Craft and textile therapy

Domain VIII · Creative & expressive arts therapies · Ann Futterman Collier, Rachel Cohen, Betsan Corkhill · 2000

What it is

Craft and textile therapy is not one manualised therapy. It is an umbrella term for using fibre and cloth work (knitting, crochet, weaving, spinning, sewing, embroidery, beading, rug hooking, felting, batik, quilting) inside a therapeutic relationship. Clinicians mostly practise it within art…

Format

• No general phase model with session counts has been published for craft and textile therapy as a whole. The published structures are given first, then a synthesised working sequence.
• Session number and length are not given in the published outline. The chapter describes integrating story-cloth making with approaches informed by trauma neuroscience, traditional healing practices and groupwork.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Common Threads Project (CTP) circles. Groups of women survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in humanitarian settings (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ecuador, Nepal, DR Congo), with two facilitators per circle and local therapists given advanced clinical training. The work runs in three phases: An intensive programme combining several therapeutic modalities, in which each woman makes an individual story cloth.
• Story-cloth training day (Garlock, GWU). Background and discussion, then starting the cloth; a stitch demonstration; layout and design; working on the cloth; then discussion of clinical application. Participants learn three classic stitches, which the workshop description does not name.
• Skip phase C for clients who need regulation and activity only, such as pain or low-mood self-management of the kind Reynolds and Corkhill describe. Do not begin trauma narrative work in phase C until phase-B regulation is established.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• perfectionism (see 5.3). It is working when the client chooses harder projects themselves.
• swallowing or choking risk from small beads and buttons in young children, and string or cord risks.
• the plan becoming a chore. It is working when the mood ratings rise and the client adds activities of their own.
• a metaphor imposed by the therapist. Use the client's own images. It is working when the client extends the metaphor themselves.
• the urge to interpret. Meaning belongs to the maker. It is working when the client notices links between their choices and their mood.

Problems the guide addresses

• "I'm not creative" / won't start
• Gendered stigma and reluctance
• Perfectionism and harsh self-judgement
• Overwhelm and re-traumatisation in story work
• Dissociation during repetitive work
• Agitation, mania and compulsive making
• Non-adherence to home practice
• Disclosures in non-therapy craft groups and boundary blur
• Ruptures
• Self-harm and ligature risk with materials

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.