Art Therapy Modalities | Mandala

Definition: Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning magic circle. Very simply, it is a drawing within a circle. This circle represents the totality of self "and corresponds to the microcosmic nature of the psyche." (C. Jung, 1965, pp. 195-196) Carl Jung was the first psychotherapist to employ this process, for his own healing and later with his clients.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, knowledge of the mandala in the West was confined largely to scholars of Hindu and Buddhist iconography. However, Jung, the pioneering explorer of the collective unconscious, first encountered the mandala not in a scholarly context, but in his efforts to relieve suffering - both his own and that of patients in psychotherapy. Jung had come to the realization that modern suffering was often related to the waning power of traditional religious symbolism to heal psychological fragmentation. Further, in the midst of a deep crisis in his own life, he discovered that sacred symbols - including the mandala - emerged spontaneously in both dreams and artwork to orchestrate wholeness and rebirth, independently of religion. (Cornell, 1994, p. 140)

Quantitative research reveals a significant calming effect from completing a mandala . It is a meditative, contemplative process that is able to reduce physiological symptoms of stress within 15 minutes.

I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing, a mandala, which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time. With the help of these drawings I could observe my psychic transformations from day to day. . . Only gradually did I rediscover what the mandala really is: . . . the self, the wholeness of the personality, which if all goes well is harmonious, but which can not tolerate self-deceptions. My mandalas were cryptograms . . . in which I saw the self - that is, my whole being - actively at work. To be sure, at first I could only dimly understand them; but they seemed to me highly significant, and I guarded them like precious pearls. . . The mandala represents . . . and corresponds to the microcosmic nature of the psyche. (C. Jung, 1965, pp. 195-196)

Why Create a Mandala?

• Documented via reliable and valid experimental research to significantly reduce physiological stress symptoms in children with cancer during a fifteen-minute exercise.
• Heightens Focus - a visual aid to meditation and contemplation. Focusing on the center takes us into our own center.
• A Projective Tool - Mirror of the Self
• "Unlike a diary, a linear account, the mandala acts in the manner of gestalt for retrospective reflection." (Kellogg, 1997, p. 3)
• Facilitates integration of disparate aspects of experience and self.
• "Shows the natural urge to live out our potential, to fulfill the pattern of our whole personality." (Fincher, 1991, p. 2)
• "It can reveal unity between human existence and the structure of the cosmos - opening up a perspective in which things can be understood as a whole." (Cornell, 1994, p. 2)
• It is a safe, simple exercise that takes no skill or talent to complete.