‫جامعة حلوان‬

‫كلية الرتبية الفنية‬

‫العالج بالفن والعمل مع الفصل الدراسي ككل‬

‫يف املدارس االبتدائية‬
‫‪Art Therapy and Working With the Whole Class in‬‬
‫‪Primary Schools‬‬

‫أ ‪.‬د ‪ /‬عفاف أمحد حممد فراج‬ ‫أ‪.‬د ‪ /‬مصطفي حممد عبد العزيز‬
 ‫العمل مع الفصل الدراسي ككل يف املدارس االبتدائية‬

: ‫مقدمة‬
Dean Reddick
Iatency Experience

(DFES )

Dcan Reddick

Goldsmiths

CAMHS

Dean Reddick
Dean Reddick
 "CAMHs"

Developing The Model

"PHSE"
(Doh, )

Quality Cirletime
(Mosley, ) Circle time

Experiential al Learning
 Mosley

( : )

( : ) Dalley

"Dalley : "

Yalom

Here – and – now

Prokofiev

( : ) Dalley

Primary – School. Children

and Latency

Sexual Latency
 (Freud, " " :

Freud

Freud
Freud

Edwards ( ) : )
Freud

Edwards

Meltzer

"Learning Withou Tmeaning"

The Model




 
"Circle Time"

(See Prokofiev For a Thorough Review of art Therapy Groups for

Childran , of Multi- Jamily grpups (Behr ; Asen and Scholz )
(de Mare et al. )

(Yalom )

Case

(Mc Neilly , ; Liebman ;

Greenwood and Layton )
(Prokofiv : )

(Laquer , ; Behr ; Asen and Scholz )

(Whole- Class Work With a
Year Class)

Paul
Paul Hamza

Hamza Paul

Jack
 Hamza Paul

Paul Hamza Paul

 (between The girls' words and the boys'silence)

adog fox
Hamza Paul
 Paul

Paul

Paul

Paul
Hamza
Hamza Paul
 The Whole Class

Samira

Sadie Neeta
Jade

Roxanna

Jones
(Whita Kar ) Hamza Paul

(whitakee )
Roxanna
 Jones

Hamza Paul

" We'll Never

Get Along"

Roxanna
Whole – Class Work With a
Yearl Class
 Power Ranger

:
Loss and Separation and Defensive Fornication of Lantactic Persona

(Gerrard, )
Hulk Fred

"Hulk"
Fred
 Fred

Fred
Fred Jonathon

Jonathon

"Swapped brains"

Jonathon

Jonathon
 Fred
Jonathon

Farzanah Jonathon

Circle Time

Jonathon

Keshisha
 ‫ملخص وتعليق‬

Normal Circle Time

Dudley

(Freud ( ) )

Jonathon Paul Hamza

(See Reddick )
Jonathon
(Waller, : )

Woods

Jonathon

Whitaker
"The Whole – Class Model"

(Behr
)
Paul

Dynamics Operating

Summary

Working in the classroom allowed powerful group dynamics to become more

visible. Normal Circle Time activities and didactic approaches to emotional working
are unable to achieve this because of the lack of a consistent experiential component
(see Dudley et al ). Art works were used to either represent a group self (as in the
'draw oneself as an animal' exercise) or to make visible 'shared themes [which] can
build up in groups' (Whitaker, : ).
Pupils in both the classes were having difficulty learning due to either
'interruptions of latency' (Freud [ ] ) or strong defences such as repression,
identification and splitting. Unsurprisingly, these interruptions and defences became
expressed through gender issues with the most vulnerable children (e.g. Jonathon,
Paul and Hamza) taking on specific roles for the group. The younger children used
superheroes to express this, the older children were more explicit about their fear of
sexuality, sometimes expressed as their fear of homosexuality. In the work the
children's fear of sexuality was based on the power of identification as a way of
relating. Identifying with the same gender was safe (nominally de-sexualised). To
identify with the other gender threatened the latency child's carefully defended sexual
identity; for the younger children this threatened to throw them back into infancy and
an Oedipal maelstrom. For the older children, identification with the opposite sex
reminded them of the closeness of adolescence and of the imminent reawakening of
sexual relating.
In terms of assessing the impact of the whole-class work on the educational
functioning of the class, broad conclusions can be drawn (see Reddick ). In the
Year class, working with the group dynamics produced a noticeable shift in the
functioning of the class. The class moved from being overly polite (based in a latency
fear of breaking the rules), to recognising the gender split, to a more open and
dynamic latency atmosphere. The politeness inhibited dialogue and expression which
in turn deadened the learning atmosphere and risked splitting off emotion from
learning. This gave way to a gender split which also had a negative impact on the
class's ability to learn. The boys' preoccupation with getting close to Jonathon and the
powerful fantasies, 'which denied reality and [were] irrational, even magical in
quality' (Waller : ) allowed the boys to dispose of adults and deny their
dependency needs. The girls became passive in the face of this and gave up their
aggression. This impacted negatively on their learning as they became less curious
and more inhibited.
Woods ( : ) writes that in mixed gender groups 'girls . . . can benefit from
withdrawing some of their projections of badness and aggression on to the boys' and
this process was relevant to this class. As some of the girls became less passive and as
some of the boys moved away from Jonathon, new forms of relating (and therefore
learning) emerged. Boys and girls came into relation with each other and the class
teacher was able to impose a class rule banning child leaders. This top-down ruling is
at odds with a psychodynamic group therapy approach but is of course not unusual in
the normal context of the classroom. It demonstrated the regaining of authority by the
class teacher : which was met with relief by most of the class. The class teacher was
not naturally given to working emotionally but tolerated the confusion and chaos
generated in the middle part of the work and chose to use a strategic intervention
towards the end to help the class move away from a restrictive group solution
(Whitaker ). The whole-class model gave the teachers an insight into the power
of group dynamics based on the emotional needs of individuals and the group, and
allowed teaching staff to recognize how these;! dynamics impact on the class's ability
to learn.
With the Year class I was able to develop a less structured approach where I
could move between addressing the group as a whole, the various subgroups and the
individual; a fluid way of working which promotes a cohesive large-group system
(Behr ). It was harder to assess the impact of the work on the educational
functioning of this class as the group only ran for SIX sessions. The children were
preparing to leave the school and appropriately used the space to think about this
transition. This was in itself a valuable opportunity. The transition from primary to
secondary school is hugely important for children. It involves a transition from
latency to adolescence and these themes ran through the work with this class. From
the work I was able to report some of the vulnerabilities of individual children, such
as Paul, and support referrals for further therapeutic interventions.
Generally this model has developed using a framework of containment already
provided by the teaching staff and the institution of the school. Its success is due to
the average class being made up of a majority of emotionally-well members, some of
whose latency has been temporarily interrupted. This whole-class approach can re-
establish children's learning, social and emotional development as well as providing
teachers with a clearer understanding of the dynamics operating in their classrooms.
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