Hi Jennifer -
arts and crafts is a big partof my therapy program as you can probably tell from reading my blog and other posts here and on onther on line support groups and it helps ALOT.

Right now I am working on a project for memory recall work in trying to find out things. I made a scale model of the house I grew up in using cardboard, plain white paper, glue, popcycle sticks, crayons, and water color paint.

First I took paper and drew a picture of floor plans of each level (first floor second floor and so on) Then I wrote on the floor plans the size of each room. I don't remember the exact dimentions of each room but made some guesses.

Then taking cardboard (any kind as long as its the same thinkness) and measured out each wall. and the flooring..

I covered cardboard slabs with glue and put white paper on that so that the "boards" were completely covered in white paper.

Then using the popcycle sticks a made "bracket" by slightly bending a couple sticks and put a drop of glue on the ends and putting them on where I would be connecting two boards together. To connect the boards just slip a popcycle sick through the brackets from one board to the matching braket on the second board.

Once the house frame was put together including the roof I used more white paper and the watercolor paints and color pencils and crayons to make "wallpapers, capeting," to line the room that I was working on.. the one of my nightmare and flashbacks.

Then using those same items white paper, water color paint, crayons, color pencils, cardboard and glue I made the furnishings that I keep seeing in flashbacks and my nightmare.

Just recently I made the shadowman that I keep seeing by using white cloth, wire from a spiral notebook, Scupey Modeling clay and glue.

Once all this was completed I took pictures of it in to LL because I didn't know where to go with the project from here. She looked at the pictures and asked me some questions. From her questions there was one that I didn't know the answer to so I have been sitting down with this scale model looking at it and so on trying to find out the answer to that question.

This is one of many ways that I use art to learn what my separated pieces of memories are.

I also do dot arts where you dot the paper and then randomly connect the dots and then color in the things you see in the picture.

I also find drawings around the house. When I do I look at them - color, theme and charecters depicted and so on and try to match them. for example if I find a picture of something I pull out my photos and try to locate a photo of that thing and me or other family members in it that will tell me around what age I was when I had that thing. Right there that tells me a general idea of how old I was when that piece of memory was separated, and possibly some of what that separated pice of memory contains.

Having two therapists and a conflict - not as long as you sign a reliese form for both therapists so that they can coordinate your therapy program so that one isn't treating one way and the other is treating you with a different program. Its called continuity of care and many people see two different therapists for example when I was seeing a county mental health therapist I had been raped by an acquaintence. The hospital called the rape crisis center and I started therapy with a rape crisis therapist. Both the mental health therapist and the rapre crisis therapist had to have a release form on file so that the two could talk to each other about my problems and what to do to help me with them. The rape crisis center office that I was seeing JEH in was also the domestic violence office. The DV was donating space in their office to the rape crisis center. So because it was two agencies in one office space and the DV people would at times be anseering phones and helping out when JEH was busy or not in the office I also had to sign a release form for continuity of care purposes with the Domestic violence therapist too so that she could also talk with my mental health therapist and my rape crisis therapist. So I ended up having three therapists and there was no complications as to how to treat me and so on.