Participants in our training course vary from professional aid workers and teachers to psychology students, artists and volunteer workers. Some trainees are well-educated, others have only taken short courses in psychosocial aid.
The training often takes place under difficult circumstances that have traumatised a considerable part of the population. In many cases, the trainees themselves are locals who have suffered a traumatic experience themselves.
This particular form of therapy is often new to the trainees and can meet with some initial resistance. By emphasising ‘learning by doing’, the trainees find out the therapeutic effects for themselves. They also experience the fun of working with materials that challenge one’s creativity.
‘The training courses certainly helped to mobilise my own resources. Since I and the other participants in the courses worked with people from many different cultural backgrounds, whose spoken language we did not share, we needed an approach, a language that could help us to connect with clients and to open possibilities for change. In contrast to the more verbal training, the training in art therapy provided me (and I dare say others) with those possibilities.’
A participant from Namibia–‘An important difference between art therapy training and more verbally oriented training courses I took part in is that the former enabled me to experience the impact of the approach and the methods on a personal level. I found that the training courses provided me with well founded theoretical knowledge and, more importantly, provided me with an experience of the transformative power of art therapy.’
A participant from Iraq/Kurdistan
–‘Recently I had a patient that was raped and could not express herself in words. I applied the assignments from the art therapy training to this situation. As a result thereof she was able to express herself to me through art. The training was very worthwhile to me.’
A participant from Iraq