“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
– John Steinbeck

I started an internship a few months ago working with adolescents struggling with different mental health and/or chemical dependency issues. Over the course of this internship, I’ve learned a lot about working in the mental health industry, about this particular population, and about myself and my own capabilities.

My graduate program encourages us to use art as a means to process what we’re experiencing at our internships. I chose to process both things that came up during my internship as well as things that occurred in my regular life in an altered book:

*The dementors from the Harry Potter series are an amazing metaphor for depression. Anyone who wants to argue, please see my contact information.

Art is such a fascinating way to track growth and development over time. This is one of the cool things about art therapy too. It can be difficult to see progress with mental illness; art is an amazing tool to visually demonstrate healing as it occurs.