Compiling an Expressive Art Therapy Package Based on Mandala Pattern of Reducing Loneliness Feeling

The process of artistic work creation is an experience that leads to human growth and awareness and thus can be considered as a bridge between internal and external experiences of a person who has a therapeutic basis. Art and its connection with the mandala can serve as a bridge of communication with the inner person and help the person through its relaxing state. The mandala can calm the emotions and therefore helps the person to express him/herself deeply and because it is inherently healing, it can be a good medium for communicate with the inside of the person and his/her suppressed feelings, emotions, excitement and repair and to tackle any interfering and vicious cause.
  The aim of the present article is to compile an expressive art therapy package based on the mandala pattern and to achieve that, it uses the exploratory research method and approach of expressive art therapy, and uses different types of art, that has been used in this article for reducing loneliness feeling.
   Expressive art therapy has been linked to the traditions and cultural precedents of world healing practices because they frequently involve the integration of all the arts. Expressive therapy has been defined as using the arts and their products to foster awareness, encourage emotional growth and to enhance relationships with others through access to imagination; including arts as therapy, arts psychotherapy, and the use of arts for traditional healing; and emphasizing the interrelatedness of the arts in therapy.
  About how to compile this package it should be said that first, after examining the consequences of feeling loneliness, fear, sadness, anger, depression, having experience of anxiety and stress, etc. it has been tried to combine the therapeutic feature of art and the adopted art therapy method using expressive art therapy, that used of various art forms such as painting, collage, pottery, music, etc. The implementation of this package in the form of mandala pattern with expressive art therapy approach (which is based on imagination and creativity) was considered to improve the above (loneliness feeling) consequences.
  The therapeutic property of the mandala was used as a symbol of self to provide a basis for projecting unconscious mechanisms in symbolic relationships and balance of personality and concentration for the individual. Mandala, which is the best tool for concentration, meditation and mindfulness, as a therapeutic tool can provide insight and awareness, like dream analysis; it also shows the order that so-called imposes itself on psychological chaos. Because in mandala, a person has the opportunity to be creative and can use all of his/her personality and discover him/herself. Finally, mandala causes concentration and relief from stress and anxiety, emptying and refining the mind and calming the person, and helps to empty the mind and its projection, as well as the connection between the unconscious and the conscious in people and with these features, its application in the mentioned package can help the factors and negative consequences of loneliness feeling. In each program, an attempt was made to consider art programs with a variety of types, with the aim of improving the feeling of loneliness and in line with the therapeutic properties of mandala in order to eliminate one of the consequences of loneliness feeling and to be integrated and arranged with the method and approach of art therapy.
Finally, with using and combining therapeutic nature of mandala patterns and expressive art therapy, for reducing loneliness feeling, 14 diverse art therapy plans (any plan in one session) was compiled.
 As a result, the answer to the research question on how to compile this treatment package and its description will be determined, and to clarify it, three of the schedules will be described:
  For example, the plan of the second session, that was called “My Inner World” and its aim was “mental projection”, which has been compiled based on: First, drawing in circle form; because, an important feature of the mandala is helping to empty and project the mind and it is effective in overcoming stress and anxiety (which is a consequence of loneliness feeling). Secondly, due to the simultaneous use of several types of art in the expressive art therapy method, painting in the form of Doodle Art style was used. Because in addition to the expressive and projective nature of color in the release the emotions, the art of doodling as an unconscious stimulus, can be effective in mental cohesion and inner concentration and can subconsciously integrate the scattered elements in the subconscious, which can cause mental fragmentation, with complementary movements on paper, and reduce the scattering of the art work and its internal stimuli and mental associations. This schedule was also done with the method of self-expression in the happy process of inner discovery based on creativity and imagination (which is characteristic of the expressive art therapy approach) and so the rest of the sessions were done in the same way.
  The third session, entitled "Me and the Other", was compiled with the aim of increasing communication with the other, overcoming feelings of sadness and anger, and throwing internal issues out and creating self-awareness gained from internal dialogue, and was implemented through the artistic media of painting. In collage and the quilling art, members were first asked to draw a circle and then use their personal photos and magazine photos to think about their relationship and position with others.
  The twelfth session was entitled "Creating A Group Mandala" which was created by group interaction programs jointly and improving relationships, creating peace and relief from anxiety and overcoming shyness and withdrawal. Painting media was used alone. Creating a group mandala required a large size of circle  that how to measure it and the layer-by-layer divisions of the inner circle of the mandala were done with the concurrence of the subjects themselves and to draw the mandala, they started from the central point of the mandala, the "Common Starting Point" to its end.
  In this research, the person who creates and colors the mandala, talks to him/herself; it means that he/she has an inner discourse with him/her. Mandala coloring can subconsciously improve and regulate the inner discourse by creating awareness; therefore, at this stage, the person has become aware of him/herself of these discourses and gained a clear understanding of the positive and negative aspects of these inner discourses. As a result, the therapeutic properties of mandala can be effective in reducing the consequences of loneliness feeling. Expressive art therapy is also, due to the method of spontaneous self- expression and the variety of art models that can be used in this method and approach, provide different methods for individual expression that can reduce fear and low risk and extreme introversion (consequences of loneliness feeling).
  The present study was only about how to compile a mandala-based art therapy package with an art therapy approach to improve the loneliness feeling.
  For a case study, it was performed on an experimental group of 10 orphan female teenagers aged 12 to 18 years in Isfahan which according to the statistical results of the relevant test (LACA: Loneliness & Aloneness Scale for Children & Adolescents Questionnaire) before and after the sessions and compared with the control group showed that it has been effective.