oil on canvas (40 x 40")
acrylic on paper (20 x 30")
Drena Fagen, MPS, MSW, LCAT is an art therapist practicing in New York. She is an adjunct faculty member at NYU and shares a private practice called ArtSpa in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with her good friend and colleague, Nadia Jenefsky. Drena co-coordinates the Creative Arts Therapy program at the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem. This program is supported with a grant through the World Childhood Foundation and has been operating for about 3 years. The WCF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the most vulnerable children worldwide, especially those who are victims of sexual abuse and exploitation. Art Therapy at the Northside Center is focused on group therapy for children who have experienced sexual abuse. A parent's support group is also included in the therapy process for this program. I am currently Drena's intern at Northside.
Drena. Thank you for agreeing to be the first interview for our art therapy blog.
Thanks for asking Heather. This blog is a great idea.
Everyone has some interesting tale about getting to the field of art therapy. How did you decide to become an art therapist?
I never imagined that I would be a therapist. In fact, I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into at all when I entered graduate school. The decision to go back to school was a mid-career change for me. I had been working for many years in Los Angeles as an advertising art director, working on magazine ads for clients like Fender guitars, Baush & Lomb binoculars, and SEGA PC games. I enjoyed the work but found something lacking. In 1997, I decided to seek out some adventure, so I quit my job, threw all my stuff in storage, liquidated my savings, and traveled solo for nine months on a round-the-world ticket. I started in the South Pacific and ended in Europe. The journey completely changed my world view and, more significantly, my life priorities. On the way, I met an English girl in Italy who told me that she was going to be studying art therapy as an undergrad. Until then, I had never even heard of art therapy. I was immediately intrigued and once I got back to the States I looked up everything I could find on the subject. I found myself very drawn to it (no pun intended) and figured it would be something I could leverage in the corporate world—maybe doing teambuilding workshops or company retreats. Little did I know that I would find myself so enamored of the clinical aspects of the work and the satisfaction of being in a helping profession.
I know that you got your social work degree after your art therapy degree. Can you talk about that process?
Well, I decided to pursue the degree before the New York State licensure was finalized. I was motivated in part by a wish to legitimize my art therapy work and to make myself more employable. I am also, by nature, a freelancer, so having the dual degrees would allow me more flexibility to develop programs or work as a consultant with different agencies and populations. My experience at the NYU School of Social Work was pretty satisfying. I attended on OYR status, which means I got to use my art therapy job as my field placement as long as I could devote time to learning more about talk therapy, assessment, advocacy, and policy development. I chose to complete the program in three years. Although there were redundancies in the curriculum, this overlap allowed me deepen my understanding of more complicated clinical concepts. Despite being in school for social work, I often found myself writing notes in the margins on how what I was learning could be applied (and in some cases improved) through art therapy interventions.
How do the two professions overlap?
Social work as a profession encompasses a wide range of skills and areas of practice. Some social workers focus on policy work and advocacy, others do case management, while others work clinically and identify themselves as “therapists.” Most social work graduate programs are designed to allow students to train in their particular area of interest. NYU’s program is clinically based, which is why I chose it, and it aligns with many of the theoretical approaches we teach in art therapy.
You received your art therapy degree from Pratt Institute. How does the program there differ from NYU?
There has always been a longstanding “rivalry” between NYU and Pratt that has historical roots. What little I know is the stuff of urban legend. Let’s just say that the founders of the two programs had some differences of opinion back in the day. At this point, I find it kind of amusing. I don’t feel that there are any real academic differences between the two programs now—and certainly not in the quality of art therapists that each school produces. I have supervised predominantly NYU students and have never felt like we weren’t speaking the same language. I suppose the biggest difference is that Pratt’s program seems to me to be a bit more organic by design. My whole class of 23 students was thrown together as a cohort, directed to make lots and lots of art, and encouraged to take therapeutic risks and to share them with the class. I never felt like I had any idea what I was doing for the entire two years. This was infuriating at times, but it taught me so much about the process of therapy that I can’t imagine having learned the material in linear way. And I am certainly excited to be the first Pratt graduate to teach in the NYU program. I wonder if my students notice a “difference.”
What do you think is the biggest misconception about art therapy?
I think the biggest misconception is that art therapy is “recreational” and that the work is not grounded in sound psychological theories. A big reason for this misconception is that art therapy does not have enough research to back it up. This is why I strongly encourage my students to read clinical papers from other treatment disciplines and to figure out how to adapt those ideas to the work we do as art therapists. Other fields, like psychology and social work, are way ahead of us in validating and proving that their practices are effective. I say we absorb that information and use it to our advantage.
Your program at Northside is called Creative Arts Therapy, why?
I joined the program after it had been running for a year. I replaced an art therapist, Doris Lubell, who had done a tremendous job developing the program and proudly passed it along to me on her retirement. Initially the program was designed to include a dance therapist. This never materialized, but I was happy to keep the broad description in the name. I think “art” therapy can be limiting, particularly when working with children in groups. I am at the ready in every group I lead to switch to drama, music, movement, dance, puppetry, photography, poetry, video, or whatever expressive means will be most effective in the moment.
Your program is mostly group therapy. What are the benefits of doing group therapy with a traumatized population, as opposed to individual art therapy?
Group therapy is ideal for children and families dealing with sexual abuse because it gives them the opportunity to learn that they are not alone in their experience. Many cannot believe that this terrible thing has happened to anyone else. Sometimes that first group, when the children meet in person with others who have been victimized, is among the most powerful moments. The benefit of creating community when a person is feeling overwhelmed by shame and helplessness cannot be understated. The group format creates a safe space in which children can repair damaged trust with others. Although group therapy is an ideal intervention, it is always best for the children to also be in individual therapy at the same time. I don’t think it is an either/or proposition.
Why is art therapy especially effective with a sexual abused person?
Like other kinds of trauma, sexual abuse is essentially a non-verbal experience. Art therapy can be effective because it provides a window to parts that may not be accessible through verbal language.
Now some fun questions;
What is your art material of choice, as a therapist and as an artist?
As a therapist I really encourage three-dimensional exploration. I think it is less threatening to many clients who instinctively recoil at the thought of making art for fear of being judged as a “bad” artist. Using a glue-gun, wood scraps, fabric, and clay is something that everyone knows they can do. And with a 3-D object you can really engage the art piece in dialogue or play once it is completed.
Personally, I am a two-dimensional artist. I love to draw—take pencil or charcoal to a clean, white, 20 x 30 sheet of Rives paper. In the last few years, though, I have been painting abstractly with oil on large canvases. It kind of feels like a developmental stage though—like I am transitioning towards something more meaningful in my art. The oil paintings have really been about playing with the materials without intention. I recently added personal “art making” time to my weekly schedule with a fellow art therapist friend. It’s like having a “gym buddy” only we make art instead of break a sweat. It is so important for us to do as art therapists—because if we lose touch with our own creative exploration, I think it makes us a bit hypocritical. The same goes for being in therapy—it’s somewhat presumptious to be a therapist without ever having had the experience of being the client. I wish more art therapy students would choose art therapists for their own treatment.
What gets you through a stressful day?
Believing that the work I am doing matters to someone.
Describe yourself in one word.
Voracious.
Why that word?
It’s funny that this is the word that popped into my head. If you remember, Heather, just last week I noticed that I was creating little “pigs” everytime I got hold of some clay. I’ve done it at least three times since you started the internship. And while I do indeed like to eat (a lot), I think this definition captures it better: “Having or marked by an insatiable appetite for an activity or pursuit” I definitely feel this way about art therapy, but I feel it about many things. I don’t approach my interests with particular caution—I really feed myself, metaphorically, with the things I care about and the things that interest me. I suppose “passion” would be a nicer word, but voracious feels a little messy and that appeals to me.
Do you have any questions for me?
Sure.
What is surprising you most about the practice of art therapy as you learn more about it?
There is unbelievable amount of self-awareness that goes with being an art therapist. Right now I am very much on a journey to discover what makes me do, think or act the way that I do. What are my patterns? What roles to I put people in? Why did that thing just pop in my head? Somedays I feel like Siddhartha searching for enlighenment. Other days I feel more like Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz.
What was your most transformative experience as an artist (not a therapist)? A moment when you personally recognized the power of art making?
I can't say this is the most powerful moment but it was very memorable. My very first art class was at the Art Student's League four years ago. I graduated with a degree in Criminal Justice and had been teaching so I had no real art experience and was gearing up to start this program. I showed up to the studio with my coat and a smile. When the models took a break the jolly-old-man teacher whispered to me, "Where are your paints, your canvas... your... art materials?" He scratched out a list of supplies and I ran and out and bought everything. I came back sweating, embarrassed, unsure and totally nervous. There I was crammed in a tiny studio filled with real artists. It reeked of oil paint and coffee. I had stains all over my clothing and I had the worst seat in the room. But when I put my sable brush on that fresh oil paint something shifted in me. I was one of them! Learning to paint in this way, really, learning to express through the art making process was like getting opening my third eye.
And finally, what do you think my “pig” characters mean? (ha ha)
I think the expression is "... not with a ten foot pole."
