Altered Calendar and Gratitude

I have a confession. You know how medical students sometimes go through a phase of hypochondria when they are learning about all the things they may die from someday? Okay, I don't know if that is true, but I have heard rumors. I think psychology types go through the same thing. We diagnose our friends and ourselves. Mental illness is everywhere. As for me, I would give myself ADHD and I am kinda in a constant mild state of mania; not like spending all my money or running naked through the streets mania, but trying new things and feeling giddy on the regular mania. It's a gift really. Hallelujah. Blessed be.

The ADHD tendencies on the other hand, can be troublesome. I would like to be more organized and less distracted, so I was excited to start a new project with my calendar this year. I am making an "altered calendar" and I also came up with a plan that I have been using on work and personal goals. First, I underline one thing (maybe more for work depending on deadlines, but I try to keep it as minimal as possible) that I must do. I make one priority in my schedule and do not allow myself to move on to what I would rather be doing. In my personal life, this has made me study everyday this week rather than do a hundred other things to avoid it. At work, it has made me turn in large reports on time or early. It's been a productive week and I feel good about my self-diagnosed ADHD management. I tell you this, in case you also struggle with time management and doing what you are supposed to be doing rather than everything else possible in the whole wide world.

I have two agendas that I use. One at home for my personal beeswax and one at work for my professional self. As for the one at home, I have spent the end of each day drawing over the day with something about the day, so it becomes a visual art journal at the end of the year. This also means I am forced to create everyday.

My Personal Agenda, Week One

I love fresh beginnings, so I spent some time thinking about structure I can add to my group when the kids got back from vacation. I decided that for the month of January, and maybe beyond, we will spend the first five-ish minutes writing or drawing in a gratitude journal. I have a lot of guys who hate everything, so the rule is they must think of one good thing at the beginning of group twice per week and document it in their journals. Afterward, they may voice all of their complaints, if they like. To decorate their journals, I brought stamps. The guys were all over that. They loved stamps so much, I think I will continue bringing them for each day. We don't always have a lot to work with, so these are just a few pieces of legal sized photocopier paper, folded in half with staples. It was so simple and the guys were very pleased to make them. I started one, because I feel with my kids, it's important to set an example, because they often feel they have rules and demands others don't have, so when I make them work, I work. When they have to play and I am around, I play as an equal participant. These are a success so far.

The Journal I Started Working on During A Group

A Photo from Today, Just Because

Group Intervention and Other News

Successful intervention of the week is Play Doh Charades. Once a week I try to give my guys a group that is just about self regulation and integrates some sensory work. Last week's sensory group was a success. I brought a small Tibetan Singing Bowl from home and had the guys start by listening to me ring it 3 times and pay attention to the point they noticed the sound vibration stop. This "mediation" technique was a success. The guys were mellow, but alert, which is my favorite of their states. They were very interested in the bowl, so I allowed them to pass it around and have each person ring it once. To my surprise, they were appropriate with my bowl and passing it to their peers. They had lots of questions about it and I was impressed by their attention and interest in the new object.

Next I passed out small containers of Play Doh and had written random nouns on index cards which they took one at a time. I asked them to shape the clay into what was written on the card and the other guys had to guess. No prizes were offered, but they loved it. The only problem was they got a little too happy. Some of my guys are easily dysregulated and potentially dangerous and at one point one of them screamed with excitement and brought staff running, thinking something was wrong. It was good to see them all taking turns, enjoying group and feeling happy though. I had them settle down with some ending yoga postures and they all left feeling positive and saying they liked group, which makes me feel good.

And last weekend I finished my table.

Paper Mosaic Table

I am between projects now. I want to mosaic my dresser next, but feel a little overwhelmed with the thought of it. I may just revive my etsy site and make a few monkeys for a while between furniture projects.

I have been dealing with one of the stresses of being a rookie, which is cash. My student loans have started coming in and therapists really don't get paid so well when the cost of being one is factored in. It's freaking me out. So I have been exploring money-making options. I have a few ideas in mind to supplement my income, but I have one thing I can check off my list: I will be teaching yoga again. So far I have been offered one night a week, but my schedule may be rounding out over the next couple weeks as I am going into a large gym chain desperate for teachers and different locations are currently working on their spring schedules.

Lastly, my girlfriend and I have started a new blog about all of our adventures with some very cool stuff planned for this summer. If there is no chance you are a client past or present and would like to see it, email me or comment and I will send you a link.

Sometimes I am a Music Therapist

Things I hate about my job: Catching every weird illness kids get, my loans are bigger than my paycheck and doing groups.

Things I love about my job: I love those kids individually and I love that I get to work with them individually and see amazing things happen sometimes.

I find that on this job I am not exclusively an art therapist. I am a whatever-works therapist. Sometimes play, movement, music or just talk. I know art best, but I follow the lead of whomever I am working with. The most recent dramatic success has been in music and it was the simplest, most natural, easy thing that led to a great opening of one of my guys.

Photo from another career.

One guy got a keyboard as a gift, so for a couple of sessions, I taught him how to read music. Nothing miraculous, just middle C and the surrounding keys so he could play basic songs. He started making up his own rhythms, just playing around, and we would talk about what kind of emotion the sounds portrayed or movie scenes we could imagine played out to his sound effects. Then one day I asked him to sing along and give words to his sounds. Suddenly, a kid that has kept it superficial for months cracked wide open and told me about his life, his hopes, his emotions and he loved doing it. It could be the saddest thing that ever happened to him or something horrible he regretted doing, and he was so proud to put it to music. It made talking easy. It immediately carried over into other aspects of his treatment: he became more engaged, more motivated, more positive, more focused and he started having conversations with his family that required a lot of courage. It was seriously amazing. Sometimes I don't know where individual sessions are going, but just going with the flow has been showing some good results and makes this job worth doing.

And my table is coming along...

INTENSE!

This week I had one of those days. You know, the kind where one wonders what the hell one was thinking when choosing a career path. I consider myself pretty tough, but an event in group shook me up pretty badly on Monday. Hello Rookie, this is your wake up call -- you're not as hardcore as you think and (bubble burst) your job is actually a little dangerous.

Often when my guys are less than perfect in group, I feel partially responsible. I think if only I could find the right directive, the right level of energy, the right pace, they would be too interested in group to act up and just maybe they would learn something. So, today I came with a racing heart, shortness of breath, sense of terror, props to engage them and a bag of prizes to bribe them. I hoped for the best, but had a big male staff, an intern and new respect for the paging system to back me up in preparation for the worst.

I started with the warning of prizes: participation, respect and safety would result in a prize at the end of group. The guys know my basket of prizes. Hot Wheels and notebooks are big motivators for short term good behavior. I don't use bribery often, but you know what they say about desperate times. Then I showed the guys a modified version of an old mindfulness group. They named off the five senses and I had a prop and activity for every one.

Touch - One object for each kid (stress balls, Play Doh, beads, Slinky, for example) and asked them to spend a few seconds with each one and share what they notice. They passed all the objects around so everyone had a turn with each object and could name their favorite.
Taste - One Swedish Fish (Thank you Mallory). They were asked to become connoisseurs and smell, feel, describe before eating in one minute or more. Then say something about the taste.
Smell - A small drop of lotion on their hands. What does it smell like? Does it remind them of anything?
Sound - I had them draw abstractly to music and then discuss what they noticed in the sound.
Sight - They held up images and had to say what they noticed about their own and what they noticed about each others.

Every kid was fantastic in group today. I don't know if it was the prizes or the engagement of their senses, but today was better. Something worked and they noted improvement to their moods and learned a little about using their bodies to pay attention and be connected to themselves and their environments.

In personal art news, my art life has been very slacky and that makes me feel a little brain dead, disconnected from myself and like a craptastic art therapist. Life is busy! But, I have been working on the long term project of paper mosaicing my bedroom furniture. This is great for someone with small moments for art making, because I have slivers of paper and everyday I sit down and glue a few onto my nightstand. It makes me happy. My mind wanders to combining this with sewn papers... quilted furniture... hmmmm....

The top of my nightstand, in progress.

Rapping with Teens

This past week was rather casual around my workplace, because my guys were on "vacation." Since I work for a residential treatment program, that means they were at the residence, rather than the school where I have an office. Although I went to the residence as usual during the week, I gave my guys the freedom to meet with me or not, work on something or not and since there was no school, we didn't have any groups. 

When I arrived one day, one of my guys had created a positive rap about himself and the program to share with me. Since we have started working on a video for groups, I gave my guys the option of filming something during their vacation and I encouraged this boy to use his rap as his video to share with the group. The guys I work with have "developmental delays."  This translates into several difficulties, including being a few years behind grade level. Reading and writing is often a big struggle for many of my guys. Writing a rap is an advanced skill with my kids; reading, memorizing, presenting it could be even more tricky. So, here's what we did: we went over each line and I had him practice and repeat, choose an appropriate space, camera angle and movement and we filmed it one line at a time, so he sounded his best with each line. I think we created something he can be proud of. Plus, it is a positive reminder to stay on track in his own words.

Coincidentally, one of my other guys wanted to write a rap with me. He rapped and I wrote. He was so proud of his work and showed all of the staff his rap collection. I photocopied his work and I am thinking about helping him make something with his rap hits like a book or c.d. Any creative ideas for translating written word to another art form?

As for my own goals and self-care. My book of the week is Art and Yoga by Hari Kirin Kaur Khalsa and I have been doing a simple DVD practice at home from Deepak Chopra's The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga along with listening to the lecture. Both are highly recommended. Here is some fast art in response to my practice.

Chakras, watercolor

 

Silence, watercolor

Making Swirly Polymer Beads

This post is not about gender, but it has to be mentioned as something that has surprised me working with adolescent boys. My general approach to working with individuals is to begin with their interests and let the art therapy kinda organically just happen. Unless someone is stuck, I don't suggest or provide directives outside of group work. Interestingly it appears with my guys, creative interests know no gender. Regardless how they identify, no matter how "male" they might appear, they want to try things like knitting and for now beading has been all the rage. I never would have suggested knitting or jewelry making nor did I provide supplies that suggested such pursuits until the guys starting making requests. This week, I have been challenged with figuring out how to do this...

Image stolen from http://polymerartarchive.com/

I'm not there yet, so in the meantime, this is what I made this week, which came from working with the guys. This turned out to be a successful intervention I think.

THE POLYMER BEAD

Swirly Bead

This is a pretty simple technique for bead making. The bare minimum you need is 2 or more polymer colors and something like a toothpick or needle for poking a hole. However, this is some of my clay stuff that I can use for bead making.

pasta machine, bead roller, baking rack and baby oil if clay is old and dry

First, roll some clay around in your hands or through the machine to get it nice and soft. Smash two or more layers together for multicolored beads.

You can twist this around and smash it up a little more. I squished a bead at a time so I got swirls rather than risk over-working it and getting a whole new color.

If you want evenly sized and uniform beads, a bead roller is a good idea (you could shape by hand also if you prefer).

Measuring clay (about the size of a pencil eraser)

Place clay in roller and glide back and forth.

Here's where some of the therapy metaphor may come in: rolling is fun, but if you don't want to stop, the clay crumbles and the bead cracks in half. Granted, it's clay so that's easy to fix, but I have enjoyed watching kids figure this out, especially kids who have trouble with moving from one activity to the next and knowing when to stop. 

Poke a hole through the center.

Bake as suggested.

If you want, you can also paint on a little glossy varnish to make them shiny like so...

Currently, I have one kid working on bead manufacturing and a couple who are into stringing. The manufacturing develops fine motor skills, knowing when to stop and has been building interaction because we are working as a team. The stringers are learning how to slow down and practice mindfulness. Also, these repetitive acts seems to relax the guys so they can open up and we can talk about some of the tougher stuff they're dealing with.

Adolescent Group: Failure and Success of the Week

The way groups at my new place of employment work are like this: we have a curriculum that lasts two weeks which covers a single concept. We have groups completely written out for us, but nobody uses them, because we are allowed to wander away from recommendations as long as the kids somehow know how to define the concept at the end of two weeks. At first, I thought two weeks (four groups) for each kid was way too much time to cover a single idea, but I am seeing that my guys do better with repetition, so I am learning to slow down with them.

This past week we started "red flag warning signs." The goal is that the guys will know internal versus external warning signs that precede acting out behavior. I wrote up activities to cover the topic, such as artistic representation of internal warming signs, making comic books of external warning signs, dramatic reenactment and a new version of red light green light. We started with a discussion and artistic representation of internal warning signs... epic failure. I don't know if this is true, but whenever we touch on bodily sensations, my guys claim to have none and give me the blank stare. This could be teens being teens or an honest part of the problem. Bottom line, this was a NO GO. The red light green light was a success with my older guys and okay with the younger group. We took turns naming an internal or external warning sign or neutral experience, not moving if it's a warning or trigger and taking a step forward if it's no problem. Example: "I ride my bike"... everyone who is not triggered by bike-riding steps forward. "Staff yells at me"... nobody moves.

I realized when the guys used my first artistic representation to do something else, look confused and/or refuse all together that I needed to go back and re-plan the rest of my red flag groups. I remembered rule number one about working with teens and realized the problem may have been that I broke it: never ask a teen about himself, especially in a group. Ask about someone else and they'll tell you all you need to know. So, for our next group, we made red flags, gluing red triangles onto sticks and decorating however kids liked (and some of them decorated with actual internal/external triggers, so they did get something from the first group). Then we watched the beginning of Hulk (and will continue to watch for the next week) and held up flags when guys noticed Hulk getting triggered.

I've used The Hulk in therapy before, but this movie is especially great for red flag warnings because he wears a pulse monitor and uses relaxation techniques when he notices his pulse increasing, so the guys can notice internal and external signs in someone else. Most of my guys loved this and did a stellar job noticing and explaining Hulk's warning signs. Also, we talked about why the Hulk doesn't want to lose control (people can get hurt) and there is a great line from Hulk's coach while he is teaching him pranayama, "When we control our body, we control our mind." I think this movie could lead the guys into being more open to learning relaxation techniques beyond deep breathing. Yoga was first developed as a sitting practice for men meant to help one develop super powers and immortality. The guys have a modified yoga practice, but I think if they see Hulk sorta doing it and learn about the history, they might buy into it a little more.

Kirigami

Another great week down. I started running groups on my own, did some individual work and wrote my first reports. My days of making up things to do at work are over, which in some ways is too bad, because I occasionally come up with good ideas during moments of invented busywork.

Among my personal missions is the task of decorating my office space. This has been a work in progress for the past week, because as the only art therapist on the premises, a girl has to represent (within guidelines). Although my clients will not spend much time hanging out in my office (I also have my own group room), it needs to have the aura of artsy adolescence to inspire creativity as well as a sense of someone who just might be fun, playful and cool enough to talk to. And, above all else, it has to be cheap, because those student loans (aka the other mortgage) are starting to roll in. Therefore, I am making everything that goes in there. I painted my bulletin board. I made a zentangle quilt for the top of my filing cabinet and I am slowly adding handmade toys to a shelf on my wall.

The experiment of this weekend is kirigami. Like origami, kirigami is folded paper, however, rather than starting with a square, kirigami is cut. The work of this weekend is also in response to a particular student and his power animal.

For more information and kirigami animal patterns like this one, see Kirigami Menagerie by Hiroshi Hayakawa.

Building Relationship

A couple of recent monkeys building their relationship

Wow! It's practically been a month and I am only now just beginning to have somewhat a sense of routine. With that being said, it is my renewed intent to post each weekend, now that I have a mild grasp on my life and career.

For now, this is what it has been like to be a brandy-newbie art therapist... I still have done very little "theraping," which is probably a good thing for any new staff member. Instead, I have been following people around, going to the 942 different types of meetings, reading my caseload files and beginning to write a report on one of my guys based on past reports and interview with his interim therapist. As of Monday, I am the official real deal therapist: I am running my groups, doing individual sessions and that report is due for me to present (!). In my mind, the best way to take advantage of this semi-down time was to plan future groups, read up on the population and theories of working with them and try to help my guys feel more comfortable with me.

The great thing about this week was the students were on vacation from school and therapy, but the rest of the staff was not, which meant it was expected I go to their residence a few hours this week and just hang out. How perfect to just talk to and play games with clients with no underlying goals! And, perfect timing for me! I played catch, brought bocce and a guitar to teach a couple new chords to a kid who likes to play.

The week before their vacation I took the initiative to hold an impromptu group with my guys and ask them what they have done in therapy, what they have liked and what they don't like, so I could organize my plans around keeping them engaged. I also explained to them what art therapy is, asked if they had any questions of me and concerns or hopes for future therapy. I left them with a folder of things to do over their week off during down time. The folder had copies of coloring pages, drawing instructions and paper model cars. It was a big hit! It probably had no less than 50 pages in it and I had to refill it midweek. When I walk in the house now, some of the kids and staff are often busy making something from the folder and my fellow clinician/office mate copied it for her house too, which is pretty good for my self esteem.

So, if you need to invest in something adolescent boys like, these are my recommendations based on their favorites in the folder I made: Paper Cars by Sam Atwal, Gargoyles and Medieval Monsters Coloring Book by A.G. Smith, Hidden Fur by Adam Turner. They also love directions for drawing cartoons etc. and I am still on the lookout for the best drawing resource for them. I noted staff using pages from the Mystical Mandala Coloring Book by Alberta Hutchinson. I love, love, love that staff is using stuff too, because they have a lot of burnout and need their coping tools, it is great modeling for the boys and it sorta helps me feel like I'm creating a relationship with staff, which is really important.

Paper Car

Also, as the first and only art therapist at my facility, requesting supplies was accomplished from my to-do list as well. However, the red tape for a new budget is a process. Luckily, it is back to school time and Target has cheap supplies for pennies. Yesterday I spent $28 on a ton of stuff that will hopefully get me through a month or two.

Here's my new group therapy kit (and there's more!)

Not the quality I would like, but it will do. I don't know if I will get reimbursed, because I kinda went off my own and did this when I noticed the sales, but $28 is a small price to pay for comfort in doing my job.

The Morning of the First Day!!!

It is the morning before I start my real job and I have over an hour before I leave (45 minutes earlier than I need to) so I thought this would be a good time to get out my last thoughts as a non-working art therapist.

I had a dream this morning that I haven't quite figured out yet, but it's definitely related. I was doing therapy for the first time with a thin dark-haired adolescent boy. He was pretty resistant, either said nothing or that everything was great, like I think it typically goes with adolescents who don't trust their therapists yet. Because it was a dream, part of my job was to walk him home, and of course, he lived in the neighborhood where I also grew up. In fact, he lived at the end of my street. So, we're out of the therapeutic space and we're walking and he tells me he has something he needs to talk about right when we're almost to his house. I know I am supposed to have good boundaries and only see him for an hour, but I ask him if he wants some extra time to talk about it. I'm flattered that this kid seems about to open up, curious about what he has to say and concerned that if I let the moment pass he will clam up again the net time I see him. I ask him if he wants to take some time to talk right then, but he says, "No, next time." He gives me a flower that looks like this one that I just stole from the internet...

and he says "I lied about one of these things." When I take the flower, it has words written on the inside of the petals. I recognize it as something he made with his last therapist (who I know was male, I don't know why that would be relevant, but I'm adding it anyway). Each petal has a single word written in black and the kid pulls out the petal that says, "happy," before he goes back into his home. I know this kid is telling me he isn't the everything-is-great-show he has been putting on and I feel sad for him. I go back to some other old artwork the last therapist left. It is a drawing of his life in black and red marker, but everything is positive sounding and generic. I still don't know him.

This leaves me a few minutes to state my hopes and fears about my new job. My hope is that I love my new patients/clients/residents/kids (I don't know what to call them yet) and am excited about everyday I get to spend with them. I hope I am always motivated to help them and willing to do my homework to learn everything I can to help them come to terms with their lives. I hope the people I work with are friendly and supportive. I hope they're willing to be open to the first art therapist on staff at this facility and offer guidance without squishing me so early in the game. I fear politics and getting used, because I'm eager. Most of all, I'm afraid I won't like my patients/clients/residents/kids and will dread driving into work everyday.


In the meantime, check out what I made this weekend! Not only do these monkeys have faces (painted... a new sock monkey technique for me), but they also have lucky bellies and wings.

An Adolescent Group Intervention One

Okay, back to our regular scheduled programming...

A couple of years ago when I was doing my internship with adolescents. My fellow intern and I were co-leading (unsupervised) and had a curriculum to follow (we didn't make it) and it was failing. The kids had been there long enough that many of them had already done it plus they were not ready for the work it involved in the first place or at least they weren't gonna play along on this with 1st year interns (talking about their behaviors, trauma, emotions...) It was pretty much a total nightmare and the rookies running the show (us) were getting eaten alive every single group.  We absolutely could not get to the information of the group, because following the curriculum resulted in chaos and power struggles from the first minute. It was a bad scene.

We talked about it with our supervisors and finally my supervisor (also the director of the program) said, "Drop it. Do something else until they are ready." So we did. This is what we came up with and it was AMAZING. My co-intern and I were doing high fives and body slams after this. (Okay, we didn't really do any body slamming, but I was feeling that Superbowl Sunday pumped and I think she was too.) It was the best group we had all year.

So, here's what happened: we decided we needed to talk about respect, because there wasn't a whole lot of that going on. So, we said it in song. We googled respect lyrics, looking for something other than R.E.S.P.E.C.T and got this from Train:

For reasons I don't know I treated you so cold
I wish I had those times again
Cause something that you said keeps ringing in my head
Someday you're gonna wanna come back and you're gonna wanna treat me fine

Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little

I watched me push you down in dreams I had of you
And all I remember about those days is I would run around thinking that you'd be alright
But you lost your light along the way
And oh you were right about the things I'd say
Cause if I had it back again I know I'd treat you kind

Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody got to have somebody
Everybody got to have someone

And all I ever wanted from this play
Was someone to talk to when I get down
It seems you get the things you give along the way
Now all I need is one more chance to make you feel like hanging round

Everybody needs a little
Everybody needs a little
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody got to have someone

We gave them all double-sided photocopies. One side had this, the other side had some really simple sentence completion in a poetry format. It was just something we threw together like,

To me respect is ________________________.
I feel respected when people ________________________.
I wish everyone _______________________.
etc.

We read the lyrics together and then invited them to either write their own lyrics/poem about respect or fill in the sentences. Then we had a little poetry open mic and discussion about how we all want to be treated. The gods smiled down upon the baby interns and their group that day, because the kids LOVED it. They. Loved. It. THEY LOVED IT! Words cannot express the beauty of this moment I swear to you. If it wouldn't have been poor boundaries, I would have kissed the forehead of every person in the room that day. I got so excited I said, "I am so amazed by how well you guys write (TRUE!). I think we need to make a book with this stuff!" and they thought so too and wanted to bring in more poetry, create art for the book on their own time etc... they lost interest in this later, but I think if we leaders had been a little less rookie and a little more creative, we might have been able to maintain a sense of excitement about that project and worked the curriculum we were supposed to follow into this... maybe.

After reading Contemporary Art Therapy with Adolescents, I think part of the success of this had to do with not only appealing to their interests (they like to write), but also we were not directing this at them. This wasn't about "tell me how you should be respectful and lets review group rules (snore)" but more like, "hey what do you think about respect?" According to Shirley Riley, teens do better when asked about a topic in general terms and don't do so well if asked about their own weaknesses and thoughts due to the natural narcissistic developmental stage.

The kids also noted how great the group had been which allowed us to discuss what they thought had made that happen and how we could have more awesome groups.

Working with Adolescents Part One

This past week, I have spent some time preparing for an interview to work with adolescents in residential treatment, which is something I have done for work and in my first year internship, so I feel about as okay going to this interview as one can feel going to her first post-grad interview. Behaviorally, I have prepared for this by reading Contemporary Art Therapy with Adolescents by Shirley Riley and I am glad I did, because it's super useful plus it takes a social constructionist view of working with adolescents which I can get behind, plus "social constructivism" is a cool term to throw around to make your friends feel like you are smarter than them.

Mentally, I have been thinking about what I learned from working with this population in the past: assessing what worked and what didn't. My guess is that such a conversation could arise in an interview to work with adolescents.

So, that being said, please stay with me as I organize my thoughts on this topic. Not that I am an expert, but here is my perspective of skills useful for working with this population based on my short experience. If you have other ideas or comments, feel free to post them (especially pre-interview-Thursday).

1. Begin from a person-centered theory and keep it as an umbrella covering every other theory you might employ. Acceptance and positive regard is critical, because teens in care don't get a lot of that and genuineness is even more relevant, because adolescents have a high sensitivity for adult bullshit. 

2. Knowing stuff having nothing to do with therapy is super helpful. For example: card games, gaming systems, super hero characters, slang words for street drugs, how to play basketball, rap music. Staying in touch with your inner 15-year old and the interests of current 15-year-olds can get you places (but remember to stay genuine and don't force it). I don't like professional sports or the Twilight series and I refuse to pretend I do. I do like to play wii and I know who Lil Wayne is, so that works for me.

3. Be easy-going about what you will tolerate and upfront about what you cannot. Be prepared to back it up as fast and calmly as you can. If you allow your toes to be stepped on one minute, you might be trampled to death the next.

4. Be transparent about not knowing all the answers and don't assume you have a clue about how to intervene when you don't. Ask the patient/client. I worked with some pretty tough individual cases and one of the things that surprised me was that they knew what they needed to work on and could name their goals as well as I could, if not better. Sometimes their solutions needed some tweaking and sometimes just support. Remember you're just a  tour guide in the land of options, not a magician.

5. When it comes to groups, be as flexible as possible. Go in with a plan, but if you can get away with turning the group into something relevant to the moment within a minute, do it. That's what makes art therapy awesome, by the way. " Hey, I'm hearing a common theme of feeling 'locked down.' Draw about freedom vs. constraint.".. or whatever.

6. If you do groups, figure out which teen is "the leader" and plan your groups for him/her while allowing for the needs of others. If you can "catch" the leader, it is suddenly super simple to do an amazing group with teens, because at least in my experience, they'll feed off the enthusiasm of the leader.

7. In my teen groups, check-ins at the beginning of group often got out of hand: too long and worse, led to arguments. If given the choice, at least with my particular group, I preferred a specific question to open check-in. What kind of weather pattern would you be right now? Mark and label your degree of whatever mood you're feeling on this thermometer, etc.

Part two will list my favorite directives for this population.

And... as a visual person, I am disappointed by the lack of art to go with this post, so allow me to introduce my latest sock creature:

Real Name -- Janice Finkelstein, Street Name -- Spike
(Her bio will be available on etsy.com once I get around to re-establishing my shop.)