Color Therapy: Gayle’s Crochet Contribution to Mandalas for Marinke

This post continues the series of updated posts in the Mandalas for Marinke project. These 2015 posts are republished in the order of original posting. See the first, second, third, and fourth posts that came before this one in the series. Today’s post is about color therapy for depression.

Color Therapy Mandala

This terrific crochet mandala is a variation on the standard 12 round mandala crochet pattern by Wink (with a few extra rounds added in). Each round is a different color. Together they blend into a beautiful kaleidoscope of inspiration. Therefore, it’s a terrific example of color therapy in action.

The Maker is a Mental Health Care Provider

This special contribution comes to us from Gayle A. She is a full time caregiver who advocates for mental health. Her daughters live with mood disorders. She writes about her family’s experiences with mental health on the blog Out of a Great Need, which is subtitled A Mindful Approach to Traditional Caregiving Through Severe Mental Illness.

She shared the message:

“We came to know Marinke through her love of color and her generous spirit. She was inspirational and made such a difference in so many lives.”

Gayle wrote in her own post about Mandalas for Marinke:

“Clinical depression is not a failure in character…it is the result of compromised brain chemistry…period…and what a difference she made in the lives of so many despite living with a severe mental health disorder.”

Words by Wink

The colors in Gayle’s crochet mandala remind me of one of the color inspiration mandalas that Wink created. A couple of years back, Wink would do weekly posts where she would share a photo that was her color inspiration and then a mandala she created with that inspiration. They were some of my favorite posts that she did. Here’s the one from week 18 that I’m reminded of today:

Wink often mentioned that she was enjoying color therapy and yarn therapy through her crochet. She wrote in the post for the above mandala,

“If this isn’t colour therapy, I don’t know what is! I get happy just looking at this mandala”.

Several weeks prior to making this mandala, she had made a different mandala about which she wrote, “Seriously, this mandala is pure color therapy for when you’re feeling cold!” You can tell that making crochet mandalas was really healing for Marinke on so many levels. Color therapy was one way it helped.

Color Therapy for Depression

Let’s talk about that color therapy a little bit more.

The colors that we surround ourselves with stimulate us in different ways. Maker Gayle has a post on Out of a Great Need sharing how she and her daughters use color in their lives. The Recover Depression blog had a post about color therapy that explains its history and shares the chart below along with more detailed information about the common impact of some colors:

Something else that is important to know is that people experiencing depression may have a decreased perception of color. In a 2010 article on the topic, Jessica Ward Jones, MD, MPH cited,

“Recent research published by Dr. Emanuel Bubl of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Albert-Ludwigs-University of Frieburg in Germany, and his colleagues, showed that the retinas of depressed patients were less sensitive to contrast.”

All contributions to Mandalas for Marinke are welcome and will help raise awareness about depression while honoring her work in the same way that this great contribution has done today. Details to join here.

 

Featured Photo by Nicole Honeywill on Unsplash