Integrative art therapy method "My Flowerbed" in psychological counseling for women during midlife crisis periods

The subject of the research is the psychological effects of applying the author’s integrative art therapy method "My Flowerbed" in overcoming crisis states in middle-aged women. The relevance of the study is due to the demand for tools to overcome destructive states and activate self-support among women aged 40-50. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research consists of fundamental principles of art therapy, analytical psychology; the concept of personal potential; the concept of the time perspective of the individual and ethnolinguistics. The groundwork of the study was a three-year experience of the author with 35 participants, who were in a situation of combined influence from normative age crisis and non-normative situational stressors, based on which the article presents a qualitative phenomenological analysis of two representative therapeutic cases that demonstrated stable positive dynamics among the participants. The main research methods included semi-structured interviews, qualitative analysis of isotopes across five diagnostic blocks, and content analysis of oral and written narratives from the participants. The study was implemented in a qualitative phenomenological design. The sample (N=35) was formed using a targeted selection method. To assess the therapeutic effect of the method, a three-year prolonged data collection of a catamnestic study was conducted at 6 and 12 months. The scientific novelty of the integrative method "My Flowerbed" lies in modeling a structured cycle of five consecutive sessions that combine projective art methods, narrative practices, and principles of the concept of personal potential, using the ethnocultural botanical code while working with crisis states in women. Within the developed method "My Flowerbed," a "Prescription Blank 'First Aid Kit of a Wise Gardener'" was created and verified based on the ethnocultural botanical code, serving as a support for overcoming the resistance of exhausted meaningful and personal resources. In the process of applying this method, the phenomenon of the "resource block," reflecting the latent exhaustion of the individual, was substantiated for the first time. A comprehensive analysis of verbal, visual-projective, subjective-evaluative, and behavioral criteria verified its therapeutic effectiveness, and the diagnostic-prognostic potential of the phenomenon allows the psychologist to determine the need for prolonged psychotherapeutic assistance.