Tuesday morning 09:00 AM, and it’s time for a group. Adults in their forties this time, and we’re on WhatsApp video. Three of the five are willing to participate. We verbalize most of what we feel, our concerns “A” has not seen her son who is in the army for three weeks and her husband who works for EL AL (Israeli airline) is on unpaid leave. “E” has four young children at home, and she struggles to find a quiet space to be in and conduct the session. “M” is in her kitchen and expresses that she doesn’t feel safe in her own house to talk about things. Shortly, reception problems occurred, and we are forced to end our session in a voice conference call. We all agree that it will take time to adjust to this new reality. All three female patients are familiar to the outpatient clinic and are diagnosed with depression.
During the third week of lockdown, we manage to meet on WhatsApp video. It felt as though they were prepared better this time wanting for this session to succeed. “E” with her young kids smoking in her kitchen, “D” has found a quiet room with reception, and “M” in her own kitchen. I ask them to bring paper and markers and take a few minutes to just put on paper how they feel today, increasing their awareness to how the body feels at that moment. After this, we share our paintings. Not surprisingly the main theme is a whirlpool. The paintings have mainly colors; quick disorganized hand movements colored and shaped the images. We practice placing the phones so we can move and at the same time see each other sharing our coloring practice on our body. I try to guide them to repeat the warmup exercise they are familiar with. This gives me a deep sense of appreciation for the model, the repetition of which has been etched in their collective memory and allows for this exchange to happen as they recall the different stages of the music, the breathing exercises at the end, and finally, the verbal sharing. During this stage, and at the end of every session, the following two questions were asked: (1) How did you feel in the group today? and (2) Do you feel any change on a body level compared to the feelings you began with?
