Spontaneous Drawing For Understanding

By Bernie Siegel MD

As a surgeon I was not made aware, by my training, of the many uses of spontaneous drawings and dreams, as psychotherapists are. What I am about to share stems not from my beliefs but from my experience and my work with patients and their families. I have always been an artist and a visual person. In 1977 I attended a workshop presented by Dr. Carl Simonton and in 1979 one presented Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. The former led to my first experience with guided imagery and the latter with a spontaneous drawing. Both revealed incredible insights and information about my life, and so I became a believer and returned to my practice, where a box of crayons became one of my therapeutic tools. I was also quite angry about what is not routinely taught in medical school, about the significance of dreams and drawings as they relate to somatic, as well as, psychological factors.

Click to read more ...