Abstract:
This phenomenological study aims to explore the participants experiences of attending group counseling with art as medium, as well as their experiences afterwards. The informants for this study were university students with emotional crisis tendency who had taken part in a total of 6-week sessions, each lasting 3 hours, and whose posttest scores from the Emotional Crisis Inventory for Thai University Students had increased after attended the sessions. The three major themes emerged as follows: 1) Self-disclosure in group. After expressing themselves to the group and feeling accepted by the group, the informants became more willing to share themselves, resulting in the smooth continuation of the group process. 2) Self-awareness via art-making. Creating a piece of artwork enabled the informants to explore and express their thoughts and feelings, resulting in an increase in various aspects of self-awareness. 3) Learning in group via interpersonal relationship and art-making. The informants became aware of the learning in the group through the therapeutic relationship and the creation of a piece of artwork suggested that utilizing artwork in the group could facilitate the group process, particularly the feelings of anxiety and insecurity during the initial stages and self-disclosure. The benefits of expressing feelings and thoughts through art during the group process should be useful to individuals with emotional crisis tendency and those who help people with emotional crisis tendency.