School of Creative
Industries
Khoo Ling In
Khoo Ling In graduated with a Bachelor (Hons) Psychology in 2016. Upon completing her degree, she worked actively in Penang as a special-needs educator before pursuing a Master of Arts in Art Therapy at LASALLE in 2019. As part of her training, she facilitated individual and group art therapy sessions at a community centre for adults with intellectual disabilities and mental health concerns, as well as in a medical setting for children and adolescents with non-accidental injury, and seniors with dementia in palliative care. Through art therapy, she believes in making a difference by empowering individuals with resilience. Her final year research explores how art therapy can provide containment and holding to young adolescents with non-accidental hospitalisation, fostering resilience and autonomy despite their challenges.
Work
Weave with Time
Tulle, yarn, beads
30 x 30 x 200 cm
2021
"To start is to end; the end is the beginning." This initiated Ling In's creative exploration in the mixed media textile installation. She enjoys making art as part of her hobby and self-care routine, as well as reflecting on her clinical practices. She found herself engaging in mixed media textile and this contributed to her creation of Weave with Time for her final year art project. She intends to share her journey through her artwork and creative processes by showing how every encounter she experienced in her MA Art Therapy training contributed to her transformation. The act of interweaving and the intentionally arranged tulle flowing onto the floor is metaphoric – representing a form of connection that builds upon time and space, fostering relationships and friendships with the people she met during the two years of her training. Hence, over time, these inter-being relationships develop into a pathway of her progress and development as an art therapist.
Thesis abstract
Art therapy and metaphorical associative cards: a psychodynamic inquiry in working with young adolescents who experience non-accidental injury in a medical setting
This thesis aims to explore the use of metaphorical associative cards (MAC) in art therapy. Primarily, it looks into its use with young adolescents who experience non-accidental injury (NAI) in a medical setting. A practitioner, qualitative, and art-based inquiry is used to explore the research question of what could be learnt about the use of MAC in art therapy with young adolescents who experience NAI in a medical setting. This thesis considered three young adolescents, age ranging from 12–14, and with NAI hospitalisation. In conclusion, research demonstrated that MAC is a universally accepted tool that serves as a way to explore feelings and problems that the young adolescents who are admitted for NAI are experiencing during their stay in hospital. MAC provides a capacity to allow these young adolescents to engage in the moments of containment, holding and mirroring within the metaphors and symbols, to recover and discover new ways to cope with NAI hospitalisation. The results have demonstrated that it is possible to integrate MAC with the discipline of art therapy, with young adolescents and NAI hospitalisation. Recommendations for future research and implications of the use of MAC are addressed in this thesis.