One of the great benefits of working with art is that hidden themes can start to emerge, adding richness and depth to coaching conversations. In this example, the heart motif became a recurring image in this person’s work and had significant meaning for them.
Emerging themes arise over time and through a number of images. If a coachee has taken their images away with them, I always ask them to bring them to the sessions so emerging themes can be explored. In addition you will find that previous pictures will often be referred to too, and is another good reason to ensure that previous images are available to be explored.
Emerging themes don’t just have to be an image, the theme could be a colour, a shape, the way the image is laid out (for example one coachee always put a border around their image, and another always drew in two halves) or the medium that is used.
Sometimes the theme stops or changes. For example a coachee may have always drawn a particular person in blue and now they are drawing them in red leading to a great conversation as to why that might be!