Glass Half Full: Leisure Exploration and Creativity with Veterans

For my latest assignment, I was to listen to my choice of podcast. Since I have previously stated that I might want to work with veterans I listened to the Leisure Exploration and Creativity with Veterans. It was interesting hear from a person that has been through the process. The soldier, Rusty, had sustained multiple head injuries while he was overseas and hearing him reflect on his time in therapy was an eye opener. He mentioned a couple of times about how the navy seals or any military branch retrains the human brain to think of a whole team and not individual. His therapist used art therapy to help him recover and that during this time he also needed to deactivate his training mindset back to his own mindset. Art therapy was a group therapy layout instead of one on one, so the clients have other soldiers to talk to and relate to during the process. He used wood working as his medium of art. He said that he liked that if he was dealing with something he wouldn't necessarily have to verbally talk about it to get through it, but worked though emotions physically with his creative output in woodwork.

He pointed out that art therapy is typically a female approach being others automatically assume that they will be painting or crafting a bracelet. He stated that a therapist should be more direct when pitching this idea to clients instead of beating around the bush. Someone might oppose this method because they have been on the forefront of battle and feel that art therapy isn't "masculine" enough for their outlet. In reality being able to tap into emotional hardship and turn it into art is masculine and that's what therapists should focus on. Rusty pointed out that the veterans don't want to feel like they are seen as weak. A way for therapists to handle this would be to not pity them, treat the veterans/soldiers like an average everyday human.



Rusty has his own website for people to visit so they can purchase the art created by veterans, his website is https://www.warpaints.org.

Plach, H. L. and Haertlein Sells, C. (2013). Occupational performance needs of young veterans. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 67: 73-81

VA Suicide Prevention Program (July 2016). Facts about veteran suicide. Retrieved from https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/Suicide_Prevention_FactSheet_New_VA_Stats_070616_1400.pdf