See album
ARTON PROGRAM - The therapeutic power of the group
Creative projects involving group work - general musical performance or group painting, collage, sculpture - are useful in helping to explore and strengthen social...
Being with "my children" makes me the happiest person in the world
We celebrate the birthday of the art therapist under the ARTON Program
at the Clinic of Pediatric Oncohematology in Plovdiv - Ivelina Petrova
It is warm outside, the sun is scorching and heating the benches in the hospital park. The green crowns of the trees and the freshly trimmed lawns surrounding the alleys catch the eye of anyone watching them from the inside, from the hospital room or the ward terrace. It is somehow strangely quiet and peaceful around, whether because it is Sunday or because the magic happens today not outside in the wonderful garden, but inside the hospital. In the art hall of the Children's Clinic of Oncohematology at the University Hospital in Plovdiv. The only art therapy program for Bulgaria for children with severe diseases has been held here for so many years.
The ARTON Program of the ARTON Bulgaria Foundation was created by a team of oncopsychologists, program coordinator and art therapists, who in 2009 slowly and with great faith began to prepare a strategy, professional expertise, formation and training of teams and launch a hospital program. art therapy for children with oncological diseases in the clinics of pediatric oncohematology in Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna. The team of the Foundation also organizes annual certification seminars in the field of art therapy and child psychology, in which during the lecture part and exciting practical exercises all participants - the creators of the ARTON Program - develop skills and practices, which they then apply in their art sessions. in clinics.
For every family who crosses the threshold of one of the three clinics and faces the biggest challenge in their lives, the message of the importance and strength of children's emotional health and their need to feel calm and secure during the ordeal remains forever.
Regardless of the difficulties he struggles with, every little patient feels with his fingertips, with trembling in the air, with the aroma of paints floating down the corridor - that the time has come and Beauty has settled in the art hall again. She comes to the clinic with her many colorful faces - with colorful decorative elements, bright pencils, colorful rubber sheets, piles of glue, beads, paints. The beauty saturates the room and looks at the already finished works of the children decorated on the walls, winks at the canvases for painting and entices with the smile of kaka Iva or officially Ivelina Petrova - the artist - art therapist under the ARTON Program at the Pediatric Oncohematology Clinic in Plovdiv . Graduate of the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts - Plovdiv with a degree in icon painting and iconography, passed the certification training in psychology and art therapy of the ARTON Bulgaria Foundation, artist with her own creative career, Ivelina Petrova weekly, without interruption and in the most difficult days of the pandemic, takes time and conveys the atmosphere, euphoria, love and light - his own and that of his art - among sick children. In conducting the ARTON Program Ivelina Petrova applies all those special and not always visible to the naked eye techniques to develop children's creativity as a process of self-knowledge and the opportunity for each young patient to see through a mirror their nature, their place in life and their role in own healing. In her sessions, she does not necessarily look for the achievement of the final specific product or work, but always relies on the happiness of the child patients and their inspiration. Thus, using the golden rules of art therapy, it helps children to allow themselves to think "outside the form" of the concrete, to develop their imagination, their ability to wonder and rejoice, to be open and spontaneous.
Art therapy sessions have been a proven successful method for years to combat stress during long hospital treatment, physical fatigue and mental stress, they facilitate children's communication, provide a good emotional climate and encourage activity and whirlwind of their imagination. An experience of severe stress, such as diagnosis and aggressive treatment with a long hospital stay, is marked by many limitations for each patient. In this difficult situation, the training of the art therapist is key and Ivelina finds a variety of individual approaches depending on the personal condition of each to support the expression, trying not only to understand the children, but also to give them opportunities for feedback. Sharing thoughts together, discussing, dreaming, the small group of artists led by Kaka Iva connects with an invisible thread that makes their relationship not only therapeutic but also deeply friendly. Each session in the abundance of proposed creative projects brings patients a spontaneous method of depicting hidden, sometimes unspoken thoughts and experiences. With flair and knowledge, Ivelina provokes children to take risks with the materials, to play with their imagination, to experiment with colors and design. Because taking creative risks can be the first delicate step towards opening children up in other areas of their lives. Encouraged by the art therapist to explore the mixing of color palettes, to be bold in the use of different textures, to be bold in the search and creation of new projects, children imperceptibly become bold in other experiences in their daily lives, often challenging even for an adult.
Presented in this way, creativity becomes a special kind of game, which in therapy is called "ritual", but in fact gives expression to children through art to have fun, to recreate their crazy ideas and thus to build as individuals, to relax and recover from past hard days.
In her work during the hospital sessions in art therapy Ivelina Petrova applies the creative game to support children in a special kind of learning through experience. And not everyone needs to know these terms to understand that the effect of experiencing art sessions for children is always both restorative and cognitive. We observe it in the change of emotions, moods and intonation of all children participating in the sessions, in the elevated mood after the end of the lesson, in the learned new skills and experience. Without realizing it, the process of coping with the creative task becomes for the patients a "training" to deal with the limitations in the hospital, with various challenges during the treatment. Working with limitations and ultimately achieving a "magical" result in creativity give children answers and solutions to their real situations, open new ways for them to feel good and positive.
Each art session of the ARTON Program is always an active process of communication in which, in addition to open conversations between the participants, Ivelina secretly relies on "speaking", the messages of the works themselves. Each children's creation suggests many, endless and different insights and only this one. who traces the process of creation, the child's effort, patience and attention to detail and ultimately - his love for his own work, can find invaluable answers to the state of the child's soul. takes place between the child, the people around and the finished work he creates, Ivelina bases her work on her training in the fields of child psychology and art therapeutic expression in the seminars of the ARTON Bulgaria Foundation. direct witnesses of how children freely and dynamically exchange thoughts, experiences, impressions and skills. among themselves, they share them with Kaka Iva, pass them on to their parents, give their creative messages to the medical team that treats them. And so they wink at anyone who has the senses to perceive that what happens in art sessions is good and healing.
In the imaginary space created during these sessions, in the creative confusion and general enthusiasm, everything that happens and is created is in the field of surprising, unpredictable unexpectedness, but still has its invisible logic. Between the imaginary world of creativity and the real world of the hospital and the battle with disease, Ivelina Petrova's hidden role is to apply methods to support children to connect these two worlds, the two experiences, so that each little character can find his personal, internal pathways for change, clarification, insight, understanding of what is happening and thus reduce the feeling of trauma.
The leading art therapeutic principle, which works in full force in the art sessions of the ARTON Program "Less is more", reminds us that usually the limitations (situational - as a hospital setting, physical - as a disease) in creativity can lead to many discoveries. for the patient to help him heal.
It was dark outside, the day had said goodbye and left room for the night. The park is in ink blue, and inside the art hall is dazzling and the session is in full swing. It is as if the course of time does not matter and the world has obediently taken a step back - two steps back to let the little artists work. The simultaneous effort to keep the focus of all children in the diverse creative group and to follow the individual initiative of each individual is a real challenge, but Ivelina Petrova manages with tact, attention, generous doses of humor and a lot of support to unite everyone in creativity and ultimately in a truly magical experience. So together, dizzy from the magical money of creativity, dissolved paints and the heated silicone gun, the children, like Iva, mothers who joined the session, forget to measure the clock. The process becomes truly healing and cathartic for anyone who touches it - both direct participants and observers - because the explosion of creative energy and children's joy suppresses all tension and fatigue.
Each child is an invaluable individual, a world of colorful feelings, hidden experiences, hidden feelings or ostentatious preferences. And with a lot of tact and respect for these personal characteristics, with attention to difficulties and bold encouragement of opportunities, Ivelina Petrova - Iva's favorite poop - leads the characters through the depths of this not always easy life, variegated their days with colorful mood, courage and inspiration. . He brings them bags full of love, which he leaves with them every time, floods them with his light and leaves them in a serene and radiant mood, and so on until the next time. When they are together again, they will create again, but they will also talk, they will compete to invent topics, to discover new magical worlds, to defeat hidden demons and powerless enemies.
