The Touch Map In Our Hands

While clients are engaging with crayons, collage materials, paint and clay, their hands act as neurophysiological sensory organs (Linden 2015) (Grundwald, M. (Ed.) 2008) (Elbrecht, C.; 20013; 2021) As the hands reach out to touch an object, they also receive sensory feedback from this encounter. These object relations are not only informed by the present encounter, but also by past experiences. Virtually all traumatic events involve touch, such as unwanted, violent, painful, disgusting touch, or the absence of existentially needed touch due to neglect. Our skin boundary becomes invaded through inappropriate touching, through abuse, accidents and medical procedures.

Regulating the Nervous System with the Lemniscate

The Lemniscate, or horizontal Figure Eight, is one of the core intervention tools in Guided Drawing. It can be introduced by the therapist as a shape to stimulate nervous system regulation. In this case clients draw bilaterally on large sheets of paper; adults, if possible, with their eyes closed. They draw in a rhythmic rising and falling flow, moving from one circle into the next, crossing over the midline from one side to the other.

For most clients this is deeply harmonizing. The rising and falling motion is simultaneously settling and uplifting. The motor impulse can connect the left and right side of the body, as well as the left and right brain hemispheres and synchronize the flow between these opposites.

Children can experience safe flow with this shape. They can move in a structured way without getting overwhelmed if their nervous system tends to get easily disorganized. Some may trace this shape with a finger on a sheet of paper. Others maybe after the therapist has drawn this shape as a racing track, and they can now drive a toy car in the loops. Or they can ‘dance’ the shape with the assistance of gymnast’s sticks.

Embodiment through Rhythm

Life is rhythm. Every cell in our body pulses in rhythmic repetition. Our breath flows. Our heart beats. Our muscles expand and contract allowing us to move. Blocked rhythm might feel like a lump in the stomach, a stiff neck, or we register it as pain.

When we dance with a partner, joy and elation are generated through synchronizing our movements with each other. When we make love, we need to find mutually satisfying rhythms together. When we fall out of step with loved ones, we suffer from asynchronous patterns, which we tend to identify as rejection or loneliness. We thrive in an environment that offers safe resonance.

Rhythmic repetition is the key feature of Guided Drawing. Not only do clients draw bilaterally on large sheets of paper, and adults preferably with their eyes closed, but most important is the way how clients draw in rhythmic repetition. When we dance to music, our foot taps the rhythm until our body eases into the beat; in Guided Drawing we dance to our own inner music...

Body Mapping with Guided Drawing

When a client comes into an art therapy session, she will usually begin to tell me why she is seeking support. If she is a recurring client, we will discuss what noteworthy or conflicting events happened in the past week or months. However, before she will go into too many details, I will look out for verbal body references such as ‘this made my skin crawl’, it was ‘heart-breaking’ or ‘I felt sick in my stomach’.

There might be a significant posture such as folded arms, or a hand protecting a shoulder, or sitting slumped over. If this seems to relate to the events my client is talking about, I will ask her to draw these body sensations in rhythmic repetition with both hands, just how they feel: tense, broken, braced, holding on, jagged, painful or otherwise. My client does not have to understand these movements, but just to track them in her body. I encourage her to bilaterally express them in rhythmic repetition, until the movement on the paper feels like the movement in her body.

Crossing the Midline

Crossing the midline is an indicator of bilateral coordination, meaning the ability to use both sides of the body at the same time. The Neuro Sequential Model (NMT) (Perry, 2005) recommends repetitive activities that target both hemispheres of the brain. The bilateral stimulation allows for the left and right hemispheres of the brain to increase communication through the unifying brain structure of the Corpus Callosum. This allows the client to rely on both hemispheres of the brain equally. This action according to the NMT allows the brain to reorganise itself and to therefore continue to develop from where the interruption began...

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