Art therapy and epilepsy

The session is often theme-based and allows patients to modify negative perceptions of their illness identity regarding living with seizures and the effects of the condition. It provides a forum where individuals can reshape their views on living with epilepsy, its impact, and their self-perception by encouraging a realistic and empowering attitude. This helps to modify their perception of the control the condition has over their life. Additionally, it introduces strategies and explores their effects on psychosocial adjustment, enhancing patients’ health and well-being.

Art psychotherapy is founded on these principles: Developmentally, image ‘language’ precedes verbal language. Play, metaphoric, and symbolic thinking are universal human behaviors that offer a powerful adaptive advantage as problem-solving strategies. These strategies are particularly useful for meaningfully accepting the diagnosis of epilepsy or non-epileptic seizures. By effectively coping with uncertainty, this approach helps to regulate and integrate affective experiences, facilitating positive change.

Art-making provides a narrative that transitions frozen memories into meaningful representation and a coherent account of events. This process equips patients with the capacity to reintegrate these memories into a more manageable area of experience, thereby facilitating positive changes in life-affecting behaviors.

For some people with a learning difficulty, art therapy can provide a more profound and long-lasting change than standard treatments for associated mental health problems. Art therapy can address many of the challenges related to communicating emotional and psychosocial issues faced by individuals living with a dual diagnosis of learning difficulty and epilepsy.

Patients on admission have an opportunity to attend sessions between medical appointments on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The session offers each patient the opportunity to express or modify any real or perceived intrusive influences on their life when living with seizures.

Art therapy sessions on the Sir William Gower's assessment unit

Model of session: Open group (changing membership)

Regularity of session: Three two-hour weekly sessions Duration: Weekly 

Session venue: Sir William Gower’s Assessment Unit (ES)

Location of the group session: Large art therapy studio/the Art Centre 

Facilitated by art therapist: Quentin John Bruckland

• If you are considering art therapy sessions for yourself, a family member, or a friend while on admission to The Gower’s Assessment Unit, this should help answer some of your questions. Quentin Bruckland, the art therapist, offers an initial discussion to explore any further questions relevant to your or the patient's individual needs. Quentin is experienced in working with individuals and groups.
• Art therapy can help anyone and everyone who wants to adapt to a new challenge in life, including mental health problems, children, young people, adults, and people with learning disabilities. It can be used to address the impact of various emotional difficulties associated with living with seizures. Many people find art therapy to be a positive experience, actively involved in developing better insights to overcome difficult fears and anxieties related to psychological and emotional problems. This is enabled by the expressive physical distance that the art materials provide patients while on the unit.
• Art therapy offers each patient the opportunity to join in a unique reflective visual medium with others to develop and express strategies for increasing coping skills. The session focuses on current meaning and the individual’s relationship to self-identity, with assessment, diagnosis, and/or concerns relating to their illness.
• The emphasis is on art-making, generating expressive ways of identifying subjective feelings and mediating experiences. Making art can be an enormous release of tension, both emotionally and physically, especially when life feels uncertain or unmanageable, and a patient’s natural experience and resources have been tested beyond their ability to cope.
• The session has an informal atmosphere where a collective source of strength is identified through relaxation, acceptance, and trust. Using art as a reflective and mindful tool in the group can help with the adverse effects of poor self-esteem and life skills associated with living with seizure activity. The personal aims are dependent on what concerns are brought to the session during admission while attending the art therapy sessions.

• The therapist works sensitively with the person to communicate and understand current thoughts that might be difficult to articulate, enhancing the effectiveness of coping.
• By working positively, the therapist helps individuals seek a clear, supported choice where an appraisal of meaningfulness in one’s life can start to unfold.
• This is achieved by collaborating with the therapist to bridge the gaps between the perceived level of control and the desired quality of life.
• The focus is on improving the fundamental need for a sense of control in one’s life, providing a realistic yet non-judgmental environment to accept and adjust to living with a condition, despite any imposed limitations.

Our Art Therapy Studio at the Epilepsy Society continues to provide a safe, interactive space where people living with epilepsy can experience a sense of belonging and well-being through creative art-making. The Studio achieves this by creating an inspiring, holistic environment where members can come together to create and discuss their art. We encourage autonomy through our open-plan and fluid approach, empowering individuals to learn and develop their own way of working. As a result, everyone is either an artist or on their way to becoming an artist. The group has its own ethos to encourage, develop, and celebrate self-worth through creative thinking and acting upon the group members' expressive choices. This develops a resourceful sense of self-awareness and improves self-esteem by acknowledging both independent and collective thoughts, skills, and abilities.

The Souls Mates Creative Arts group has produced some brilliant pieces of fabric and paper tapestries over the years, some of which will be displayed in our on-site coffee shop. These pieces are very striking and large artworks, passionately created by each member of the group to encourage members to have a personal experience.

The Clinical Art Therapy groups and Creative Arts Groups at the Epilepsy Society have been particularly helpful to individuals who benefit from expressing their situation in the presence of others. These groups give them the opportunity to share and communicate their concerns and find companionship with others who understand their lives and future aspirations when living with seizures.