Although I've been practicing Art Therapy for the last 25 years, and have been a practicing artist even longer, I still struggle with a definition that captures the depth of experiences this field has offered to me and to my clients. I have used art therapy with adolescent sex offenders that seem to never internalize how harmful their acts have been for their victims, middle school students with their hearts fully broken by the death of a mother, adult gang members lending the voice of authority to prevent their younger counterparts from living the life, adult clients I would have enjoyed sharing a glass of wine with on a quiet evening, teen mothers who cuddle their babies with more care than apology, and Girl Scouts, of all ages, who anticipate seeing their incarcerated mothers once a month, and hopefully, back home once again for a lifetime.
I have treated every life problem with full faith in the human spirit to recover balance, and I have done so by using art - image making through collage, murals, sculpture, words, poetry, paint, torn scraps of paper, items found in the trash, bought in a thrift store, culled from friends and friends of friends.
Clients have thrown ceramic pots off rooftops to release anger, shredded images of their abusers into tiny fragments that are flushed down the toilet, and set fire to destroy what has destroyed them. They have danced in mask, tied their wrist together in brotherly love, beat on drums, written rap songs, and shouted original slogans in the streets promoting an end to violence against women. They have exhibited their works, not once, but many times, telling the larger, more universal story of what it means to be alive. They have lent their voices to a touring exhibition of sculptural dresses that depict the pain of sexual assault. They have added their voices to several published anthologies that explored the joys and challenges of being a teen mother. They have been recorded, and have recorded, footage of their lives, and the lives of their mothers behind bars, resulting in a PBS documentary. 
Three years ago, the agency I was working with, began a telephone counseling program. It was designed to serve woman who were unable to come to our facility for face-to-face sessions. Some were without transportation. Some had been recently raped and were too fragile to face the outside world. Others had been triggered, and were re-experiencing a trauma. Most were single moms, busy with juggling several jobs and several children. When I was invited to join this section of our counseling services, I was excited by the possibilities and scared witless. As an art therapist, I was visually dependent upon visual cues and processes to help me see my clients. Now, with only the energy of a voice, I was certain I would feel blind, as there was no visual cues of any kind - no face to face, and no art. I was filled with anxiety. Would I be able to serve as the constant for these new clients, or had art making become a crutch used to contain the stronger emotions of a client's story? 
It took just a few weeks of sessions, when I realized that online and phone counseling offered many more advantages than simple convenience and lower session cost. My clients were using visuals throughout their sessions. They described their physical surroundings, sometimes unintentionally, as when they had to interrupt me in order to pay a grocery clerk. Each client knew exactly what I looked like, and would describe not my physical appearance, but their projection of who they needed me to be. I responded in kind. I could clearly see the business of the check-out line, and asked, "After all you have been through, don't you deserve an hour to be in a sacred space?"The Broad
Benné Rockett
MMFT, MAT, AT-R
MMFT, MAT, AT-R
IMAGE CREDITS
1 - Produced during an Opening Closed Doors workshop with institutionalized teen mothers.
2 - Tamara Reynolds©, from an Opening Closed Doors exhibition, Giving Voice & Vision, produced during an internship with Hospice Austin’s Christopher House.
3 - Virginia Fleck ©, from an Opening Closed Doors exhibition, Wish House, produced during an internship with women and their children in a homeless shelter.
4 - Produced for an exhibition co-sponsored by Opening Closed Doors and Arte Santa for International Women's Day.
5 - Opening Closed Doors photography workshop for young adults offenders participating in Travis County Project Spotlight.
6 - Opening Closed Doors sculpture workshop with adolescent females in a juvenile justice facility.
