Sometimes questions are too big.  I’m talking about the kind of questions, the answers to which could change the course of lives, relationships, careers.  They are the ones that we all secret away because asking them just doesn’t seem to help.  No one really knows the answers.

They are also the kind of questions that underlie so many of the issues that accompany clients to therapy.  Sometimes clients know the questions; sometimes they only know their symptoms, pains and struggles.  I think getting to the questions is an important task in therapy.  When we learn the questions, we can know miles more about the struggles.

As a teen, I used to write these kinds of questions in my journals.  Those old pages are covered with adolescent searching and naïve attempts to answer.  I’m not sure that anything profound came from the answers, but I do know, having a safe place to pose those questions was vital.  I needed to utter them earnestly and allow them a place outside of my spinning head. 

Had I been more spiritual as a teen, I might have taken those pages, scrolled and tied, to a rock wall or youth group or an altar.  I might have burned them and used the ashes for ink.  But, I didn’t.  I just collected them within the pages of my journal. 

To offer a safe place in which these questions can be expressed and held is an essential therapeutic task.  Over the years, I’ve invented various methods of inviting clients to utter those words that swirl and cause feelings of being lost, worried, alone, vulnerable, rudderless.  Some have told me that finally doing something with these questions was a turning point in their therapeutic work.  At last, they could see the fuel for so many of their problems.  

In searching for an art activity that would encompass the asking/the holding/the safe place/the power, I thought about dolls.  When you hold a doll dear, it can embody all of these needs.  It can be that safe receptor for things bigger than you.  It can embody power, knowing, trust, being.  It can be cherished and treasured.  Just like an important question should be.

I began to use paper doll templates to help clients make Question Goddesses.  They are graceful and lovely.  They can be decorated in ways that fit the questions.  Or in ways that disguise the questions.

When I invite a client to articulate some of their biggest questions, I inevitably see a shift of focus.  They go from reporting and trying to understand symptoms to a broader view that seems to take in the whole topography.  There is silence and prismed thought.  And the questions that come out are heart wrenching, distilled versions of human suffering.

Why am I here?

What is my purpose?

What is safety?

What can fill my emptiness?

How will I know?

Once someone has acknowledged the question in session, and has gifted it to a special paper doll, there are often tears of relief.  For me, there is deep connection and a sense of shared humanness as these are questions that no therapist can concretely answer for their client.  They are questions about our experience as relational and self reflective beings.  And, I celebrate the search for the answers with each client who is brave enough to ask them.

You can make a Question Goddess easily and with few materials.

Here’s what you need:

• A paper doll template.  I got mine from  The Enchanted Gallery  All you need to do is print it out and enlarge it at Kinko’s.  I enlarged mine to fit on an 11x17 piece of copy paper.
• Heavy paper like 80lb. watercolor or Bristol
• Decorative paper or magazine pictures
• Glue (I used Yes! Glue—you can find it at Michael’s.  It’s good because it has a very low water content and does not cause your paper to pucker or wrinkle.)
• Scissors
• Ribbon, charms, glitter, stamps, etc. for optional decorations

1. Cut out the template and trace around it onto the stiff paper.  Cut out the stiff paper to make a backing for your doll.
2. Cut out decorative paper or magazine pictures to fit onto the doll form.
3. Before gluing the papers on, write the important question onto the stiff paper.  Spend some time thinking about the question, even talking about it.
4. Glue decorative paper onto the form—you can decorate both sides if you like.
5. Add embellishments
6. Place your Question Goddess in an important place where she will remind you of the importance of your question every time you see her.

 I would love to hear how your Question Goddess get made!  Please email me to let me know!

Unburden Your Heart, Sustain Your Soul:  Soothing Practice Burnout with a Day of Art  

This week I'm on my way to San Diego to present at the CAMFT 48th Annual Conference on May 6, 2012!! If you are going, I'd love for us to connect.  Just send me an email or stop by my workshop.

www.camft.org

Here's the catalog description:  This uniquely art-full session will immerse you in a creative experience of renewal and inspiration, where your creative process and the act of sharing it will form a transformational bridge taking you from emotional exhaustion to exhilaration.  

A Creative Clinic on Countertransference: Using Art to Unblock the Therapeutic Relationship 

Satisfies the 6 CEU’s of mandatory Legal and Ethical units.

New Fall Date!!  Sign up early, this workshop has been full every time I've offered it. 

This has become one of my most popular workshops! People are rating it high in satisfaction and transformation.This will be, by far, the most creative LE units you have ever received. Learn to use a quick and easily accessible method for identifying and resolving countertransference blocks in your therapeutic relationships. Access the gold mine of information that nonverbal images carry. Learn to translate your nonverbal expressions into problem solving ideas. Your images will invite you to look at your client and work from an alternate perspective where your blocks will seem transformed. I’ve thought about a way to combine Legal and Ethical CE’s and art for several years and here it is, finally!  

Dates: October 5, 2012 9am-4pm

Cost: $150.