Page 88 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes

Category Flexibility
Illustration by quote and frequently used words
T7: “Someone that is mentally healthy is flexible: a person that is able and free to take in information through many means; body, mind and emotions, without blocks, obstacles and disconnections. Someone who is not mentally healthy is stuck in one way or not able to access or flexibly change between ways of processing.”
Tuning, interact, being able to switch
in response style adequate to a given situation, being able to adjust, resilient, integration of cognition and emotion, navigate, responsiveness to the situation, versatile
Absence of adaptability: rigid, stuck, blocked, fixed
T5: “Some sort of curiosity, openness, the ability to interact with the art material, to play with it, explore. Being open tells me something about the ability discover and learn.”
Taking diverse perspectives, trying something new, experimenting, openness, not seeing a mistake as a disaster, exploring, differ from the known and familiar, taking risk
T1: “When someone wants to change, that means he has to transform and move from A to B. That requires leaving what’s familiar, expanding your horizon, facing and exploring the unknown.”
Discovering, unconventional, combining things into something novel.
Description
Flexibility refers to
the client’s range of possibilities to react to given challenges, tasks, persons or situations. This requires the ability to switch between cognitive control and allowing and expressing emotions. Therapists related flexibility to resiliency.
Openness refers to an attitude that allows taking diverse and new perspectives. It involves curiosity, risk taking, not seeing mistakes as a disaster and daring to experiment in unfamiliar situations.
Creativity refers to the possibility to differ from the known and leave beaten paths in order to create something novel. Art therapists related creativity to problem- solving.
Openness
Creativity
The combination of self-management, flexibility, openness and creativity determined clients’ adaptability. Art therapists were less positive about the adaptability of clients who were observed as struggling with being flexible, open, self-managed and creative (see Table 4).
86 | Chapter 4