Example one

A girl is referred into art therapy who has an anxiety disorder and attachment difficulties. Her mother and father both have mental health problems. The parents are separated but come back together for dyadic art therapy sessions, which they all attend together.

When her parents start to explore the reality of the problem, they almost seem to forget the girl is there, perhaps giving the therapist a glimpse of what happens at home.

The therapist asks about the parents own thoughts and feelings and the father reports that he recently got really angry with the girl when she was having a panic attack. He has never said anything like this before, but perhaps he is starting to trust the therapist and know that the therapist is not going to judge him.

The father becomes upset and starts to cry and says that he feels like a failure. The therapist reflects that perhaps when he feels he can’t succeed in something it makes him angry, that anger covers the feelings of failure and the father agrees with this.

The discussion turns to how the father had actually felt angry before he had even arrived at the child’s house, before he even saw his daughter. The therapist asks what had made him angry and he mentions the girl’s step-father who he describes as useless. This leads to a conversation about the step-father who has never previously been mentioned.

The girl begins to voice her feelings about the step-father which the therapist simply repeats. The mother says the child is right.

The child, who normally sits in sessions with her shoulders hunched and her hood up and sometimes even puts her hands over her ears, starts to come alive, her head seems to pop out of her body as she stretches up and her eyes are wide open looking at her mum and looking at her dad. She is smiling.

When the session finishes she puts her arms round her mum and really hugs her. The therapist reflects later that the focus had not been exclusively on the child. The therapist had also helped the parents to understand what was going on for them.

Also, the child may have felt validated, and realised that it wasn’t just about her and her anxiety, it was also about her parents and what they thought and felt.