Dante Barfield: TCNJ Clinic
Last semester I was able to start off my interviews with a graduate student here at The College of New Jersey. Dante was able to gain an MA Internship here at the Clinic and practice his counseling services; he is Graduating this coming May 2016.
K: Okay, so to start would you like to introduce yourself?
D: My name is Dante Barfield and I am a Graduate student here at The College of New Jersey. I am specializing in counseling for Marriage, Families and Couples. I am twenty-seven years old and I have had a long track of education. I transferred a lot during undergrad; I even went to Law School but I dropped out and here I am.
K: What is your experience when it comes to art therapy?
D: My experience with art therapy started out in Art School. I actually started out in Art school in 2006 as an art student. I then switched my career path to psychology but in that time, I kept art as a hobby. And now in my graduate course work, I now brought my art hobby to therapy. I now have introduced art therapy in numerous occasions, mostly with kids but also with adults and couples.
K: What is your definition of art therapy?
D: My definition of art therapy is to simply say, art is feeling. There is something about putting pictures and colors and lines on paper that seems to express how a person feels in a way that words cannot. And when you have the ability to put a piece of paper in front of somebody, and allow that person to express themselves, feelings and emotions come out and that is therapy.
K: How is art therapy used? In what conditions would you use art therapy?
D: It's definitely ones of those techniques that has to be chosen for your audience; it can't just be thrown out to anybody. You can't just say, "Oh I have a four year old in session, let me use some art therapy". No, it doesn't work that way. I utilize it to bring out emotion in people. Mostly young boys...young men, ages two to fourteen, have a hard time expressing themselves. So, the ability to give them a piece of paper and some colors, allows them to then say, "What does sad feel like to you?". They may pick up a blue crayon, draw a circle and color it in really dark and that is what sad means to them. You get an idea of what it looks like because they don't have the ability to verbalize that.
K: How can art therapy help in ways that traditional therapy cannot help?
D: Traditional therapy, you think of a room, a couch and an old guy sitting next to you, asking you questions; and that is traditional. That's kinda what you think, you go to a place, you sit down, you talk and you leave. Sometimes talking isn't enough. The old way of doing things is great but as people advance and as the world advances, we can now utilize all of the creative ideas that education and schooling and culture has brought to us. To be able to use art therapy in a room, and even if you say you can't, it is something that everybody can utilize. Anybody can pick up a piece of paper and a crayon and start drawing. You may not be the best artist but anybody can draw.
K: Do you believe that tattooing can be a form of art therapy?
D: It all depends on maybe the process in which you do it. Most tattoos have meanings and the meanings behind those tattoos and as you're receiving it can be therapeutic. And also for the tattooer; it can also be therapeutic to sit with that person who's maybe getting a portrait of their mother who passed away a few years ago. Having that tattoo placed on that person, at the present time, it's just you and that tattoo artist, it's very small and very intimate. So yes, in a way, that is therapy. You're receiving a product, that then entails, changes your emotional output. It's not about feeling better, it's about changing your emotions and getting a tattoo can definitely, definitely be called art therapy.
K: Would you ever prescribe a patient to get a tattoo?
D: I wouldn't prescribe a tattoo, what I would do is, say a client comes in and says, "I've been thinking about getting a tattoo". I would like to uncover what that tattoo person means to that person. Why are you getting the tattoo? What is the meaning behind it? Are you doing it to rebel? Are you doing it to show, to be flashy? To understand what that tattoo means to that person. And if a person comes to me, and I then uncover that it means a lot, then yeah, I would suggest that if they want , get the tattoo. I am not going to say yes or no but if that is what you want to do and if that is what's going to make you feel better, then by all means. But I am not going to tell a fourteen year old, who wants to rebel against his parents and wants a skull tattoo on his forearm to show it, no. There are better ways to show emotion that way. What doesn't make any sense is a fourteen year old or a grown man who wants to get a tattoo of an angry scene and now they are stuck with this angry tattoo that they didn't mean to get. How about I show you a different way to express that emotion instead of getting a tattoo. So it's all depending on the situation.
K: This was great, you answered all my questions.
D: Yeah it was great, I wanted to be well prepared.
K: Thank you again Dante.