Tapping into the Rhythm of Life with Guided Drawing®
With the upcoming Healing Trauma with Guided Drawing online training starting on 1 August, I would like to reemphasise one of the key features of this unique approach. Not only do clients draw bilaterally, and adults preferably with their eyes closed, but most important is the way how clients draw in rhythmic repetition. Clients set out using rhythmic repetition to explore their implicit felt sense. They aim to find an adequate expression for inner sensations. Shapes and images are not intentional or visualised; their creation does not require artistic skills. Rather they evolve out of a process of tracking the body’s various rhythms.[1]
Every cell in our body pulses in rhythmic repetition. Life is rhythm. Life flows in rhythmic patterns. At the core trauma can be defined as the disruption of these flowing patterns. Our ancient brainstem, which assures our survival, operates similar to a jellyfish in rhythmic contraction and expansion. It freezes, when disturbed, and propels itself forward in rhythmic pulsing, when it deems its environment safe.
Our nervous system learns this basic rhythmic regulation as a foetus in the mother’s womb. If the mother can regulate her sympathetic and parasympathetic arousal states, so does her baby. Bruce Perry has researched this extensively.[2] If the mother is dysregulated due to depression, fear, trauma or else, so will be her infant’s nervous system baseline, and it will be set as such for life.
During any given day – and in a Guided Drawing therapy session – we are able to experience many different rhythms. There are earthy, deeply grounding rhythms or the most delicate heartfelt flutter. We feel moved by emotions in a multitude of different ways; there is the fiery surge of anger or excitement, the soft reaching out for love, or the weight of grief. There are delicate vibrations with a transpersonal quality, which we may call spiritual experiences. There is the pulsing of pain, the bracing in fear, and the disrupted rhythms due to shock, accidents and trauma.
When we dance with a partner, joy and elation are generated through synchronising our rhythms with each other. When we make love, we have to find mutually satisfying rhythms together. When we get out of step with loved ones, we suffer from asynchronous rhythmic patterns, which we tend to identify as rejection, and feeling lonely, a state that is highly stressful for young children for instance, because they can only thrive through safe attachment styles. Our mammalian mid brain needs a sense of being part of the tribe.
I recently received an academic thesis on Guided Drawing stating that when a client draws the shape of a bowl as two separate half-moons, it will indicate trauma. The old paradigm of the therapist being the expert, assisting clients to interpret their artwork, is outdated and often simply wrong. Such visual thinking ignores the importance of the body focus we need to consider for a trauma-informed approach. It also reflects a common misunderstanding that Guided Drawing is about drawing shapes. We actually can determine very little based on what we see on a sheet of paper, but a lot on how it was drawn. How is the client’s posture? How is the client’s rhythm? How is the line quality?
Peter Levine has made us understand that trauma therapy does not necessarily require the story of what happened to be remembered.[3] He even speaks about the tyranny of memory, but emphasises that a successful approach will bring clients out of shutdown and frozen dissociation through re-membering their flow of life; through reconnecting with their life’s rhythm.
A major part of Guided Drawing is finding the right movement, one that resonates with the felt sense of a particular place in the body and, within that movement, the right rhythm. This is an ever-changing process. ‘Right’ is a highly individual, momentary state, that is confirmed only by body signals. The ability to express the right tension or the right relaxation, the right anger or the right joy has no other objective than one’s sense of inner alignment and the ensuing feeling of satisfaction.
Rhythms can be blocked, broken, and stuttering if a client lacks self-confidence, is in a situation of crisis, or when there is underlying trauma. Clients may have learnt to mask such broken rhythms either with strict self-control or with excessive business. When there is too much control the drawing rhythm can be uncomfortably slow and deliberate. Boredom and fatigue arise; in these instances I catch myself as a therapist finding it difficult to be present. Too much movement is being held back, because the natural flow in the body cannot be trusted. Others avoid sensory resonance by moving too fast. They can appear superficially dynamic, but their hyperactivity overruns their feelings, especially those uncomfortable internal sensations related to weakness, shame, incompetence, helplessness and powerlessness.
As a basic rule I watch the rhythm in Guided Drawing as a main indicator of authenticity. I may intervene until I gain the felt sense impression that clients’ motor impulses are in sync with their inner rhythms, because only then will their sensory feedback loop of body perceptions, associated feelings and memories come alive.
Such a focus on rhythmic repetition bypasses the ego, the control systems of the mind, and the associated belief systems; it also bypasses the trauma story. Instead it begins to build a flexible, embodied and implicitly reliable sense of identity. Rhythmic repetition in Guided Drawing teaches us to trust our own flow. The so-called massage movements are an empowering way to unblock bracing patterns and to reconnect with the flow of life. The simple rhythmic repetitions foster a sense of trust and inner truth which is far more profound than any brilliant cognitive insight.
The best approach is experimentation. By carefully trying out different rhythms and shapes, the senses become increasingly attuned to the implicit felt sense. Gradually the movements begin to create congruency between the internal felt sense and its rhythmic manifestations in drawings.
[1] (Elbrecht 2018)
[2] (B. Perry 2005) (Perry, Malchiodi and Perry 2020)
[3] (Levine 2010)
Bibliography
Elbrecht, Cornelia. 2018. Healing trauma with guided drawing; a sensorimotor art therapy approach to bilateral body mapping. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Levine, Peter. 2010. In an unspoken voice; how the body releases trauma and restores goodness. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
Perry, Bruce. 2005. "Applying principles of Neurodevelopment to clinical work with maltreated and traumatized children: The neurosequential model of therapeutics." In Working with traumatized youth in child welfare, by Webb, 27 - 53. New York: Guilford Press.
Perry, Bruce in, Cathy Malchiodi, and Bruce Perry. 2020. "Rhythm and Regulation; Innovative Approaches to Brain and Body During a Time of immobilization." www.besselvanderkolk.com. May 30. MP3.
AThR, SEP, ANZACATA, IEATA
Healing Trauma with Guided Drawing®
Seven weeks of training with Cornelia Elbrecht
Train in becoming a certified Guided Drawing® practitioner.
This highly acclaimed training has been tailored to a global, online audience, the 7-week accredited course features over 21 hours of professionally produced HD videos. Lessons include comprehensive theory modules illustrated with case histories, practitioner round-table discussions and filmed Guided Drawing therapy sessions. Cornelia Elbrecht is available to actively support you through the moderated student forum. The course has been designed as professional development for mental health practitioners.
