Example four

A boy from a very chaotic family was referred to art therapy. He was presented as a violent child who terrified his mum. The service were not managing to successfully engage his mum so the boy was brought to individual sessions by his social worker.

The therapist spent some time getting to know the boy during individual work and saw he was actually a child who was very vulnerable.

After a while, a joint session was successfully arranged for the boy and his mother who, perhaps a little surprisingly, came prepared to think about him and what was going on for him.

She was very encouraging and able to tolerate being rejected by him although he was very wary of her.

Together they made a clay scene of an underwater party which they covered in glitter. They worked very collaboratively together and as the session went on he began to seem less anxious about working with her.

Then, at one point, there was a bang in the distance and he jolted and it was obvious that he was frightened in some way. The therapist said to his mum that maybe the noise that he heard had made him feel frightened.

His mum was able to think about his emotions and at that point it seemed like the penny dropped and she was able to see him as a child who was very frightened rather than a child who was very aggressive.

She seemed to want to repair the relationship in some way and to think about him and because she was able to, their relationship really improved following the session.