025: Art Mends Hearts with Susan Greif

How can art help heal people from trauma? Susan Greif interprets drawings to help her clients form a healthier relationship with themselves and in turn a healthier relationship with others. I recently heard Susan speak at a speaker salon and was inspired by her message and her work with the children of holocaust survivors. She believes that art makes thoughts and emotions more perceptible so we can actually see our subconscious. Then we can understand what keeps us stuck and make shifts in our lives.

I notice in my students that their personalities are in their art. If they paint very tightly it’s usually because they’re uptight about something. We talk about what art can tells us about a person, her process of working with a client and why art can reveal things that talking won’t.

In this podcast, you will discover...

• (02:58) Susan’s work with the children of holocaust survivors and intergenerational PTSD
• (04:12) What PTSD is and how in affects people
• (06:47) How the PTSD can be passed onto the children through epigenetics
• (08:55) What a session with Susan looks like
• (10:00) The art medium the clients have access to for their first drawings
• (11:04) That the quality of the drawing does not matter
• (11:30) An example of what anxiety can look like in a drawing
• (12:26) What the colour choice in a drawing can mean
• (13:28) How the session continues after the client has completed a drawing
• (14:01) How Susan does a similar process with individuals and groups
• (15:36) Trying to understand a picture drawn by a 57 year old woman
• (17:05) How Susan helps her client stay in the moment with their drawings
• (17:32) Continuing the story of the woman’s drawing
• (20:09) Looking at relationships differently
• (21:45) What the therapy looks like after the first drawing and how she uses journaling
• (23:30) That drawings can reveal things that people might hide or omit in talk therapy

For full show notes, go to schulmanart.com/25

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