Mental health recovery celebrated at art therapy exhibition
Date added: 19 January 2024
People living with mental health conditions in Maidstone took part in an art exhibition for fellow service users and KMPT staff this week. The event celebrated their recovery journeys over the past year and provided a creative outlet to deal with the stigma sometimes associated with mental health conditions.
Members of the Art Psychotherapy for Psychosis (APP) group proudly displayed the personally-produced images at Kent and Medway Secondary Care Community Mental Health Team’s (CMHT) town centre hub, Albion Place, to mark the completion of the treatment programme.
Set up by Maidstone Secondary Care Psychological Therapies Service and supported by the CMHT, the collection of paintings and drawings featured powerfully evocative images portraying the service users’ individual relationship to psychosis. Each piece illustrated the unique feelings and thoughts about how an individual with lived-experience of psychosis manages their daily life and how they feel others view them.
Some particularly poignant comments from the service user group members included: “I discovered I could draw – it was incredible. I couldn’t envisage what I would be able to do and it’s been so good to see what I can create.”
“Drawing was not my strong point but we have challenged ourselves and changed our outlooks in a supportive environment. You learn about people from the inside out, not the outside in.”
“I wanted to show others how difficult it can be – I wanted to bring something powerful to show.”
The project is one of many examples of KMPT’s well-established co-production network which brings together service users, carers, representatives of community groups and trust staff to help determine areas that we can improve to benefit our service users and their loved ones’ experiences. The APP group offers members a safe space to express themselves creatively and the exhibition showcased how people with psychosis can speak through art.
KMPT Art Psychotherapist Julie Ward and psychodrama psychotherapist Sarah Cvjetan, who co-facilitates the APP group said: “The process of creating images that can contain the uncontainable, simplify the complicated and encourage a mutual bond of understanding and compassion for others, can lead to improved mental health.
“Our exhibition is an important part of the treatment pathway – it marks the ending of a year of sometimes difficult self-exploration and realisation and also offers group members a chance to experience their growth in confidence. The experience of outsiders viewing and interpreting their artwork and witnessing vulnerability, anger and frustration, has tested our service users’ robustness while enabling them to showcase their most intimate fears and hopes.”
The collaborative project is the first in a planned series of creative displays. The team is confident that by continuing to exhibit group artwork, the general wellbeing of service users, staff and visitors will be boosted and the waiting room experience made a little more welcoming.
You can find out more about Maidstone Community Mental Health team which provides support and treatment in the community to adults between the ages of 18-65: https://www.kmpt.nhs.uk/our-services/maidstone-community-mental-health-team/
