I initially was frustrated with the process of clay making. Coming from a studio art background, with pottery and ceramics as one of my major focuses, I had experience with high quality clays, wheels, kilns, and glazes. In fact, my senior thesis was on the healing potential of pottery in the wake of trauma. My paper focused on the link between pottery and human evolution and culture, and ceramic vessels as containers that nourish and sustain us. I discussed the capacity of clay to shatter and crumble, a metaphor for trauma, and the capacity of clay to be reworked and transformed into something new and enduring, a metaphor for healing and therapeutic process. While this clay did not preform in ways I would have liked, it did still have that regenerative potential, as I could crush it back down to powder and add more lotion if I wanted to play with it again. I experimented with the cornstarch and lotion clay and found the material lacked structure and stretch and crumbled in my hands if overworked. However, once I gave up on the goal of making something, I found myself enjoying the material on a sensory and kinesthetic level. It was smooth, soothing, and smelled good because of the lotion, activating more of my senses. I allowed myself to get lost in the experience until the material got too dry and crumbly. Even afterwards, my hands felt smooth and smelled nice throughout the day.
My current internship site is at an elementary school where most of the children are diagnosed with some sort of disruptive, impulse control, or conduct disorder. I believe clay would be an effective medium with these children as it engages not just both hands, but the whole body. It is engrossing, providing kinesthetic, energetic release and rich sensory stimulation. It has the capacity to withstand destructive force and be thrown, punched, mashed, and then recollected, recentered, and reformed. At the same time it provides smooth, soft, supportive contact. It mirrors the child, bearing the mark of what was done to it. Elbrecht & Antcliff (2015) noted that best practice with children involves a bottom up approach, where kinesthetic and motor impulse gives rise to sensory/cognitive awareness. The article also highlighted the importance of building sensorimotor resources with developing children (Elbrecht & Antcliff, 2015).
Further, clay can provide information. I used to work in a therapeutic clay studio and the parallels I saw between the ways children interacted with clay and interacted with life where fascinating. There were two girls I worked with, both with conduct disorders and extensive trauma backgrounds. One always felt incompetent and like a burden. The ‘mistakes’ she inevitability made with a material as challenging as clay always activated her self-loathing. Eventually, she was able to develop a sense of mastery and pride in her work. The other girl always presented angry and aggressive, as if to keep herself safe by keeping others at a distance. She was remarkably gentle at the wheel, pushed around by the clay and unable to exert the necessary force to center it. In a moment of insight, she commented that she was unable to find stability or center the clay because she wasn’t angry and that was the only thing that kept her together.
Reference:
Elbrecht, C., & Antcliff, L. (2015). Being in touch: Healing developmental and attachment trauma at the clay field. Children Australia, 40(3), 209.
