From The Archives

September/October 2013

As both an art therapist and a marriage and family therapist, I believe that vulnerability, doubt, fear, and uncertainty—feelings most people try to avoid—are essential to getting unstuck in life and engaging in creative problem solving. I try to guide clients to find new approaches to old problems by teaching them how to move beyond “artist’s block,” a state of being joylessly trapped in repetitive patterns and rigid expectations, and how to welcome the type of anxiety around the unknown that creativity invites.

I used this approach with Pam, a 30-something associate director of a nonprofit organization, who came to my art studio after hearing from a colleague about a training on creativity I’d facilitated. Frustrated by her previous inability to get out of her head in therapy, she was intrigued by my alternative, more experiential approach. On the phone, she told me she was seeking therapy because she felt her “inner taskmaster,” which had once helped her succeed in managing her career and three children under the age of 12, had begun to dominate her life. “There are endless lists that structure my every waking minute,” she said. “I feel like I’m being worked to death, and there’s no joy in it.” She went on to say that her anxiety and…