People We Serve • 173In the beginning Billy spent most of his time at the easel, not speaking and with his back
to me. He would paint a blob of color, and then angrily cover it over—compulsively repeat-
ing this ritual for many weeks.
Next he turned his attention to the sand table. First he played silently with water and
sand, digging, filling, and in general enjoying the sensory experience. Soon, however, he
was bringing plastic animals to the sand table, which he would engage in fierce battles with
lots of noisy growling (A).
After a few weeks, Billy began to bring rubber human figures to the sand—a boy and
a man. They too would fight, and Billy would furiously bury the father figure in the sand,
while I would talk about how angry he was at his dad for leaving him and his mom so
suddenly.
This drama, played and replayed for several months during his weekly sessions, was
interspersed with quiet times of painting shapes that were no longer obliterated. Over time,
Billy was able to put his feelings into words in the sand stories.
I met several times with Billy’s mother, mainly to help her with management issues. As
often happens when a parent feels sorry for a child, she was having a hard time setting limits
or being consistent. Since Billy already felt some guilt and worry about his anger at his dad and
his dad’s death, his “power” to intimidate his mother was making him more anxious.
As his mom felt freer to assert her authority, and as Billy became less scared of his pow-
ers, she reported that he was no longer oppositional or clingy, but was his old cheerful,
agreeable self, coping with his loss by pretending to “be a Daddy” (B).
Art therapy can be helpful at all stages of development. Both Alan (Chapter 1) and Isaac
(Chapter 7) were able to use it in early childhood and come back to it later. Paradoxically,
art therapy seems to be especially helpful to children at each extreme of the behavioral con-
tinuum. A tightly constricted child like Linda (Chapter 5) can become freer, and a chaotic
child like Randy (Chapter 1) can become more organized. An oppositional child like Jack
(Chapter 1) can sublimate his aggression in clay, and a timid child like Don (Chapter 5)
can explore freer behavior by using fluid media, then by safely expressing his “scary mad
wishes” in sculptures that cannot hurt.
All kinds of children can be helped because the process of creating with art materials
requires both spontaneity and control. Thus, children who are treated with art therapy not
only span a wide age range, but also an even wider range of problems. A boy with a devel-
opmental or cognitive disorder like Randy (Chapter 1) can use art to organize his thoughts
as well as to express them. An anxious child like Carla (Chapter 2) can picture her fears and
end her nightmares. A depressed child like Lori (Chapter 1) can work through her feelings
about loss through art and play. Parents and children who are having problems can see
interaction patterns more easily on a piece of paper than in words, like John and his mother
in Chapter 5 or the family in Chapter 7.
As you just saw with Billy, even a two-year-old can benefit from expressive therapy. He of
course had suffered a sudden and traumatic loss, and his father’s suicide no doubt made it
hard for his mother to help him. It was good for both of them that she sought treatment.
In contrast, in the vignette below, Amy’s parents were both warm and loving, and she
had been developing smoothly until age three, when, with no major trauma like a death,
she suddenly started to have nightmares and to wet her bed. Her mother knew the parent
of another child I had seen when he was four (Alan, in Chapter 1), and after assessing the
situation I recommended art and play therapy, which proved to work well and quickly. Here
is a summary of her story.