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• Applications in medical training
  Louis E Christie
  Published on: 25 June 2018

• Published on: 25 June 2018

  Applications in medical training

  • Louis E Christie, palliative care medical officer Western NSWLHD

  I read the paper by Kaimal, Walker, Herres, et al. on the use of art psychotherapy in the management of PTSD in war veterans with interest. I am an Australian emergency physician and retrievalist who ‘retired’ into palliative care practice. I have a longstanding role in the support of junior medical staff, and a more recent informal role in mentoring junior consultant colleagues. The increased risks of developing PTSD in both junior doctors and critical care medical staff is well-recognised but there is still debate in relation to effective prevention and treatment strategies in these cohorts. Recent reports in the general media indicate that some Trusts are beginning to use art therapy to support medical staff (https://www.citymatters.london/art-therapy-st-barts-doctors/) and prevent burn-out and PTSD.

  Over the last 12 months, I completed 180 hours of training in art psychotherapy. Part of this process involved engaging in art psychotherapy myself as ‘the patient’. The branch of art psychotherapy in which I was trained stems from the work conducted by Susan Bach from the 1950s through until her death in the mid-1990s, and uses the creation of an image, clay model or mask as the vehicle to explore non-verbal or suppressed meaning, through interpretation of image structure, colour and composition. As shown by the images of masks in this paper, the process is not one of ‘soothing creativity’,...

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  I read the paper by Kaimal, Walker, Herres, et al. on the use of art psychotherapy in the management of PTSD in war veterans with interest. I am an Australian emergency physician and retrievalist who ‘retired’ into palliative care practice. I have a longstanding role in the support of junior medical staff, and a more recent informal role in mentoring junior consultant colleagues. The increased risks of developing PTSD in both junior doctors and critical care medical staff is well-recognised but there is still debate in relation to effective prevention and treatment strategies in these cohorts. Recent reports in the general media indicate that some Trusts are beginning to use art therapy to support medical staff (https://www.citymatters.london/art-therapy-st-barts-doctors/) and prevent burn-out and PTSD.

  Over the last 12 months, I completed 180 hours of training in art psychotherapy. Part of this process involved engaging in art psychotherapy myself as ‘the patient’. The branch of art psychotherapy in which I was trained stems from the work conducted by Susan Bach from the 1950s through until her death in the mid-1990s, and uses the creation of an image, clay model or mask as the vehicle to explore non-verbal or suppressed meaning, through interpretation of image structure, colour and composition. As shown by the images of masks in this paper, the process is not one of ‘soothing creativity’, but about identification of deep inner turmoil and distress which then become accessible to cognitive psychotherapy.

  I came to art psychotherapy as a mature critical care clinician with work now focused on the dying. I perceived myself as having a robust psyche and my peers see me as a senior figure who was both competent and confident. I was interested in art psychotherapy to develop a skill set that would be of help to my patients. Within art psychotherapy I found a process which was of significant support to me in improving my general sense of well-being, improving my mood and building my resilience. I am now seeking to develop a formal art psychotherapy program for the support of the junior staff in our hospital.

  The tenets of art psychotherapy are often challenging to a mind trained in a discipline which emphasizes the physical dimensions of health and disease (physiology, anatomy, pathology and pharmacology). As physicians, we are also often reluctant to put ourselves under the microscopy, or to acknowledge the processes working within us. I thank you for the publication of an insightful paper, and hope that this fosters a greater interest in art psychotherapy and its use in the support of our patients and our profession into the future.

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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