From the author: Acquaintance with the described methodology took place at Natalia Sergeevna Fomicheva’s seminars on the topic “Psychology of Depression.” The article is posted on the website The concept of “depression” is familiar to everyone. Depression - from the Latin “to press”, “to suppress”, is a mental disorder that is accompanied by the following symptoms: Depersonalization - a violation of the awareness of one’s “I”, clients say: “it’s not me who is doing”, “I don’t feel my body”, “I don’t I feel..."Asthenia is the loss of the ability to feel and experience joy. A person cannot identify his feeling, say it in words. Anxiety Impaired thinking (lethargy of thoughts, negative thoughts, pessimism) Motor retardation Loss of interest in life Decreased self-esteem When working with people suffering from depression, conversational techniques are ineffective. Depressed clients are usually characterized by a lack of vital energy, it is difficult for them to speak, and it is difficult for them to analyze. Cognitive methods work poorly here. Why do I use art therapy? Because any result of the client’s creativity is already an achievement for him. The client did something with HIS OWN hands. As you know, in a state of depression it is difficult for people to do basic things, including issues of personal hygiene (difficulty getting out of bed, brushing their teeth, etc.). The result of any creativity increases self-esteem. Art therapy allows you to show the client what they can do. And he can do many things: draw, create, create, realize the cause of his depression, he can change himself and his life. I would like to share one trick in choosing material when working with depression. As you know, people suffering from depression usually choose pale colors, press lightly on a pen or pencil, and the drawings are barely visible. Therefore, the most suitable material that is advisable to offer to the client is oil pastel. These are very bright crayons that allow you to create rich colors with light pressure. The drawings turn out very bright, even if the person did not want such a result. In my work, I often resort to one very effective technique, which is excellent for both working with depression and psychosomatics. Many have heard about the term “Internal Picture of Illness” (IPI) - this is the attitude of the sick person to his illness. But few people focus on the Internal Picture of Health (IPH) – the individual’s attitude towards health. People who have been ill for a long time, unfortunately, do not know what VKZ is. To help you see yourself as healthy, visualize and capture the image of health, experience the positive emotions that accompany health, and realize the secondary benefits of illness - this is the task of a psychologist. And the technique “Creating an image of illness and health” helps to cope with this task. Description of the technique. The psychologist asks the client to draw his illness and his health on one sheet of paper. The psychologist here acts not only as an observer and analyzer of creativity, but also influences the progress of the task. What should you pay attention to? First, the images of illness and health must be significantly different. If a client has drawn two completely identical dead trees, you need to ask why health looks so unattractive to the client. Ask the client to “bring brightness” to health, to revive it. Secondly, the internal picture of health should not contain winter symbols: cold colors, the theme of death, non-existence, etc. The picture of health should evoke positive emotions. The psychologist helps the client change the picture of health into an image that is pleasing to the eye. The standard color scheme for the client is as follows: VKB – in blue, VKZ – in green. This can be explained by the symbolism of flowers, the blue color corresponds to illness, and green to health. Thirdly, if the client depicts on a piece of paper the image of illness more than the image of health, or the image of illness suppresses the image of health, it is necessary to modify the image of health: expand, put out thick green branches of health , penetrating and breaking the disease. When both pictures are ready, and the picture.