rhythm, repetition, unplanning
Bilateral drawing uses both hands to make marks.
Slow lines
rhythmic loops
Lines that feel good.
As I’ve been diving back into guided drawing through training with the Institute for Sensorimotor Art Therapy, I still remember the feeling of first reading the introduction to Cornelia Elbrecht’s book, Healing Trauma with Guided Drawing and my excitement around these giant line drawings made with both hands at the same time.
It’s the kind of expressive arts practice I love — about the process not the outcome. It can be imagined as a two handed version of scribbling or doodling. Relaxing and self-regulating.
Later I learned more about guided drawing and bilateral drawing through training in expressive arts therapy with Cathy Malchiodi, who writes a bit about it’s history here and it’s potential in supporting trauma work. Like Elbrecht she finds it a body-focused way to shift attention and support a feeling of self-empowerment and regulation.
Bilateral drawing focuses on the importance of the body and movement, rhythm, repetition, breath, (and stretching!) in the therapeutic environment. It’s also about play with materials and materiality in the world. In making lines, lines that go nowhere, that are curvy and incomplete.
Lines with a story or no story.
It may be a focus on the soothing feeling of rhythm, repetition and pattern…. playful and a place to notice what arises when space is made for hands on paper. It could be a way to safely externalize inside felt sensation or emotion, or to explore an impulse to move a particular way. It may be all of these over a session.
