The Power of Silence: How Silence Nourishes and Enhances First Aid Art Therapy

The other day I listened to a small part of a presentation given by the Brazilian Jungian Psychoanalyst, Marcus Quintaes. In this fragment he mentions that the silence of the psychoanalyst forces the patient to talk about his pain. This reminded me of my experience as a humanitarian worker in immigrant and refugee camps, as I have mentioned before, how many of these people came to the spaces to look for an artistic activity to do, painting being the most requested. There is a deep need in the person that makes him look for that which can help him find his identity again, but above all to face and calm the pain he is going through. But there is something that this search brings with it, and it is silence, which must be respected by the art therapist, because only then, at the end of the work, is the person ready to share his process, if he so wishes. This verbal rest becomes a support so that this process can continue to occur with the freedom and spontaneity in which it arises. Words are replaced by a new language, that of images, which when completed and observed mitigate the suffering that immigrants or asylum seekers go through during the odyssey they go through to reach their final destination. Silence, which arises from the hustle and bustle of human beings in suffering and which manifests itself through the creative process, when it has been correctly respected, is a container, a companion and a guide. In these years of humanitarian work I have learned that the best ally to be able to understand and respect this verbal rest is the humility to remain silent, because it is about listening and accompanying people in their pain, and it must be clear that in this context you will not be able to solve the main problem that afflicts an immigrant in a camp, but you can offer them your silence to listen to them whatever way they wish to express themselves.