Menus and ART
The power of using menus and art in therapy, schools, hospitals, classrooms and with your own family:
The power of menus, books, art, and rhythm and movement is amazing. It helps reduce guilt and shame and aids in reducing the power differential. In addition, equipping adults with the language and tools to catch up!! I think that is a large part of our mission. Because when you know the how and the why, true learning, compassion and understanding can begin to take place.
Written by Carron Montgomery, LPC, RPT
Menus (can include a list of emotions, a deck of cards regarding thoughts and feelings, physical sensations, posters, art, or a visual map) are one of the most helpful ways to help kids and adults find words for what they are trying to understand and articulate. For a child, menus can normalize the fact that their feelings and thoughts are actually quite common.
Neuroscience has shown us that the brain is a bottom up processor, meaning that we first feel our emotions, which may interfere with our ability to identify and express with our words when we are upset, scared, nervous or simply overwhelmed. Menus are extremely beneficial when it is hard to find the right words due to a heightened stress response, and are especially useful for people with high anxiety, depression, ADHD, learning disorders, and trauma, as these conditions cause issues with executive functioning. Menus and using art are also helpful for children who do not yet have the words to express themselves. These tools allow for a safe distance to express yourself by not having to directly say what is bothering you, but to simply show or point to it instead. As a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Registered Play Therapist, I use menus frequently with my clients and change the decks depending on their age, functioning, and their presenting issue.
Menus and the use of art can help teachers, adults, students, and clients by:
Normalizing thoughts, behaviors, body sensations and feelings we all experience.
Creating a safe distance between the client and their thoughts and feelings.
Sharing their inner world by giving words to things they may not know how to express or can’t articulate due to their developmental state or level of distress.
Communicating levels of distress.
Exploring underlying trauma.
The simple use of words and creating a common language.
Creating calms the brain and the rhythmic activity associate with art settles the nervous system.
Menus can also help clinicians identify therapeutic goals and clinical impressions early on in therapy in a safe and nonthreatening manner. Being able to identify diagnostic impressions and goals in the first several sessions is essential to aid in the development of effective treatment and behavioral plans both inside the office and outside in schools, and homes. (looking at the root cause of the behavior, rather than focusing on the behaviors themselves). Below are several examples of kids and young adults using a menu of negative thought cards and trauma reaction cards to express their deepest inner thoughts and feelings that remain hidden to the outside world. Oftentimes, these thoughts and behaviors are associated with old stories and trauma that is stagnant and stored in the body. Neuroscience explains how and why so many clients continue to carry unresolved trauma. When we lack awareness and connection with our own body, we are likely to continue on a path that reinforces negative beliefs about ourselves, directly impacting our ability to navigate a new path in the world filled with confidence and a sense of purpose.
Menus also can aid in helping children and adults learn how the brain works and the purpose of feelings, vital messengers, meant to help us make sense of needs and get them met. Cards and menus can help you gain a greater appreciation and awareness for the role that emotions serve in our lives. Neuroscience has shown us that the brain prefers what is familiar. We need to tune into our bodies and learn to trust our intuition and the messages our brain is sending us to move forward freely in life. We must acknowledge that the way our brains are designed can make this feel unachievable, as we came into this world preferring what is familiar, focusing on and being hyper aware of the negative and what we aren’t doing right. Our default is to assume we are somehow defective instead of my body is just saying I need help and connection to establish new patterns and associations.
When we teach clients about the physical parts of the brain AND the functions that each part serves, things make a lot more sense. When things make more sense, we feel safer and more in control. The brain is a bottom up structure and the brainstem is the oldest, most archaic part of our brain. The brainstem receives data related to any sensory input and is an automatic and reactive part of our brain. Understanding this system and that we are most triggered through our senses (smell, taste, touch, sight and noises), allows us to be better prepared to develop skills that will help us when we are not able to access the thinking/reasoning part of our brain. We can use this as important information to help us become more aware of triggers and less afraid of the sensations that arrive automatically in our bodies.
