The Spider

This is an image created by a participant in a recent Creative Arts Online workshop.  She contacted me after the workshop to let me know how moving and important both the experience and image had been.

Sometimes, when working with art it can be helpful to offer a guided visualisation, or a suggested image. The aim is not to be directive of the client’s internal process, but to provide what Liesl Silverstone called ‘a hook’ for the subconscious and the right brain. This has the effect of providing a visual container image, bypassing the critical conscious mind to directly project emotional and subconscious material onto.

Working in this way can be incredibly powerful and lead to real insight.  The participant kindly gave me permission to share her image and her words here.

“The spider is a lonely creature. There is the obvious loneliness of being in lockdown on my own…but more than that there is the profound loneliness of the archetypal scapegoat of a dysfunctional family.

On reflection I have carried it all my life.

I’ve longed to connect – often choosing the wrong people. Leading to further feelings of loneliness. But although it hasn’t always been easy, I now have a wonderful connection with both my (adult) boys.

What is curious is that it is far away from my first impression of the ‘patient weaver’ and maker of things. `Patient I am not, but I am a maker of things.

Very powerful!!”

I hope this helps to convey the depth, insight and meaning that can come from working with art. This image was created in just ten minutes, and the insight came from the participant’s own reflections after the workshop. Powerful indeed!

 Ani de la Prida November 2020