Gaining Placement as a Transpersonal Art Therapy Student
I hear from a lot of Art Therapt students that they just want to get the placement hours over and done with and get qualified. This makes me feel sadness. I always say to them “You will long for the time when you were a student.”
And its true; there really is no rush to get to the ‘end’ of your study without getting the most out of it. In fact, taking your time to thoughtfully consider where and how you’d like to work in the future will help guide you in securing placement that naturally leads you into the early phase of your career as Transpersonal Art Therapist. And yes it can be hard to know where to start looking, so in this blog I will address some of the most common issues reported to me by students and some ideas of how to move through them.
Let’s start off acknowledging that unlike univeristy students who are often put into placements; CCM Transpersonal Art Therapy students have to seek and secure our own placements. This can be quite challenging; particulary nowadays with restrictions of employment due pandemic.
However, if we reframe this challenge and look it from another perspective researching and choosing our own placement means we have more choice and control over who and where we work - which is super important as part of client centered approach principles is having alignment of our values in regards to who we choose to work with.
I am approached by TAT students for advice and their issue usually boils down to two issues:
I don’t know what I want to do and I’m not sure how to figure that out.
I don’t know how to find placements.
I had both of these issues myself when I was a student. So let me unpack both of these issues and share what worked for me.
I don’t know what I want to do and I’m not sure how to figure that out…
Let’s cut the chase here. If you don’t know what you want to do you may being having stuckness or blocks in your vision. This usually boils down to a lack of self confidence or fear of failure (or as I like to call it: fear of dreaming big).
First off, you are not alone. This is such a common issues among Art Therapy students across the globe and surely not limited only to the field of art therapy. This ties into imposter syndrome and if you want to know more about that Kellies Miles from Transpersonal Soul Space has provided a wonderful resources that breaks it down below:
I too was very nervous Art Therapy student when I entered into the stage of seeking placement. I was so focused on getting everything right and thinking I had to know everything that I was missing the whole point of being a student - to learn! You do not have to know everything, in fact I would say it’s better you know not a lot otherwise you are working with preconceived notions which are often incorrect. All you really need to be is be curious, a good listener and attend when you are required to. If you’ve been diligent in your study then you are more then ready to start deepening your understanding of the work through placement.
Still stuck, try this: Write a Reverse Bucket List
If you are still feeling the fear I offer you this task. Write a reverse bucket list. Write down everything you have ever done in your life. No memorable event is too small to list, so really take your time to go through each year of your life and map out how you can to be here today.
Once you have completed your list read it back to yourself. I wonder if you will still feel like don’t know anything or that you have no valuable experiences to draw on? You might even start to see themes popping up in your history of particular clients groups you are naturally drawn to work with.
This certainly helped me with building courage during my placements. I reminded myself that placement would just another thing to add to my list that I would look back on one day and think ‘wow, look how far I’ve come.’
Top Tip!
Writing down our achievments and struggles can really help us to acknowledge how much we continue to change and grow without even realising it.
Still feeling the fear:
Feel the fear and do it anyway because everything you want is on the otherside of fear; including stepping into your practitioner role. This was something I had to learn the hard way. I remember feeling physically ill leading up to, during and after running workshops. I was so focused on getting everything ‘right’ that I worked myself into a right old cloud of anxiety! It made it very hard for me to be present.
One of the things that helped me was regular supervision before and after my workshop. My supervision stuck with me and my anxiety and helped me unpack and fact check my experiences. The best piece of advice my supervisor gave me for when I am feeling overwhelmed was to try to concentrate of the experience of those attending the workshop, rather than my inner experience eg. How can I be of service to this person? What does this person need right now? In others words, it’s not about you, it’s about your clients experience!
Top Tip!
Find a supervision while you are student and start attending regular supervision.
I don’t know how to find placements
This issue can relate to the first issue of not having a clear idea of your pathway forward or it can simply be that perhaps you are someone who is struggling to find a structured way to go about reasearching and applying for placements. I’ll unpack this issue by way of a case study. I recently worked with student who was feeling overwhelmed with how to find placement and didn’t know where to start or even who they wanted to work with. So I asked them the following questions to help tease out their issue:
Imagine you are an Art Therapist one year from now. Where would you be working? e.g. within an organisation, sessions online, a private clinic room.
In this vision, who would you be working with? e.g. who is your ideal client (children, woman, aged care…)
What is your big BIG dream in life?
These questions helped this student figure out that they were actually wanted to try working with children and I promptly told them to google local child care centres in their area and to call or email to ask about placement. The next time I saw them they had secured placement at a early learning center.
So this example shows how getting clear on the details will help you know where focus.
And why not try it out yourself? Answer the 3 questions above and see what answer arrive for you. And if you are still stuck you can book a one-to-one session with me and I’ll help you tease out your new pathway.
To wrap up; sometimes fear of failure and not know how to clarify your vision can get in the way of taking action to gaining placement.
Let me know if you found this information useful and if you still feel stuck reach out to me and book a one-to-one session for mentoring.
