Solution-Oriented Art Therapy LOM®

LOM® Solution-Oriented Art Therapy

LOM® Solution-Oriented Art Therapy is an art-therapeutic approach that works directly with the concerns of those who are painting. These concerns may relate to unwanted symptoms and memories, inappropriate behaviour, trauma, fears, relationship conflicts, disturbing cognitions, dreams, wishes, challenges, and anything else that is brought into the process. LOM® primarily affects the brain and brings about lasting improvements in quality of life. The art-therapeutic work is based on standardized assessments, and the success of the work is evaluated on a scale from 0 to 10 at the beginning and at the end of the process. LOM® is supported by studies.

The art therapist suggests a very specific procedure for the issue at hand, and the participants are supported by the therapist throughout the painting process. The procedure is based on three fundamental interventions and is implemented practically in this seminar. To make it easier to get started, several cases are presented at the beginning of the seminar. The continuing education programme is conducted online.

The insights into the LOM® method are intended to encourage participants to consider new paths in art therapy.

LOM® – Supervision

To complete the continuing education programme “LOM® – Solution-Oriented Art Therapy” with a LOM® and Alanus certificate, 24 hours of supervision are required. Our LOM® instructors offer LOM®-related supervision at an hourly rate of €80. Supervision sessions can be booked individually or in groups.

A group size of 4 people for 2 hours is recommended, which comes to €40 per person. If you have already completed LOM®-related supervision hours, these may be credited where applicable.

Artistic therapists with a successfully completed university degree, a comparable qualification, or suitable professional experience. Interested individuals from related professional fields may also take part in individual modules.

Date 18/02/2027 – ONLINE

Introduction to Solution-Oriented Art Therapy – LOM®

Solution-Oriented Art Therapy, or LOM® for short, places great importance on painting images of stressful situations exactly as the person actually saw them. If the issue concerns inner processes such as feelings, sensations, thoughts, or symptoms for which no clear visual images exist, these are instead represented in the form of metaphors – independent images that include familiar objects and shapes but have no direct connection to the original concern. This approach makes it possible to work through a symptom or trauma while the memory of the event remains, but the distressing feelings that would normally accompany it no longer arise.
This course offers a comprehensive insight into the methods of Solution-Oriented Art Therapy and presents all possible applications. It is an essential tool for dealing effectively with strong emotions that may arise during an art therapy session. Participation in this course is a prerequisite for the LOM continuing education programme.

4 teaching units

Anyone can participate. Prerequisite for participation when booking the full programme; the amount will be credited.

Module I // ONLINE – Working with Metaphors

Dates 08/04, 15/04, 17/04, 22/04/2027

Thanks to their great curiosity and strong interest in research, Dr Bettina Egger and M.Sc. Jörg Merz developed LOM® Solution-Oriented Painting. LOM® is an art-therapeutic method aimed at replacing disturbing memory images in the brain with non-disturbing images. The images are selected in relation to specific concerns before painting and are then painted either as they were seen or in their simplest form. The goal is to create a new, neutral impression.
Many distressing themes, strong emotions, symptoms, and sensory perceptions are not directly linked to images. Therefore, an image that is independent of the problem itself must be found. For this process, Bettina Egger and Jörg Merz developed a specific technique that works with metaphors.
Metaphors are independent images that resonate with an event, but they have no comprehensible connection to the concern and are always embedded in a meaningful background. To find a motif for the metaphor, the patient is asked a question about a specific category, for example: If your fear of flying were a vessel, what kind of vessel would it be?

In this course, we will learn how this method can be used to address many different kinds of problems and how the subjectively felt burden of emotions and sensations can be reduced.

21 teaching units

Module II // ONLINE – Distressing Images

Dates 27/05, 12/06, 17/06/2027

As the neurobiologist Gerald Hüther says, the brain is an image-producing organ. These stored inner images, whether from dreams or actually experienced situations, can still burden us years later. Most of the time, we are not even aware of the impact these images have on our everyday lives, yet they are there and disturbing. Those affected would be glad not to have to see them anymore. With LOM®, we work precisely with these disturbing inner images and replace them with new images that help and resolve underlying problems.

In this course, we learn how to work with these distressing images and how they can be transformed into “non-distressing” images. The images are painted exactly as the affected person saw them, entirely from their perspective. How the work with distressing images is accompanied in an art-therapeutic way and how, as we call it in LOM®, “putting the images in order” can be carried out in practice will be the focus of this module.

17 teaching units

Module III // ONLINE – Relationships

Dates 26/08, 04/09, 09/09/2027

Relationships are fundamentally important and essential to life. At the same time, problems within a relationship, losses, or dysfunctional patterns can represent a considerable burden.

In LOM® Solution-Oriented Painting, a strained relationship is worked through in an artistic-therapeutic way by creating a portrait of the person concerned. As is customary in the method, this portrait is developed carefully, slowly, and with loving attention. Through this mindful process, a new inner connection to the depicted person gradually develops.

In addition, working on the image level offers the possibility of processing distressing patterns and old wounds, thereby opening up new perspectives in dealing with relationship experiences.

17 teaching units

Module IV – Working with Trauma – Intensive Week Barcelona

 13-17/10/2027

As the neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux explains, when a trauma is remembered or narrated, the memory of it becomes unstable. During this period of neurological instability, a calming image can be placed in the position of the fear-triggering image. The new image is consolidated through painting. The memory of the trauma remains, but it no longer triggers stress or disturbing feelings.

In this course, participants are guided in painting and accompanying these traumatic images from the perspective of the affected person. The course of the trauma is put into the correct order and made available to consciousness. The final image, which shows that the trauma is over, is the one that the brain will remember in connection with the traumatic events. In this way, the trauma is defused. Remembered images, physical reactions, and intense feelings dissolve, and the trauma no longer has a distressing effect.

Scope: 38 teaching units

Module V – ONLINE – Working with Systems

Dates 13/01, 22/01, 27/01/2028

Our families of origin and their families of origin often influence our thinking, feeling, actions, and experience more than we would like. There are issues that are passed down from generation to generation and repeated as if by fate, and there are issues such as the position someone occupies within a family, which are continually reinforced by the family system in changing group-dynamic constellations. We can paint an image of the atmosphere of our origin and one for the atmosphere of the system that we ourselves have helped to shape. We can also return things that do not belong to us to the system: responsibilities we have taken on, attributions that do not fit us, etc. And we can strengthen our own system with what we ourselves want and what is good for us.

In Module V, we learn how to draw and create a genogram (our family tree) and, using various criteria, identify attributive influences that affect our present lives. Influences that we would like to change are worked on using LOM®.

Scope: 17 teaching units

Cora Egger
Ceramic artist, art therapist for Person-Oriented Painting and Solution-Oriented Art Therapy (LOM®). Works in her own practice in Barcelona with children and adults; LOM® lecturer.

Stephanie Loop
Qualified art therapist (ED), specialisation in design and painting therapy, psychiatric nurse HF; supervisor and teaching therapist (OdA Artecura) for art therapists. LOM® in psychiatry (inpatient, outpatient, and forensic) and in private practice.

Jörg Merz 
Master of Science, University of Zurich, clinical psychologist, specialist psychologist in psychotherapy FSP, supervisor ODA Artecura. Psychotherapy and art therapy. Co-developer of LOM®

Monica Portmann
Qualified art therapist (ED), specialisation in design and painting therapy, coaching for individuals and teams, human resource manager. Art therapy, LOM®️ with adolescents and adults. Inpatient art-therapeutic support in the clinical field (burnout, depression, psychosomatics)

Simone Riner
Qualified art therapist (ED), specialisation in design and painting therapy; lic.phil. in communication sciences. Art therapy, LOM® with children, adolescents, and adults; specialist areas: palliative care; people on the autism spectrum (ASD); editorial board member of f.orum, specialist journal for art therapies.

Ursula Riner
Qualified educator, federally certified art therapist (ED), specialisation in design and painting therapy, certified studies in psychotherapy sciences, adult education. Works with children, adolescents, and adults, primarily LOM®, supervision and teaching therapy, LOM® lecturer (CH and DE)

Head of the Institute for Continuing Education in Artistic Therapies:
Brigitta Jaroschek M.A. (research associate)

Attendance of basic modules I-V
Supervision*, case documentation
*For information, see Objectives and Content

see module descriptions

– Institute for Continuing Education in Artistic Therapies
Tel. +49 (0)2222 9321-1987
weiterbildung.kunsttherapie@alanus.edu

The conditions of participation can be downloaded here as a PDF

Further information, contact options, and our FAQ can be found here:

edu.Art – Institute for Continuing Education in Artistic Therapies | Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences