Features of the Art Therapist’s Work with Elderly People in the Psychological Relief Room

Abstract

In this article, we describe the pilot project of an art therapist’s work with elderly people in a relief room: the case of Kryvyi Rih. The empirical study has introduced a model of psychologist retraining through an art therapy work with groups and individual therapy in the relief room. In this article, art-therapeutic programmes (group and individual) are methodologically based on the age theories of E. Erickson and R. Peck, “successful old age”. Therefore, the programme is based on three blocks of art work with the structure of personality: differentiation of the Ego against the absorption of roles, transcendence of the body against the absorption of the body, transcendence of the Ego against the absorption of the Ego. For successful work, the programme of individual work uses the techniques of relaxation, imagination, phototherapy, rescripting, collage, and neurography. Collage techniques, zentagles, neurographica and neurocorrection are integrated into the group work programme.