The short term process of creating an El Duende Painting Process seemed a bit odd to me with my previous understanding of El Duendes. What I knew about the El Duende Painting Process was that it was something that was created over a long period of time. I had painted one in the previous spring quarter for class and even then, I felt as though the process required a time period much longer than the ten weeks I was in that class. The process that I engaged in for this experiential only took 2 days, so it did not feel much more than a regular painting. Personally, I think that it would be more appropriate to refer to this as a Painting Process rather than an El Duende Painting Process since the El Duende focuses more on the long-term, reflective time in between each step of the process.
The encouragement to use some sort of 3D component in the painting was a bit daunting at first, but as someone who is not a painter, it helped me access the perceptual level of this process and create images out of random shapes and forms that I added to the canvas. For adolescents, the population I wanted to theoretically use this process for, painting may be an intimidating process, however, being able to change the imagery over time but still record each step of the process might be something less aversive, and the use of 3D elements and not confining the painting the 2D imagery could also help create recognizable forms. Expecting adolescents to pull random imagery from their minds and asking them to recreate that imagery onto canvas might cause some feelings of self-consciousness and fear of judgment, but allowing the process to be changed makes the medium less pressuring.
Specifically, the population I think the painting process could benefit would be adolescents with Personality Disorders. The components of documenting work in the process along with the allowance of change provide an opportunity for reflection and progression in the process towards understanding self and the diagnosis, building ego strength with the diagnosis, and understanding how one’s diagnosis might affect activities of daily living and relationships with others - goals that might be of great concern to the developing adolescent. This process of reflection provides opportunities to identify how perceptions may be impacted by Personality Disorders, how those perceptions might change, and what can be done to work towards goals set in therapy. I think adding in the long term reflection, which would make this an El Duende painting process as opposed to just a painting process, would provide additional benefit for reflection and identifying critical points of development over the course of time in therapy.
