“BLACK HAS ALSO SHADES”: ART AS A RITUAL FOR COPING WITH LOSS AND GRIEF – LIVING IN ISRAEL UNDER THREAT 2000-2002

Tamar Hazut
Abstract

This presentation pays tribute to the patients and therapists, the victims of hostilities in Israel, whom I have met over the last few years. The chapter discloses the power of expression and creation, while focusing on the role of black as a unique means of coping with painful loss and grief, and presents the story of a group I guided during 2000-2002, helping them to cope with traumatic experiences, using the techniques I have developed for therapeutic intervention through art. I have followed the group in its transition stages from an optimistic start to a dramatic crisis and from there to the mobilizing of strength and hope.

Living in Israel under threat and terror 2000-2002

An Israeli paper of January 2003 reported that until now, 732 Israelis have been killed in the Intifada and thousands injured or reduced to a state of shock. Many families experience loss and grief and it is claimed that many Israeli children suffer from P.T.S.P. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Life in Israel is characterized by a reality of continuous conflict between two ethnic communities. In particular, the last two years have been characterized by a dramatic increase in violence and terrorist activities against civilian population.

Demonstrations, riots and violent acts erupted among both the Israeli and Palestinian Arabs in mid-October 2000, in what is now known as the El-Akza Intifada. The relations and trust that have characterized the co-existence with the Arab population for the past 50 years were destroyed, due to the growing identification of the Israeli-Arab population with the suffering of the Palestinians.

Palestinian terror has reached unknown levels of killing and murdering of civilians, including women and children, mutilation and lynching. Terrorist organizations and the Palestinian Authority instigate the Palestinians to continue the violent acts and regard the suicide-bombers, including teenagers, as saints.

The Israeli population, living under continuous stress, is severely affected and new day-to-day routines have emerged, such as avoiding the use of buses, hanging out in entertainment centers, coffee shops, etc. Activities and events at the national and local level are regularly cancelled. The impact of living in a state of continuous worry and anxiety is constantly increasing. As a result, the economy has deteriorated and the increasing economic difficulties make living in Israel even harder.

Through the media, the public is constantly exposed to the traumatic cycle that confronts the viewers with intolerable sights of horror that add to the deep mental distress.

Art expression as a ritual in coping with loss and grief

The therapeutic structure of the process of expressing oneself and the use of materials has a special and unique meaning in the context of coping with loss and deprivation, in contrast with the structure that represents existence and life. The ritual plays a role in culture and worship, indicating a belonging to a framework, to the community, and to faith. The rules of the ritual have significant influences on the individual’s internal dynamics, some of its functions being designed to preserve and protect while others are designed to alter the individual’s emotional, mental and physiological state.

The process of the therapeutic-ritual encounter includes several stages, which concern both the patient and the therapist:

·  The first stage, which is the preparation stage, is intended for “warm-up” and for emotional and physical preparation. Preparing the raw materials, the tools and the therapeutic space to be used in the intervention involves a special ritual that also requires special skills.

·  The second stage includes the therapeutic encounter and is devoted to the patient’s significant search for the raw materials that suit his or her needs(1) (2).

·  The third stage refers to the creative process and to the place of ritualism in the physical-kinesthetic and technical connection taking place between the creator and his or her creation, which focuses on the transitions from states of physical and emotional remoteness and closeness.

·  The fourth stage is devoted, mostly, to further processing, through another creation or words. Its function is to allow a pathway for “confrontation and verification” between the patient and his or her creation.

·  The fifth and last stage is related to the summary and departure rituals. It repeats the theme of separation from the therapist, the room and the products, as a preparation for dealing with these existential issues in the patient’s life.

In situations of processing loss and trauma, rituals are of a special importance in art therapy intervention, promoting organization and control versus feelings of chaos, by allowing a sense of existence, repetition and continuity versus feelings of destruction and ruin. The therapeutic session, with its consistency and order, allows a sense of security and containment, versus insecurity and decomposition. Systematic structuring with materials expresses a process of creation and growth versus dealing with death and loss.

The uniqueness of creation in coping with loss

Creation allows symbolic representation and experiential reconstruction of events which are difficult to deal with. Playing with material and the projection of internal contents into creation may gradually develop a realistic balance (3). The activity, which includes conscious and unconscious states, allows control of anxiety and threat along with enabling the individual to get a “grip” on the concrete existence of the material and the exhibit, in contrast with the “separation and desertion anxiety” that characterizes loss situations (5). Case (3) stresses the importance of the transition from passive reaction, which characterizes depression, to an activity that takes place through creation, a transition that leads, mentally, to a sense of control over the experience (7).

The various materials can absorb and even provide feedback to the expression of varied feelings, from aggression to a desire to caress and to sublimation, in a non-judgmental and uncritical manner and without fear of destruction and ruin of the self and of others (5).

The “dialogue” created between the creator and his or her creation allows the trauma and loss to be processed again, leading to the discovery of different perspectives and alternatives to adjustment and to the solution of existential problems.

Looking fear “straight in the eye” reduces the threat of its existence; the intensity and the empowerment of the expression lead to the capacity of containment and control of the memory of the event. Dealing with the materials and touching them might compensate for the sense of lack of closeness and feeling, to some extent.

Levin (1992, in (7)) maintains that the role of therapy is not to reduce the suffering but to voice it and to find a way of expressing it. The mere expression produces a change in the permission of the pain and suffering extraversion.

Betensky (1) stresses that artistic expression fills and enriches the creator due to the occupation with materials and the creation of the “existing”, the “new”, out of the “non-existence”. This is perhaps the main reason for the patients’ relief, relaxation and inter- and intra-personal communication at the conscious and unconscious levels.

Black also has shades

Black is not considered a color, but plays an important role as a symbol whose meaning changes in the Western and Oriental cultures. Black has various symbolic meanings such as despair, sadness, melancholia, grief, etc., and also productivity, black earth, wisdom and dignity, etc.

V. Kandinsky (6) considered black to be the eternal silence with no future and hope. I have a special interest in inquiring into the different meanings and appearances of black within creation and expression, mostly among traumatized people, among sick and grieving patients.

The use of black is experienced as a need in the spontaneous creations of children adolescents and adults who are coping with sickness, loss and trauma. The professional literature has a description of the appearance of a black sun as a major representation of suffering and despair (2) (9) (8) (5).

In my therapeutic work, I was interested in two particular issues during the past few years: The first is the unique significance of black in creative expression and therapeutic intervention when dealing with response to trauma. An article on this subject, written by the author, has appeared in the I.C.E.T. journal (5), describing the case study of a bereaved mother whose son committed suicide during military service. The various uses of “black expression” in the creations of my patients have taught them and me about the “shades of black”. This broad symbolic perception allows them to render their rigid notions about the world and the meaning of life more flexible. I have learned to use this insight for therapy during crisis interventions with different populations.

The second issue concerns the particular methods I have developed, which are called Find Your Anchor and are designed for therapeutic intervention in cases of stress and trauma.

Recently, I have been led to combine these two themes in my work as a therapist and teacher. In this presentation, I would like to concentrate on the combination of these two themes and present case studies that I have led in the last year. These traumatized groups were coping with trauma caused by the dramatic increase in violence and terror activities against civilian population.

In recent years, I have mainly treated populations that were badly hurt against the background of loss, including families that have lost their loved once in terrorist attacks. At the moment, I serve as the head of the Art Therapy Studies department at Haifa University, and teach at the Oranim Teachers’ College. The groups I guide combine multicultural encounters between Jews, Arabs and Druze, religious and non-religious, people from villages, kibbutzim and cities. Coping with the difficult events in the state exposes these groups to a confrontation with social and personal conflicts.

The intense dynamics of creation and collaborative work allows the establishment of a “bridge for connection, even without words”, and recently the study groups too have become meaningful and have a supporting value for their participants.

Case study: The empowering art therapy process between loss and crisis – towards helpfulness

During 2001-2002 I guided a group of students at Oranim Teachers’ College that had experienced a complex process of transition from optimistic preliminary and introductory sessions to coping with a difficult trauma when the fiancé of M.(a group member), was killed in a bus explosion close to the college. The group consisted only of women, some of whom had experienced severe traumatic losses in the past. Part of the process, development and change was made possible because of the encounter between different representations of pink, which represented P., the eldest woman in the group who lost her fiancé more than twenty years ago but has managed to rebuild her life, and M., who used black to express her feelings. The encounter between black, as a representation of background, darkness and despair and colorfulness, representing life and optimism was the major axis in understanding the unique process of this group.

/ First stage: “Joining” – introducing myself through chosen color and form. Nonverbal meeting on a large black space.
/ Second stage: “Living under threat” – the rhythm of fear, anxiety and anger penetrate into the group space.
Third stage: “Crisis” – tragedy in the group: M. fiancé’s was killed in a bus explosion. Everyone is in shock, tearing black paper and rebuilding: grieving and crying. /
/ Stage four: “Roses” – many of the women decided to add roses to their work, meaning blood, passion and the drive to live and grow.
Stage 5 and 6: “Next week”. M. decides to join the class. She chose black and was invited to tape her black pieces on the large white space. The group supports her black pieces with colorful forms. /
/ Stage seven: “A safe place – find your anchor”. Using various materials and meaningful personal objects as an empowering resource that can enable encouragement, relief and strength.
Stage eight: “Pink glasses”. Pink as a symbol of hope and a change of rehabilitation. P. also lost her fiancé many years ago in the army. Now she is using her pink glasses to encourage and support the group and M. in the transition between black grief and despair to optimistic life and hopefulness. /
references

1.  Betensky, M. (1976). Phenomenology of self-expression in theory and practice. Confina Psychiatry (International Colloquium of Psychopathology of Expression), Jerusalem.

2.  Betensky, G. M. (1995). What Do You See? Phenomenology of Therapeutic Art Expression. London: Jessica Kingsley.

3.  Case, K. (1995). The search for meaning: Loss and transition in Art Therapy with children. In: Tessa, D. and Carolyn, B (Eds.), Art Therapy: New Developments – Theory and Practice. Haifa: Akh Publishing (Hebrew).

4.  Cooper, J.C. (1978). An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols. London: Thames and Hudson.

5.  Hazut, T. (2000). Black has also shades: Art as a ritual for coping with loss and grief, in therapy through arts. Journal of the Israeli Association of Creative and Expressive Arts, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 107-129 (Hebrew).

6.  Kandinsky, V. (1972). On the Spiritual in Art, and Especially in Painting. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute (Hebrew).

7.  Kaufman, A.B. (1996). Art in boxes: An exploration of meanings. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 23, No. 3, pp. 237-570.

8.  Pinchover, A. (1987). Black sun. Hed Hahinuch, Jan. 1987, pp. 10-12 (Hebrew).

9.  Skriptchnko, G., Azarian, A., Denharia, M.B., McDonald, L.D. (1996). Colors of disaster: The psychology of the “Black Sun”. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 23, No. 1, pp. 1-14.

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Tamar Hazut R.M.A.A.T , ISRAEL

Head of Art Therapy program Haifa University & Oranim College.

Head of Animal Assisted Therapy program Oranim College.

E-mail:

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