How to overcome infertility by connecting with your body and emotions
Case study / 2020
Shared with the client’s consent
Art Therapist Marka Kondrateva.
Duration: 2 sessions per week, online, individual format — 10 sessions total.
Session length: 2 hours.
Session length: 2 hours.
The process combines guided sessions with client's self-practice, including:
- Creating photographs, drawings, and collages
- Keeping a personal journal called "Landscapes of the Body"
- Regularly listening to guided visualizations (meditations) before creating artwork — these include body scans and their modifications for different somatic areas.
Our goals
The effect of the work is cumulative.
- Development of interoception and proprioception.
Body awareness. - Processing suppressed emotions and somatic memory.
- Unravel protective layers and shift from defense to openness.
Client: Olga, 35 years old.
An expert in public procurement — intelligent, goal-oriented, and highly motivated. In her second marriage. She had never been pregnant. Her gynecologist recommended a fallopian tube examination and, potentially, IVF.
The pandemic accelerated changes in her life. Olga expressed her desire to have a child during our first session on June 9, 2020. Natural conception occurred in September 2020.
The pandemic accelerated changes in her life. Olga expressed her desire to have a child during our first session on June 9, 2020. Natural conception occurred in September 2020.
Psychological infertility as a form of self-protection
A holistic, phenomenological approach to healing and resolving inner conflict.
Body photography serves as a vital element, opening a portal into the deep caves of the body’s memory, access to which is often blocked by verbal channels and analytical thinking.
I want to emphasize the unique potential of photography in trauma work. Self-confrontation allows the client to activate body memories and communicate through imagery and sensory channels.
Hidden information emerges in symbolic form, facilitating work with emotions and repressed material. This process helps to recognize, accept, transform, and discover a new, healthy, and sustainable path to a joyful life.
I want to emphasize the unique potential of photography in trauma work. Self-confrontation allows the client to activate body memories and communicate through imagery and sensory channels.
Hidden information emerges in symbolic form, facilitating work with emotions and repressed material. This process helps to recognize, accept, transform, and discover a new, healthy, and sustainable path to a joyful life.
In one session, I combine:
- Guided visualizations
- Body photography
- Drawing & Painting
The "Body Landscapes" program not only addresses a specific issue or symptom that a person comes with, but also helps cultivate a more harmonious and healthy perception of life.
This approach works beautifully online, as it encourages the client to take an active role in their own healing process.
This approach works beautifully online, as it encourages the client to take an active role in their own healing process.
The client learns to translate the symbolic language of the body into a meaningful life context.
This provides a lifelong tool for self-regulation.
This provides a lifelong tool for self-regulation.
- Increases self-awareness
- Strengthens self-trust
- Activates proactivity in all areas of life
- Reinforces a sense of responsibility for one’s own life
- Helps to experience the present moment more deeply
Attention is focused on the physical experience and underlying processes. Long-term therapy provides deep and lasting results.
All 10 sessions are interconnected and guide the client toward a sense of wholeness and readiness to become a mother and welcome a new soul into the world.
- Client’s self-photography of their body
- Guided visualizations for exploring somatic space in each session, meditations, shamanic journeys, and ancestral work
- Daily practice of mindful movement and noticing bodily sensations
- Creating drawings based on somatic symptoms and inner images evoked by photos
- Drawing with eyes closed, using bilateral and gestural techniques
- Creating a self-portrait by observing your reflection in the mirror
Therapy Groups Online
An exploration of the reproductive system and female identity — from menarche to menopause.
