Procrastination & the Art of Hidden Agendas - Texas Counseling ...

Possible art tasks to facilitate appropriate therapeutic interventions:1. Lack of skills & bad habitsa. Draw and/or find an image that illustrates your commitment to making a specificchange in your life.b. Social Map: Illustrate your life showing the relationships & activities that take up timein your life. (See the handout.)2. Avoiding distress.a. Procrastination image (See first task.)b. Mandala: free style or coloring a design3. Poor mental health: low self-esteem, low self-confidence, anxiety, self-defeating beliefs.a. Dot-to-Dot & Scribble techniqueb. Hand Outline Taskc. Create awards and/or certificates of achievement.d. Make and finish anything.e. Use an unfamiliar art medium, especially clay!f. Feelings Map (Jones, 1997)4. Severe mental illness: mood disorders, PTSD, attachment disorders, psychosisFollow your own treatment regimen. Once your client is no longer suffering from severedysfunction, consider exploring the tasks described in #3.Counseling techniques that may contribute to clients’ procrastination (Ishiyama, 1990).1. Selective acceptance of emotion2. Strategy aimed at controlling emotion3. Avoiding staying with an emotion until it shifts spontaneously4. Avoiding confronting the clientReferences:Ariely, D. & Wertenbroch, K. (2002). Procrastination, deadlines, and performance: Self-control byprecommitment. Psychological Science (APS), 13 (3), 219-224.Conti, R. (2000). Competing demands and complimentary motives: Procrastination on intrinsically andextrinsically motivated summer projects. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 15 (5), 47-59.Fincher, S. F. (2010). Creating Mandalas for Insight, Healing, & Self Expression. Boston: Shambhala.