Group art therapy as adjunct therapy for the treatment of schizophrenic patients in day hospital
Gordana Mandi Gaji
Clinic for Psychyatry, Military Medical Academy, Belgrade, Serbia; Faculty of Medicine of the Military Medical Academy, University of Defence, Belgrade, Serbia
Abstract:
It is frequent that schizophrenic patients show resistance toward standard care.
This is a clinical observation of group art therapy of two schizophrenic patients in Day Hospital.
Introduction:
Depend on the level of severe, Schizophrenia could affect patient’s cognition, emotions, perception and complete behaviors.
About 1% of total population develop schizophrenia in adolescence period.
Although pharmacotherapeutic treatments had been advanced, the flows of communication in these cases still reduce.
Art therapy lands a helpful insight into a patient’s inter thoughts, without threatened their environments.
Clinicians are focused on drawing the diagnostic tools to investigate the effectiveness in treatments.
The “Synallactic collective image technique” was developed for systematic understanding of group therapy process.
They modified the technique to adjust to heterogenic composition of the group, and to integrate therapy.
The observation was practiced on two schizophrenic patients in Day Hospital at the time of admission and discharge.
The patients gave their consent for the participation and the use of their drarings.
Case report:
First patient was 31-year-old female who graduated the School of Arts.
She was unemployed, single, and lived with her mother.
For ten years, she was treated for paranoid schizophrenia.
Social isolation, distrust of people, and paranoid delusion were the symptoms.
She described her first drawing as a depressive depicting flowers bending over the sides of a vase that is standing out in a pale and empty space.
As she was getting discharged, she drew a similar drawing, but instead, with a blooming flowers standing up straight with colorful vase and background.
Although she was fond of drawing, it was her career that she could not pursue in the past.
The patient showed signs of improvements in demonstrating her genuine potentials.
Second case was a 27-year-old male patient, single young man living with his primary family.
He was a second school graduate, had fled from the war-affected area, exposed to prolonged psychosocial stresses.
For nine years, he got treated with atypical antipsychotics and anxiolytics for schizophrenia simplex.
First week, he drew a house with evident signs of emptiness.
There were poor emotional experiences, difficulties with thinking and oral expression of poor meaningful contents.
The members in the groups were caring and giving him moral supports during the sessions.
He started to draw several houses. Then he added in windows wide open with stick figures of men looking through.
Before getting discharged, he drew many those figures out of the houses to express his ability to manage social isolations.
Discussion and conclusion:
Social isolations, feeling of helplessness, alienation are common symptoms in schizophrenia.
The results indicate that art therapy minimal improvement of general health conditions of the two patients of the Day Hospital.
In the first case, her improvement in the course was evident. A depressive color and items in the first painting show the sadness and loneliness she felt. The last drawing was filled with color; the figures in the drawing are more stable and more expressive.
Drawing is not requirement in art therapy, but the lines have the ability to make an impact on the patients to his/her own creative potential.
While earlier drawing indicated social and emotional withdrawal, the sessions encourage patients to regain their self-esteem.
Moving from psychotic topics to actual social context and reality, patients learn to communicate and strengthen their sense of belonging.
ART THERAPY (POETRY THERAPY) CAN REDUCE THE EFFECTS OF DEPRESSION
Nasrin Arian Parsa, Saba Harati
DOI: 10.7813/2075-4124.2013/5-4/B.22
University Science Malaysia
Abstract:
Depression is a problem that dramatically affects physical and emotional stages.
Art therapy is one of the non pharmacologic therapies that has taken affective in recent years. In this research, seven poetry treatments to reduce depression were given to non-clinical sample of girl students.
The finding showed that there was a positive affect that reduced depression after intervention when comparing to a control group.
Introduction:
In this modern world, depression is a noticeable illness that could cause nausea, disappointment, extreme fatigue and anxiety. 15-20% of adults show various signs and symptoms of severe depression. About 75% of patients who are admitted to psychotherapy institutions suffer from depression.
Treating patients with non-pharmacologic therapies are still popular and effective.
In recent decades, painting and music have been popular in treating patients with mental illness.
Art therapies using poetry and other forms of literature allow patients to expose to their inner voice definition. Speech therapy is a way to express feeling and emotions that had been suppressed in our consciousness.
Poetry therapy showed improvement in self-esteem, understanding one’s self better.
Method:
This is a Quasi-experimental research using pre and post-test to a control group.
They were divided into 4 blocks of girls, and they were questioned by DASS-21, as well with questions about their interest in literature and willingness to participate in poetry therapy group.
After announcing their willingness to participate, 29 patients were selected based on educational curriculum coordination and divided into two groups.
Seven sessions of poetry therapy were done while no observation was taken by the control group.
DASS-21 is a combination of 21 questions for scaling depression, anxiety and stress.
Beck Depression questionnaire includes long and short forms. Long form is used to evaluate and analyze to a four degree scale.
A two-hour session in form of poems were given weekly.
The sessions start with reciting the poem by volunteers, accompanied by other members if desired. They were encouraged to respond.
They were asked to write about any issues or topics that therapist would recommend.
Research finding:
The scores for depression both before and after the intervention were estimate. Since it is a small sample size, the non parametric tests were used for the data analysis.
Discussion and conclusion:
The finding confirmed that poetry therapy effectively could reduce symptoms of depression. There were signs of self-esteem increased, improvement in reducing depressive symptoms.
Imaginations, learning relaxation techniques, associate positive thinking would be able to help patients to break the default patterns in their mind.
Art therapy should be considered as treatment aspects that contributing in boosting self-esteem and self-exploration.