Five Reasons for Therapists to Fall In Love With Pinterest
1. When you work in the psychotherapeutic field (whether as Counselor, Art Therapist, Psychologist, Social Worker, whatever) the energy field within which you work is complicated, and shaped around “What is wrong? What is the problem? What hurts so bad that it brings you in today? Tell me about all the bad stuff in your history…Did your mom suffer from that too?” and so on. In my own professional and personal life, I am close to arguing that the heavy focus on the negative, on trauma, on “what’s NOT right with the world” in counseling and related therapies can create more of the same, and can flow, indeed, in the opposite direction of “therapeutic” or “healing”. Indeed, the Law of Attraction is at work unless you are conscious beyond conscious, and can figure out how to broach the Awful without energetically renting a condo there. Ah, but that is another blog altogether…
At any rate, Pinterest is about celebrating “what’s right with the world” (phrase borrowed from Dewitt Jones, and, I think, National Geographic), with finding and sharing stunningly beautiful and curious images, art, people, places, fashion, cute and amazing animals. Pinterest is about finding visual triggers for joy and awe, and dreams and desires. It is addictive, in a good way…Our lives cannot be about other people’s trauma all day, day in and day out, without the risk of our becoming the opposite of a Light Being. Indeed, I know too many ‘traumatologists’ who are carrying the darkness in their visage and carriage, and do not even know it. They think they are being “realistic”, and will tell you that you are taking a “spiritual bypass” when you luxuriate a while in beauty. Hogwash. Pinterest is an antidote for Darkness. Everyone who has pinned, or sat and enjoyed the amazing pins of others, knows this transporting experience…And I am being quite serious…
2. Projective Tests (TAT, Rorschach, Bender-Gestalt) were in part created to tap that dimension in human experience that is not governed by left brain, linear, cognitive, logical functioning. So was Shamanic Drumming/Journeying. So was Vision Quest. As Art Therapy speaks to the dimension of human experience that resists being captured and diminished by the spoken arts (that is, Talk Therapy), Pinterest speaks to us from those other dimensions, hundreds of thousands, or maybe millions of “images” passing by every minute of every day. It is a beautiful, kaleidoscopic visualization, but with your eyes wide open. It can transport the way movies transport, except the individual, in searching and pinning, is writing and filming the movie him or herself. It is a very creative process.
3. Pinterest offers an opportunity to work with clients on their hopes and dreams, their “Bucket Lists” (Pinterest is FULL of Bucket Lists, Places I Want To Visit, 
Places I Want To Live, Things I Want To Have, and on and on…) It is a potential therapeutic milieu for you and your clients to explore shifting the narrative of your/their lives, in visuals and images, rather than in words, or in Talk Therapy. It hits a deep, non-verbal level of expression, of desire, of joy, of vision and passion…Archetypes of transcendence and desire and the Divine probably live in the non-verbal realms…
4. Pinterest is fascinatingly social in a non-verbal way. People rarely post comments, and if they do, they are brief. Makes Twitter look like The Brothers Karamazov…It is reflective, and Pinterest does not have an inherent call for a meeting of my personality and yours…You can “Re-Pin” my images, and though I will be apprised of the fact that you did, we do not need to have a big conversation about it. This is a goldmine for Myers-Briggs “I’s”, and for INFP’s, it is pretty ideal…
5. THAT being said, professional organizations, especially, in my experience, Art Therapy, are very heavily represented on Pinterest, and they are creating a tremendous social network based on beauty and connection and information (because so-called “memes” and information charts and visuals are heavily pinned in addition to traditional images…) So if beauty, joy, desire, passion, and wonder have slipped out of your vocabulary, or if they seem too much like guilty pleasures, or like sneaking three Kit-Kats in the slow part of a drooping afternoon, you can still justify your Pinterest-ing by researching professional groups and resources on your boards.
Pinterest is Shakespeare, Facebook is Mike Royko, Twitter is your over-excited niece, Linked In is the guy who reads Harvard Business Review (OK, I confess, I have a subscription), Google Plus is your ADD/ADHD nephew trying to decide what he wants to be when he grows up, and so on.
But if, at some point, you just want to have a “Juliet is the sun” moment, ahhh, then Pinterest is your man….
Southwestern College, Santa Fe, believes that Social Media is potentially a great conduit for Consciousness….
Visit our Pinterest Boards at: http://pinterest.com/swcsantafe/
About the Moderator
Jim Nolan is in his 6th year as president of Southwestern College. He has worked for a dozen universities or colleges, both online and on the ground. He holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, and attended graduate school in English/Irish Literature. He reads a lot of books, takes a lot of photos, plays guitar, got married in India in 2010, and has a wire haired fox terrier named Barney. He is the opposite of a guru, whatever that is called.
