reside at the internship site. Another possible activity would be having the kids pick an emotion to try and express through art. These ideas could be combined by choosing an emotion that they would like to portray through the mural (example: cheerfulness) and think of things that make them cheerful to incorporate into the mural. It would brighten the area and give the kids something to be proud of, as well as lower their stress levels, relax them, and make them happier. I think that everybody should have a chance to express themselves through art, because I know how much it has helped me in the past, and I would like to extend this opportunity to the kids I will be working with. It is incredibly relevant to me because I have such a passion for art and painting, and it is relevant to the internship site because it will be directly improving the lives of those residing there!

Part of the mission statement of Phoebe Hearst Preschool, my internship site, is “To provide a progressive, child-centered, art-based program that promotes individual growth, self-awareness, and readiness for formal learning.” It is obvious how art therapy can help with this goal.

The skills, knowledge, and research that I will need to look into for this project is mostly gaining information about art therapy. I have been thinking that it is a possibility to meet with an art therapist in Durango before conducting the internship so that I can learn a bit about how it works.

However, I already have a basic understanding of the principles of art therapy. There are two main treatments that art therapists use: psychoanalytical and psychodynamic. Psychoanalytical and psychodynamic therapies are based on the patient’s unconscious thoughts or insights from their youth. The psychologist Freud invented the theory of psychoanalysis, which was the original psychodynamic theory. Psychodynamic theories are based on the idea that you need to get inside the head of your patient so you can understand them fully in order to treat them. Psychodynamic therapies are based on certain theories, and include the assumption that:

·         Our behavior and feelings are powerfully affected by unconscious motives.

·         Our behavior and feelings as adults (including psychological problems) are rooted in our childhood experiences.

·         All behavior has a cause (usually unconscious), even slips of the tongue. Therefore all behavior is determined.

·         Personality is made up of three parts (i.e. tripartite). The id, ego and super-ego. (I learned a bit about this freshman year in John Fisher’s class.)

·         Parts of the unconscious mind (the id and superego) are in constantly in conflict with the conscious part of the mind (the ego).

·         Personality is shaped as the drives are modified by different conflicts at different times in childhood. (anzata.org)

The basis of art therapy is a form of psychodynamic therapy that uses creative outlets including visual, drama and dance or movement to improve mental and emotional well-being. According to this, the murals and paintings that the kids do, especially when focused on certain emotions, will allow them to be more familiar with themselves and their behavior, and they will hopefully carry these skills through their entire lives.