Skeletons: The Story of a Young Therapy Client and SoulCollage®

Michaela is a tall, very bright, and very beautiful 16 year-old African-American who is being treated in individual therapy. She was uncomfortable talking in therapy so her therapist utilized non-verbal types of therapy with her. One was SoulCollage. This provided Michaela with a way of expressing her feelings in a safe, supportive environment which respected her way of communicating.

Michaela has been doing this process in therapy for about nine months. She does her “readings” by writing out the words for the “I Am the One Who…” exercise, and she journals her question and reflects on the card’s response. She then shares these writings with her therapist. Since engaging in this process she has begun to use healthier means of coping with her stress.

Michaela is a gifted student and poet. Sometimes she writes poems about her cards, and here is one along with the card she is writing about:

Skeletons by Michaela, 2007
 
The bones were buried deep below
covered by centuries of dirt
I discovered them not long ago
during my search for intriguing mystery.
I dug as deep as I could, hours on end,
and barely scratched the surface.
They had been hiding.
Much work was to be done in order to lay the skeletons all out on the table;
Much pain was endured during the devious hours I pursued those bones.
It was strange how bruises were still present,
Pain was still visible in the fleshless faces.
Some were intact, others scattered about;
The journey to put the pieces together was a long and fearful one;
My sense of humanity was demolished after seeing those decayed bodies
and lifeless structures.
I was no different.
The bones were my secrets undiscovered;
The pain was my memories, still visible through the years.
I began to dig into myself;
My soul, too, was covered by centuries of dirt
which had settled there long before I came into existence.
I related to the cold ones, the lonely,
the corpses of the children deprived of a childhood,
and the adults who died living a life much longer than desired.
I looked into myself for many days
until I, once more, barely began to scratch the surface;
I did not give up, though pain and fear and a sense of loss overwhelmed me.
I finally reached the bottom and laid all my bones out on the table.
My body released a feeling of relaxation
and a weight was lifted.
My search for mystery become the discovery of myself.
I walked away with the joy of accomplishment;
I had finally set my skeletons free.