The Healing of The Blackhole.
Pregnancy permits from the body.
Art Therapist Marka Kondrateva.Body-oriented photo art therapy has helped my client to restore contact with the body, relieve internal conflicts, and get "permission" from the body for pregnancy. It had occurred 1.5 months after we finished. I briefly describe ten online sessions from my 'Body Landscapes' program.
The holistic approach allows me not only to work with a specific request or symptom that a person comes with but to build a holistic, healthier vision of life. The multimodal approach helps me quickly understand the core of the problem. I combine guided imagery, photos of the body parts, drawings, and paintings during one session. It perfectly works online when my clients have to be more independent in the process of healing. Here I use 'she' because I describe the case with the woman. I believe this program could be helpful for everyone with body issues.
First and foremost, photography provides us with valuable insights into the human body. We remove the mediator in the form of the Therapist, the client can communicate with the body directly, and this self-confrontation is very effective. I perceive my physical body as a distinct individual. The client very quickly sees and feels the difference between external and internal, step by step overcomes this inconsistency and becomes more conscious. Hidden information emerged in symbolic form. It makes it easier to cope with unknown emotions and transform them, finding a new ecological way for a happier and healthier life.
The client learns to translate information from inner symbolic language into real-life context. This helps the client become more aware of their situation, develop self-trust, become more proactive and take responsibility for their actions. It also encourages them to be more involved in the process.
In the absence of connections with the body or body parts, the client owns them through a photograph, splices tactilely the parts, and learns a new body image. The client concentrates close attention on her corporeality and unseen information. Kind attention and energy begin to saturate the forgotten and rejected body. In long term therapy it gives us great results.
Process: 2 session in one week online.
Session duration 2 hours.
The work is built on combining our work during sessions with home work.
Independent work includes creating photographs, drawings, and collages, keeping an personal journal "Body Landscapes", as well as regularly listening to guided imajery or meditations before starting to create art products. These are body scans and modifications for different somatic spaces. At each session, we analyze art products created in a week and flow into a new topic for research. The effect of this work is cumulative, it grows and deepens, increases body awareness, interoception, and proprioception, and big amount of suppressed emotions and body memory processed. 10 sessions are the required minimum.
About client: Olga (name is changed), 35 years old, a public procurement expert. Clever, purposeful woman with high motivation. She's in her second marriage. Her gynecologist said that Olga needed an examination for patency of the fallopian tubes and possibly IVF. The pandemic facilitated Olga to accelerate changes in her life. The desire to have a child Olga formulated at the first session on June 9, 2020. The natural conception took place in September 2020.
Usually, Olga breathes shallowly or forgets to breathe when she remembers this, then with force inhales with her belly.
We start by analysing collages and some drawings from her art journal.
Figure 2.1. Collage "I am in an unfamiliar environment, under the gaze of people."
Olga's description:"I have cotton feet. I freeze. The energy immediately disappeared somewhere. On the face is a mask of superiority and indifference, pursed lips. Laxity in my body; I feel neglected. Superiority and indifference are like a defense mechanism. I pretend that I don't care what you think of me. If someone is laughing nearby, then at me. I painted the blue stripes first, this is some kind of protection, glass, mirror or energy. You can't get close to the figure. People - heads in red. At home - an association with the area in which I grew up. It’s surprised me.
From 7 to 28 years old she lived in this type of house, there is a large concentration of people, children, adolescents, and elderly people. I was a black sheep to them. Arrogance as a desire to rise above the environment in this courtyard.
Figure 2.2. Drawing "Knees"
Drawing made on the basis of a photograph.
We begin to study drawing from sensory information. Olga does not like the knee area, she says that she cannot remove fat deposits there in any way. After analyzing the picture, we come to the memory of how, as a teenager, Olga walked along a dangerous road where migrants drove and could use violence. Olga was very afraid, as she was an attractive teen. The red spirals in the figure are similar to the heads of the people in Figure 1. Protection is draped over the legs like a thin, transparent fabric. Olga admits that even now she is afraid to seduce her husband. Now she is ready to remove this protection and find another option. With her eyes closed, she observes this protective structure in relation to her body, warms and transforms, finds a new image.
Picture 3.4. Drawing "Back"
Now let's transform the neck area under close inner attention. The trickle has become wider, the flow inside the well becomes wider.
Flickering light.
Continue transformation in the throut and back. We have a lot of coping stragedes/ We need to release this body parts
The session began by looking at the state-of-the-art collages that we looked at in session 3.
Figure 4. Collage “Neck #2”.
We transformed the neck in the last session, N created a new drawing based on the bodily sensations we came up with.
The neck has changed, now it looks like a neck. N really like the result.
Looking at the drawing, N feels sophisticated. I see a lot of emotions.
It is important for me that the lips appear. Articulation. In bright spots, I see a time-lapse of emotions, feelings. By its duration, influence. The lips should help to show it. But it all remains inside. The holiday is inside.
- Dotted lines to the left and right of the neck?
- I do not remember. I tried to paint with color. Now it is like droplets of tears, they go from top to bottom. They are not particularly visible in the surrounding space. They go from the outside to the inside
- Emotions are invisible to others
- This is what appears. Inside it is multi-colored. But what appears on the outside is light, semi-transparent, almost imperceptible. It manifests itself through tears. All the pain remained inside.
- Yellow and red, what is it?
- Yellow - joyful moments, like gifts for others, which I make myself.
- If you can imagine that it is leaking up. What do you feel?
- That it appears as spots, it appears ugly. The desire not to show feelings, because it is ugly. Fear and shame. If there are spots on the face, then it's embarrassing and dumb.
- I get angry and I have red spots on my face, inflammation.
- I thought about drawing a channel, but I didn't want to.
- Red is what dulls yellow. Red is danger.
- If we mix them up?
- Orange is the least favorite color
- He is incomprehensible. I don't know how to use it. How to stuff a square object into a round box.
- Did you see your joy? How does your face express joy?
- Yes, and I did not like it. But yellow is my favorite.
- Can yellow absorb red?
- It's scary inside me, my stomach starts to move from this question.
- Lost control and safety if yellow fills everything. The danger was no longer visible, it did not disappear.
- Please make a portrait of yourself joyful, your face, which expresses joy, happy. You can cover it with color, or look for protection. If you release joy, you lose control, but find a frame that gives comfort and safety. So that you can dissolve in joy, confuse it, but at the same time, in a safe frame.
- Bottom border, dark green, red and yellow. Sharp. There are many borders in the figure. Veiled. Aesthetic.
- Pay attention to the lips, they seem to be upside down. And the color is different. They are watercolor, and everything else is gouache, clear, bright, with tension, a different character. Can those lips disguise too? But they don't open. Only roses can fall from them, but something ugly cannot come out of them.
- I took part in a beauty contest and everything revolved around the "iron lady", but I was told that it was not about me at all. You are so soft, airy, light. And I feel like a tough person, at least in relation to myself. Outwardly, yes. Everything inside is so chopped. Sharp. And in my movements I am sharp. Dancing is not about me.
- Let's return to the fact that it is important for you to make your self-portrait, which is full of joy. Your face, smile. Feel how joy pours out of you, how you feel it, let it out of yourself, it spreads around you like light. You can swim in your joy.
- Even when I think about it, tears come to my eyes. I do not know why this is so.
Figure 4.2. Collage “Back #2”
I drew from the same photographs of the back. For new sensations. I didn't want to draw anything else all this time. There is already more of it, backs. I wanted to draw and feel, to understand how I feel. If not about the armor, but about the back itself, then what is inside. Contours first. Orange, by the way here. Then the green color came out.
- What feeling is born?
- I like. This is an association with nature, with greenery. Cool coolness. But so far it is not solid.
- Is it growing this structure? What is it?
- Like grass stalks are long. Lianas. They grow from the central canals. They descend along the body. This is natural energy. Drinking.
- What do you think it will grow into?
- This is a way to support the body. It also needs to be replenished through communication with nature. For functioning.
- Where does the main channel come from (center of the back)?
- Through the legs. From the ground through the legs.
- While it gives me pure energy to recover.
- Aren't you annoyed by orange here?
- No, it's about fire, but about warmth, about autumn. For me, orange is about the outside world, about the autumn city, there are people, cars. There is eternal summer inside, and eternal autumn is proud.
Figure 4. 3. Collage “Back #3”
This is what transformed from those dried slabs. Like something painted on a gerbera. I didn't want to leave a hand, nothing. Like a shield with a coat of arms painted on it.
- And it reminds me of an old-fashioned dress. On a corset, embroidered. They are basically like armor. All your drawings are reminiscent of medieval, sophisticated beauty. Here we see in the neck area again a very long and closed, narrow blue area.
And if you look at the entire back with blue borders around, then the diagram is similar to the previous drawing of the neck with tears along the edges. Motive. And at the bottom of the border at the waist repeat the borders at the base of the neck in Fig. 7, there they were colored. There is a container in which there is a central part (yellow and red), an outer part and a transparent outer border.
- Now I look, the outer structure around the back looks like glass, it is invisible, but strong.
- If it is glass, then it resembles a dress on a frame in a museum under glass.
You can only watch. You can't touch. Imagine that the glass is being removed. What do you feel
- Cold, goosebumps immediately on the back and hands, on the back.
- What are you afraid of.
- This open space
- What does it carry in itself?
- There is blackness around, nothing is visible, nothing is there. There is nothing there (repeats several times)
- Can you shed your inner light on this object? Where is the center of the body? Feel now.
- In the abdomen. There is cold but bright energy.
- Remember we have a green natural energy, feel it and spread it around to the blackness. It goes out and the boundaries of the body expand around and push away the darkness, illuminates what is inside. The darkness recedes. What a feeling lives in the dark.
- Surprisingly. Safety for others. The light that illuminates the space around me. It was turning brown. Highlight people. People lie with their heads covered. The light went over them. They didn't want to get hit by it. And I didn't want them to fall under him. The light could hurt others. There is about pain for others. The light on other people came with pain for other people. When pain hits other people, they also begin to feel it.
- Whose pain?
- My pain. It is not clear where there is so much of it.
- You do not remove your protection from yourself because you contain pain there?
How poison is stored so that it does not evaporate,
- Yes, so that no one gets hurt.
- Now it looks like a bottle. With pain.
- The middle is orange. Which I don't like.
- This is a woman? Why is she standing there?
- The lady and around the peasants serfs are lying. Velvet lace-up dress with corset. The long held back emotion broke through and got everyone who is to blame and who is not to blame. They just tried to survive.
- Is this your anger?
- Accumulated anger. Rage.
- On whom?
“Someone died there. No fault. Someone was gone. It is not possible to fix it. You can't influence or fix it.
We work with the situation, conceptualize and transform this situation.
- There appeared a picture of a girl in a light dress sitting on the edge of the terrace of a wooden house. She dangles her legs and looks at all this as if from above what is happening. As if from the middle of the lady came out and she has another body, strong, tanned, healthy. The dress is very light, outlines the body, the material is like cotton, it feels good on the skin. She's absolutely safe on the terrace. But she looks at all this as if from another universe, from the edge of the forest.
I like the feeling of lightness, light dress, and the feeling of a terrace at home. He feels support, but his legs are free.
-Let's now look at the photo of your back. What do you see?
- Rounded shoulders for you about what? Excessive compliance, weakness, do not run into conflicts. The right one does not like it, it is too sloping. I like the left - it is more clearly defined.
- That is, you are strict with yourself, but you are compliant with others. Can you change It? What's going to happen? Let's investigate this while driving.
- N gets up, is naïve to walk around the room and explore her compliance within herself, imagining a situation where she gives in, avoids conflict. And then she moves on to the bodily search for other movements that show that she does not agree, like a fire, burning, enters the situation. How the body expresses its disagreement. Angularity, sharpness, perhaps. How do you feel about your opponent?
N explores different options for movement in a conflict situation, in relation to an imaginary opponent. The fire element blocks the expression of aggression, since N is too afraid to burn, harm, but the element of water, a cold waterfall, turns out to be a safe form of expression of anger both for her and for the enemy. Water is safe, it neutralizes, separates me from the enemy. I am very pleased that I found my own strategy, when anger does not accumulate inside, but is expressed at the enemy in an environmentally friendly way. We conclude that H will further explore his back and also reproduce himself in the form of a girl on the veranda.
- What does it looks like?
- I see here the firing black hole. I feel so. Below the navel is an emptiness. I tried to work it out in different methods, and techniques but so far without result. I have lived with this feeling for a long time. There is no temperature, this radiation is very energetically charged.
***
Yellow is a protective vest. Radiation is emitted from the area of the uterus. The protective vest is similar to what was already on the collage of the chest, as well as red crosses, as well as on the arm.
We are considering several drawings, since they all reflect the same phenomenon in the body, but from different angles.
Olga feels uncertain about exploring the black hole, however, she wants to finally deal with it. We do guided visualization, in which we get an additional resource, we stabilize the body and breathing. After that, we focus on the pelvic area. Olga, with her eyes closed, explores what she feels, and I ask questions.
-What are you doing for me The Black Hole?
- Protect and support.
Olga observes the black hole, thanks her for effective protection.
-How can you protect me differently, The black hole?
- Envelop it entirely.
-I love you. I accept. Show me how you can protect me differently? Olga continues her observation and dialogue.
- She likes to absorb everything and take the place in the womb.
- What do you want the most? What are you dreaming about?
- Become the universe.
- What is she afraid of?
- Find out her bottom. Now it is like Infinity.
- The Universe is also Infinity.
- Well, in it, in the Universe there are different stars, planets. And this one has nothing
- Can you invite her to create the universe? Let's create the Universe together.
- She points me to that Light, remember. She wants to devour him, but the Fire does not allow her to do this.
- Let's create a child together?
A human being is the Universe.
- This phrase came as a surprise to The Black Hole.
- Maybe this black hole yearns alone? Offer her a new life.
- To this she reacts. She has surprise and breath.
- The Black Hole agrees about the child, but she does not know where to go. The child will occupy the space that she occupies now.
- Trust her a child to care, like a second mother. Put the baby in her arms. Let her hold him, shake him, feel universal love. Love is as limitless as the Universe; it has no beginning or end. She is bottomless. Tell her that you are ready to share the most valuable thing with her.
Olga started crying.
After the word "love", it turned out that the black hole was really her, she was love. If you return it to its destination, then you do not need to remove it. She's coming back.
- What does she need for this?
“She needs protection. if she does not need to be in a state of war, then she can transform.
"I create protection" and channel the energy. Create protection around her.
I will always protect you now.
- She wants a safe land, a house (which has already appeared in our work earlier, there was The Light) and a dense forest around, which itself decides who to let in and who not. She is ready to become a nanny.
- You can imagine the child between you, the love that binds you.
“There is Trust in this space between us.
“She’s like a sister I didn’t have. Girl, teenager, 16-18 years old.
Soft, gentle, light, sincere. Very calm. It does not go, it floats. Very smooth, feminine. Host, understanding. Warmth comes from her.
On this we conclude our journey, summing up the results of the meeting. Olga says her hands are shaking a little.
- What does it look like?
- At the firing black hole. I feel so. Below the navel is a failure. There is a failure. I tried to work it out in different methods, but so far without result. I have lived with this feeling for a long time. There is no temperature, this radiation is very energetically charged.
***
Yellow is a protective vest. Radiation is emitted from the area of the uterus. The protective vest is similar to what was already on the collage of the chest, as well as red crosses, as well as on the arm.
We are considering several drawings, since they all reflect the same phenomenon in the body, but from different angles.
Olga feels uncertain about exploring the black hole, however, she wants to finally deal with it. We do directed visualization, in which we get an additional resource, we stabilize the body and breathing. After that, we focus on the pelvic area. Olga, with her eyes closed, explores what she feels, and I ask questions.
-What are you doing for me?
- Hides and supports.
Olga observes a black hole, thanks her for effective protection.
-How can you protect me differently, black hole?
- Envelop it entirely.
-I love you. I accept. Show me how you can protect me differently? Olga continues her observation and dialogue.
- She likes to absorb everything and take this place.
- What do you want the most? What is she dreaming about?
- Become the universe.
- What is he afraid of?
- What is she most afraid of?
- Find out your bottom. Now it is like Infinity.
- The Universe is also Infinity.
- Well, in it, in the Universe there are different stars, planets. And this one has nothing.
- Can you invite her to create the universe? Let's create the Universe with you?
- She points me to that Light, remember. She wants to devour him, but the Fire does not allow her to do this.
- Let's create a child together?
Man is the Universe.
- This phrase came as a surprise to her.
- Maybe this black hole yearns alone? Offer her a new life.
- To this she reacts. She has surprise and breath.
- I agree about the child, but she does not know where to go. The child will occupy the space that she occupies.
- Trust her child, like a second mother. Put the baby in her arms. Let him hold him, shake him, feel universal love. Love is as limitless as the Universe; it has no beginning or end. She is bottomless. Tell her that you are ready to share the most valuable thing with her.
Ira started crying.
After the word love, it turned out that the black hole was really her, she was love. If you return it to its destination, then you do not need to remove it. She's coming back.
- What does she need for this?
“She needs protection. if she does not need to be in a state of war, then she can transform.
"I create protection" and channel the energy. Create protection around her.
I will always protect you now.
- She wants land, a house (which has already appeared in our work, there was a light) and a dense forest around, which itself decides who to let in and who not. She is ready to become a nanny.
- You can imagine the child between you, the love that binds you.
“There is Trust in this space between us.
“She’s like a sister I didn’t have. Girl, teenager, 16-18 years old.
Soft, gentle, light, sincere. Very calm. It does not go, it floats. Very smooth, feminine. Host, understanding. Warmth comes from her.
On this we conclude our journey, summing up the results of the meeting. Olga says her hands are shaking a little.
- Wer eyes closed, explores what she feels, and I ask questions.
-What ato devoto bey, summing up the results of the meeting. Olga says her hands are shaking a little.
Olga made body ID, many small photos of different body parts. After analysys we found out that she has many light traumas. She didn’t realyse how many she relally has. She feels that like in war. War prinsiple flowing in her hole body. We work with her inner convictions.
Olga made body ID, many small photos of different body parts. After analysys we found out that she has many light traumas. She didn’t realyse how many she relally has. She feels that like in war. War prinsiple flowing in her hole body. We work with her inner convictions.
Olga made body ID, many small photos of different body parts. After analysys we found out that she has many light traumas. She didn’t realyse how many she relally has. She feels that like in war. War prinsiple flowing in her hole body. We work with her inner convictions.
Olga made body ID, many small photos of different body parts. After analysys we found out that she has many light traumas. She didn’t realyse how many she relally has. She feels that like in war. War prinsiple flowing in her hole body. We work with her inner convictions.
Olga made a few self portrait in a mirror. First again look like warrior. She drawing again and try to feel fer feminine part. She realyse that she is very shy and try to hide her uniqness. And the last one on the picture you can see with colored hair. It’s metaphor in which she feels her uniqness, beauty, femininity, creativity and now she brave to show herself to the world.
Olga made a few self portrait in a mirror. First again look like warrior. She drawing again and try to feel fer feminine part. She realyse that she is very shy and try to hide her uniqness. And the last one on the picture you can see with colored hair. It’s metaphor in which she feels her uniqness, beauty, femininity, creativity and now she brave to show herself to the world.
Integration of all part inbetween of the body-land.
Olga made full-size self-portrait and collect on it all drawings and photos, all information which we get in session. And here you can see her perfect body image on that moment as she feels herself in peace with her inner self and world around her.
Also she changed her collage. You can compare picture 1 and this. She guarded by her man, she close to her nature, open and come to the fire where gothered her ancestors. Who also guerded her and take her in their close circle. In that forest also placed the house where live the Girl in white (Black Hole) and the small twinkle.
Integration of all part inbetween of the body-land.
Olga made full-size self-portrait and collect on it all drawings and photos, all information which we get in session. And here you can see her perfect body image on that moment as she feels herself in peace with her inner self and world around her.
Also she changed her collage. You can compare picture 1 and this. She guarded by her man, she close to her nature, open and come to the fire where gothered her ancestors. Who also guerded her and take her in their close circle. In that forest also placed the house where live the Girl in white (Black Hole) and the small twinkle.