Draw on Your Emotions

Product Information

The main idea behind “draw your feelings” is to express a specific emotion, feeling or situation that you can’t normally express with words. Drawing it helps people later verbalize the reason behind it. Offering a broad range of exercises which can be adapted for any ability or age from middle childhood onwards, this unique book explores a range of emotions surrounding a person1s important life experiences, key memories, relationships, best times, worst times and who they are as a person. This is an essential resource for therapists, educators, counsellors and anyone who engages other people in conversations that matter about their relationship to self, others and life in general. It is still challenging for some clients to try to think and express themselves through the art, no matter what directive you give them. And some clients still worry about the final art product looking good or tell me that they don’t like this exercise because they don’t want to pay attention to their emotions. All of these have been helpful for different clients and situations, and I continue to use them when they are appropriate. However, sometimes the idea of drawing or painting feelings can be really challenging for client who aren’t used to thinking about their emotions in the language of color or metaphor (or who aren’t used to paying attention to their feelings at all). But many clients have told me that this has been a helpful exercise for them to be able to get in touch with their emotions and to feel some relief through being able to express them.

Wayne lives with his wife, three youngest kids, three dogs and an insane collection of his kids' other pets outside of Columbus, Ohio. In addition to his work with Hope 4 Hurting Kids, Wayne is a partner in a local consulting firm, an avid reader, coaches his son's soccer team and is a proud supporter of Leicester City Football Club (and yes, for those in know, his affinity for the club does predate the 2016 championship). Draw on Your Emotions is a bestselling resource to help people of all ages express, communicate and deal more effectively with their emotions through drawing. Built around five key themes, each section contains a simple picture exercise with clear objectives, instructions and suggestions for development. The picture activities have been carefully designed to help ease the process of both talking about feelings and exploring life choices, by trying out alternatives safely on paper. This will help to create clarity and new perspectives as a step towards positive action. Wayne is the founder and executive director of Hope 4 Hurting Kids. He is a happily married father of four kids with a passion for helping young people who are going through rough times. In addition to Hope 4 Hurting Kids, Wayne previously started I Am A Child of Divorce and Divorce Ministry 4 Kids to help kids who are dealing with the disruption of their parents' relationship. These are now part of Hope 4 Hurting Kids. Wayne speaks frequently at conferences and churches on issues related to helping kids learn to deal with difficult emotions and life in modern families.Using the art process to help clients express and explore their emotions is at the core of art therapy, but there are many different ways to do this.

We are excited to announce the release of Draw Your Emotions. Draw Your Emotions is a brand new workbook designed to help young people identify their feelings. A fundamental part of emotional regulation is being able to recognize, name and understand the emotions going on inside of us. At the end of the exercise, we look at all of the pictures together, exploring how they are similar or different and discussing how the clients is feeling today. I also often ask clients which feelings were easiest or hardest to do and how they felt while they were working on it. Ask participants: “Please draw something that better expresses how you feel right now, in the context of this meeting” (consider saying vehicle, animal, object, super-hero or view instead of “something”). Offering a broad range of exercises which can be adapted for any ability or age from middle childhood onwards, this unique book explores a range of emotions surrounding a person(1)s important life experiences, key memories, relationships, best times, worst times and who they are as a person. This is an essential resource for therapists, educators, counsellors and anyone who engages other people in conversations that matter about their relationship to self, others and life in general. The cards will not go out of date as I imagine they will illustrate life’s difficulties that are timeless.Offering a broad range of exercises which can be adapted for any ability or age from middle childhood onwards, this unique book explores a range of emotions surrounding a person¹s important life experiences, key memories, relationships, best times, worst times and who they are as a person. This is an essential resource for therapists, educators, counsellors and anyone who engages other people in conversations that matter about their relationship to self, others and life in general.