Group Art Therapy Interventions

Mindfulness

Quick Links

Fantasia | Soothing Stones | Textured Mandalas | Zentangles

mindfulness art interventions. art therapy. group therapy. art therapist. group art therapy. mindfulness art therapy. art interventions. session planning. mindfulness. art therapy interventions. mindfulness art therapy.

Mindfulness art therapy is a beautiful blend of two powerful practices: mindfulness and art therapy. It’s about cultivating present-moment awareness through creative expression, offering a unique path to self-exploration and emotional well-being.

Here’s how it works:

Mindfulness: This aspect uses techniques like meditation, body scanning, and gentle movement to help you connect with your inner experience, noticing thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations without judgment.

Art Therapy: The creative process becomes a way for you to access and express inner landscapes that words may not reach. It can involve various mediums like painting, drawing, claywork, collage, or even movement and music.

The combination of these approaches allows you to:

Connect with your emotions: Bypass analytical thinking and tap into your emotional landscape using non-verbal expression.
Reduce stress and anxiety: The mindful focus on the present moment soothes the mind and helps manage worries and agitation.
Increase self-awareness: The art provides a mirror to your inner world, offering insights into your thoughts, feelings, and patterns.
Develop coping mechanisms: Mindfulness skills learned in MBAT can be applied to manage challenging emotions and situations in daily life.
Boost creativity and self-expression: Engaging in art can unlock your creative potential and offer a sense of freedom and joy.

Fantasia

Personal Rating (0 stars means not used yet)

Playlist

Materials

Large paper, folded in half

Drawing & painting supplies

Way to play music

Intro

Talking about…feeling the present moment

Then we…will practice that by drawing our feelings to the music

Ground rules… be respectful!

Name & prompt…if your feelings were a sound, what would they be?

Pre-Conversation

One of the core tenets of mindfulness is to let yourself feel your emotions and sit with them. Mindfulness encourages us to be in the moment, to focus on what we are feeling and experiencing right now.

Have any of you seen the movie? Fantasia? It's a movie from Disney that consists of a bunch of animated shorts made to instrumental music. Today we are going to be doing something quite similar to that!

Intervention

I am going to play four songs, and we are going to draw or paint how that song makes us feel or what it makes us think of as it is playing. I brought with me all sorts of art supplies, so feel free to use whatever you want. You will have two pieces of paper, folded in half. Each section will focus on one song. Ready?

*play music for four songs w/ breaks in between*

Post-Conversation

Would anyone like to share what they made?

How was the process of listening/creating?

Which song had the strongest feelings associated with it?

Was it difficult to stay in the moment for the entire time?

Why did you pick the materials that you did?

So, if your feelings were a sound, what would they be now at the end of the group?

Soothing Stones

Personal Rating (0 stars means not used yet)

Materials

Stones (alt. pre-made w/ clay)

Paint or Markers

Opt. Glitter, Glue, etc...

Intro

Today we will be decorating our own soothing stones.

Then we…will practice that by drawing our feelings to the music

Ground rules… be respectful!

Name & prompt…what is something you think your heart needs right now?

Pre-Conversation

I want to share a quote with you and get your thoughts… it goes: “The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it...” (Nicholas Sparks).

What is the first emotion that came up when you heard the quote? Do you think this is true? Why or why not?

Intervention

On to the art intervention…soothing stones are little objects, typically smooth stones that you can fiddle with to help calm down. It is a literal “grounding” technique. I can’t give you all the rocks in this setting, but I have pre-made soothing stones out of model magic for you all.

I want you to take into consideration our check-in question: “What is something your heart needs” and use that to guide how you decorate your soothing stone.

Post-Conversation

What design elements did you add to your soothing stone, and why?

Where do you play to keep your soothing stone when you're out in the world?

How can you give your heart what it needs?

What are your thoughts on what needs changing throughout the group?

Textured Mandalas

Personal Rating (0 stars means not used yet)

Materials

Paper/Mandala Templates

Puffy Paint

Glitter & Regular Glue

Pom-Poms

Yarn

Essential Oils

Other textured materials of choice

Drawing Materials

Intro

First we will… practice the 5 senses mindfulness technique through a short guided sensory meditation

Then we…will be making multi-sensory mandalas

Ground rules… be respectful!

Check in…Name & Prompt…favorite smell/taste/sight/feeling?

Pre-Conversation

I’m sure you all have heard “mindfulness” a hundred times, you may even be sick of that word by now. I’m not a huge fan either but it has been proven to be very beneficial to a lot of people. The evidence is there.

In short, mindfulness is about being aware of what's around you and what you're feeling without making a judgment about any of it. Awareness & Acceptance. So, how do we practice this? Well, today we will be practicing what I think is one of the most effective of the methods: the 5 senses method. As the name suggests it's all about focusing on what you are sensing…typically it has you focus on 5 things you see, 4 things you feel, 3 things you hear and 1 thing you can taste and/or smell.

Let's practice this. I am going to guide you through a guided imagery meditation where I want you to focus on the sensory descriptions, ok? For this one I want to take you guys to my home turf - the Pine Barrens! So, while I set up I want you all to get comfortable. Try to feel all the different sensations I describe. Ready?

Guided Visualization

*PLAY FOREST SOUNDS*

Breathe in. Exhale. Imagen the room around you fading away. Breathe in. Imagine that the air is crisp and fresh. Exhale. Let yourself relax.

Picture in your mind a sandy path through a lush, vibrant forest. As you walk you kick little white pebbles along. There are birds twittering and crickets chirping all around. A little critter rustles the scratchy tall grass on the side of the path. The pine trees and oak trees reach towards the sky on either side of you. You notice fan-shaped flakey collections of fungus growing on the hard bark of the trees.

The air still smells clean from the rain that happened earlier today. You keep walking until you come across a large lake. There is a trickle of a creek just out of sight. The surface of the lake is calm. There are bright yellow flowers peaking between soggy lily pads. There are three red-bellied turtles resting on a log in the middle of the lake. You dip your hand into the water, and see a small, dark fish dart away.

Pulling your hand out, you find a small clump of cold slimy water grass on your fingers. When you shake it off, the plants plop back into the water. You find a patch of plushy green moss and sit. Breath in. Take in the serene nature all around you. Exhale. Let yourself relax. Breath in. Allow yourself to return to this group. Exhale. Welcome back!

*STOP FOREST SOUNDS* I hope you enjoyed that little imaginary journey. I wanna ask…was there any particular sensation that stood out to you? Ones that you felt strongly compared to others?

Intervention

So for the rest of the group we are going to create the classic mandala but I want you to try to embed all five senses into it. We have *list items*, and we can put some essential oils into the pom poms to add some scent to it. We have *list scents*. You can make your own mandala or you can feel free to use these templates. They may not be dry by the end of session, so be sure to write your name on them so I can get back to you later today.

Post-Conversation

Which sensations did you focus on for your mandala? Why?

If you could make another one of these but with no material limits, what would you want to include? Why?

How do you think you can use the 5 senses method outside of this session?

Zentagles

Personal Rating (0 stars means not used yet)

Materials

Drawing paper cut into squares

Drawing materials (pencils & markers)

Intro

Talking about…alternatives to meditation.

Then we…will practice zentangles!

Ground rules… be respectful!

Name & prompt…on a scale from 0 to 10 how stressed do you feel right now?

Pre-Conversation

So, you’ve probably heard of and even practiced some meditation before in other groups here. Sitting quietly, focusing on your breath, clearing your mind. There are a lot of proven benefits to meditation such as…

Reduces stress by lowering cortisol, blood pressure, pain and by improving sleep

Improves self-awareness, self-understanding and mindfulness

Regularly practicing meditations can length the attention span and improve memory

While all these are good reasons to try, traditional meditation doesn't work for everyone (me included). Good news is that there are other techniques that we can try to get the same benefits.

For those who think best when they are moving, you can try yoga, Qi-Gong (which is like moving yoga), dancing and walking.

Journaling is another one we like to encourage in the hospital as well as it can be a great way to get thoughts and feelings out.

Even everyday things like showering, driving, listening to music, cleaning or even cloud watching can be meditative practices.

Today we are going to try our hand at a practice called zentangles! It is essentially like meditative doodling. I’ll guide you on how to do it…

Intervention

First, we get a square piece of paper

Add four dots to each corner of the page

Next, connect these dots to make a border with a light line. It can be straight or wavy, your choice.

Inside the border draw lines to make “string”. This should divide your square into sections. Again, it can be straight or wavy so long as it touches the border.

Now we add the “tangle”. It is just a sequence of simple shapes that make up a pattern. Feel free to rotate your square in any direction that is most comfortable for your hand as you draw. Keep going till your square is full.

Ok, now that it is filled we can add shading &/or color!

Post-Conversation

Does anyone want to share what they made?

How did it feel making the zentangle?

Why do you think that is?

How might you do it differently if you were to do it again?

What alternative meditation might you consider trying?

On a scale from 0 to 10 how stressed do you feel right now?

Group Art Therapy Interventions

Mindfulness

Fantasia

Playlist

Soothing Stones

Textured Mandalas

Zentagles

Psychoanalysis

Ready to collaborate?

Follow for More!