Rebecca Meinke, MD: CAPS
Rebecca Meinke works as a Psychiatrist at the Counseling and Psychological Services in Eickhoff Hall. Dr. Meinke joined the CAPS team in 2015 and has been able to help many students on campus. I was able to get some time with her to get her opinion on the topics of therapy and tattoos.
K: To start off, we can talk about how you got started in your field, why you wanted to be a psychiatrist, where you studied and how long you've been doing this.
R: I am Rebecca Meinke and I am a Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychiatrist. I went to Medical School in Newark at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician because I wanted to work with kids but as I started to take my psychiatry courses, I just totally fell in love with it. I love to talk with people, I love to learn about people and it's the one field of medicine where we are allowed to do that still and have a little more time to spend with patients. That's how it got me started into this field and I graduated ten years ago from medical school.
K: That's awesome. Why don't you give me your definition of what art therapy is.
R: So art therapy is a form of expressive therapy. Expressive therapy meaning like, art, dance, music...those kinds of things where you use different types of art forms as the medium for the expression. So in art therapy, you use not only the creative process but actually the art that you create as a means to accomplish the goals of therapy. And in art therapy, it is facilitated by a specialist, a therapist who has training in both art and human development and psychology to really look at, interpret and reflect on what's been created.
K: So art therapy can have different mediums on how it can be conducted. Do you believe that tattooing can be one of those mediums? Can it be considered art therapy?
R: Well I think that getting a tattoo is therapeutic for some people. I truly believe that but in the classical definition of art therapy, I don't think a tattoo falls under that. Because when you get a tattoo, you're the canvas. Where as in art therapy, you are creating something. And then there is a the presence of the trained professional, who helps you go through that process.
K: That's a good point, I didn't think of it that way. How can art therapy help individual or groups of people in a way that is different or more beneficial than traditional therapy?
R: I think a lot of people can benefit from art therapy even if you're benefiting from traditional therapy. Because it's just another form and another way to express yourself. Art therapy is great for people who have trouble expressing themselves verbally, though a lot of people fall into the category. Whether it's a physical disability or an organic disability, if someone is demented, they can't remember a lot of things so traditional - talk therapy isn't going to work as well. But if it's just art, it's more creating and it's more in the moment. That makes it so much easier for that person. With trauma, [art therapy] is a great way to express yourself without having to say what happened. There are all different disabilities, all different emotional states, different ages that can be engaged in therapy. A little child might not be able to tell you what's going on, but with them creating, you can understand those themes of what''s happening.
K: If you had a patient that came to you and they were going through a difficult time and they said, 'Dr. M, I am thinking about getting a tattoo.'