EXPRESSIVE
ARTS THERAPY
My Favorite Quotes
“The
task of therapy is not to eliminate suffering but to give a voice to it, to
find a form in which it can be expressed. Expression is itself transformation;
this is the message that art brings. The therapist then would be an artist of
the soul, working with sufferers to enable them to find the proper container
for their pain, the form in which it would be embodied.” - Stephen K.
Levine
"Expressive
art therapy integrates all of the arts in a safe, non-judgmental setting to
facilitate personal growth and healing. To use the arts expressively means going
into our inner realms to discover feelings and to express them through visual
art, movement, sound, writing or drama. This process fosters release, self-understanding,
insight and awakens creativity and transpersonal states of consciousness."
- Natalie Rogers
“The
arts, as media of the imagination, are disciplines which give form and substance
to our capacity to be who we are. Each artistic medium embodies the imagination
in a concrete and specific way.”
-Stephen K. Levine
“Expressive therapy is a disclosure of soul’s contagion. It comes
upon us diamonically through the agency of imagination, who’s medicines
draw from the full spectrum of soul.”
- Paulo J. Knill
"We recognized the role of imagination and ritual that is shared between
contemporary psychotherapies and all ancient traditions. It was also evident
that the arts are the bridging existential phenomena that unite ritual, imagination
and dream-world in a way that no other activity can do." -Paulo Knill (p50
in Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy)
"By descending down into the depths of the soul, and not primarily by a
painful acquisition of many manual skills, the artist attains the power of awakening
other souls."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
" I believe that imagination is the integrating faculty of cognition and
creativity. Genius and invention are dependent on it's ability to transform
phenomena and establish new relationships." -Shaun McNiff
Summary of Some of the Main Expressive Arts Therapy Schools of thought or Models
Person
Centered Expressive Therapy
The Person-Centered Approach, based on the work of Carl Rogers, emphasizes empathy,
unconditional positive regard, openness, honesty, and congruence. It is based
in a trust in the innate impulse toward growth and capacity for self-direction
in every individual and group.
Creative Connection® was developed by Carl Rogers daughter, Natalie Rogers,
Ph.D.— and uses the expressive arts of movement, sound, art, writing,
and drama to evoke inner truths and experience feelings, which can reveal new
depth and meaning.
"Expressive art therapy integrates all of the arts in a safe, non-judgmental
setting to facilitate personal growth and healing. To use the arts expressively
means going into our inner realms to discover feelings and to express them through
visual art, movement, sound, writing or drama. This process fosters release,
self-understanding, insight and awakens creativity and transpersonal states
of consciousness."
www.pceti.org
Halprin
Life/Art Process
The Halprin Process is an integrated approach that explores the interplay between
the inherent knowledge of the body and its creative connection to our life stories.
Anna Halprin and her daughter Daria Halprin are the two main creators of the
process.
The focus is on the body, movement and the expressive arts as a healing approach
is based on the premise that the imprints of life events are housed within the
body. When remaining at the unconscious level, these imprints may lead to imbalance
and conflict; when explored and expressed consciously and creatively, the connection
between body, mind and emotion make a vital contribution to the artful development
of the self.
The Halprin process is an integrative model that utilizes the Three Levels of
Awareness and Response to explore the relationship between the physical, emotional,
mental/imaginal and spiritual levels of experience.
1. The physical level is addressed through the study and practice of basic principles
of human movement and dance.
2. The emotional is addressed through the examination of autobiographical material
and explored through the mediums of movement, drawings, writing, performance
techniques and therapeutic practices.
3. The mental is addressed through the study and practice of elements of the
creative process, communication skills, creative writing and presentation of
theoretical principles and concepts.
4. We believe that spiritual growth is enhanced when people are able to express
themselves creatively on all three levels.
“Movement is the body’s mother tongue, a powerful and universal
language. Made conscious and creative, movement is a language for the body and
soul to speak through, a bridge to the interior world of self and between self
and the world; it is a way to build bridges and begin dialogues with the separated
parts.” –Daria Halprin (Foundations of Exp Arts Therapy, ch 7 p
134)
www.tamalpa.org
Drama
Therapy
Drama therapy is the systematic and intentional use of drama/theatre processes
and products to achieve the therapeutic goals of symptom relief, emotional and
physical integration, and personal growth. Drama therapy is an active, experiential
approach that facilitates the client's ability to tell his/her story, solve
problems, set goals, express feelings appropriately, achieve catharsis, extend
the depth and breadth of inner experience, improve interpersonal skills and
relationships, and strengthen the ability to perform personal life roles while
increasing flexibility between roles.
(from the drama therapy association web site- www.nadt.org
Dance
Therapy
Based in the belief that the body, the mind and the spirit are interconnected,
dance/movement therapy is defined by the American Dance Therapy Association
as "the psychotherapeutic use of movement as a process that furthers the
emotional, cognitive, social and physical integration of the individual."
Dance/movement therapy, a creative art therapy, is rooted in the expressive
nature of dance itself. Dance is the most fundamental of the arts, involving
a direct expression and experience of oneself through the body. It is a basic
form of authentic communication, and as such it is an especially effective medium
for therapy. Dance therapy uses movement, rhythm, and repetition to uncover
deep feeling, and emotional issues, allowing them to be brought forward and
treated. It promotes an interaction between mind and body, and encourages the
creative expression of tension, trauma, emotional problems, and stress. The
physical exercise also improves flexibility, balance, self-confidence and physical
fitness. Dance therapy uses creative dance to unlock tension and relieve the
effect of stress on the body. Dance therapy encourages you to dance away your
problems. In addition, the physical effort is both physically and psychologically
invigorating.
“The body does not lie.” ~Martha Graham
www.adta.org
Poetry Therapy
Poetry therapists work with all forms of literature and the language arts. They
utilize the power of poems, stories, journals, fairy tales, folk tales, memoirs
and songs to help in the healing process.
They work in many settings where people deal with personal and communal pain
and the search for growth, and use words to help heal individuals and bring
together communities.
“Though poetry as therapy is a relatively new development in the expressive
arts, it is as old as the first chants sung around the tribal fires of primitive
peoples. The chant/ song/poem is what heals the heart and soul. Even the word
psychology suggests that, psyche meaning soul and logos speech or word. In mythology
Oceanus told Prometheus, "Words are the physician of the mind diseased."
- Perie J. Longo, PhD., RPT
I believe that a poem is an emotional-intellectual-physical construct that is
meant to touch the heart of the reader, that it is meant to be reexperienced
by the reader. I believe that a poem is a window that hangs between two or more
human beings who otherwise live in darkened rooms. I also believe that a poem
is a noise and that noise is shaped.--Stephen Dobyns (Dobyns, 1997)
www.poetrytherapy.org
Psychosynthesis
Psychosynthesis was developed by the Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli,
one of the pioneers of transpersonal psychology. Psychosynthesis expands humanistic
psychology to more explicitly address the spiritual dimension. It is both a
theory and practice where the focus is to achieve a synthesis, a coming together,
of the various parts of an individual's personality into a more cohesive self.
The three central concepts are as follows:
1- The arousing and development of the will, the human capacity to harmonize
conflicting drives and impulses toward creative and responsible action.
2- The transmutation and redirecting of biopsychic energies, particularly sexual,
aggressive, and combative tendencies.
3- The awakening and releasing of the super-conscious spiritual energies, which
have a transformative impact on the personality.
Psychosynthesis has a personality model which is comprised of the core self,
the sub-personalities, the super-conscious, and the transpersonal self. The
individual is comprised of many parts, and comes to know wholeness by encountering
these parts and bringing them into healthy relationships.
“Assagioli developed a method of creative dialogue and enactment , the
evocation of sensory perception, and expressiveness to clarify and free clients
from their identification with the subpersonalities and to integrate these parts
around a central unifying sense of self.” Psychosynthesis utilizes many
art mediums including movement, visualization and active imagination, role-playing,
creative writing, and music.
www.chebucto.ns.ca/Health/Psychosynthesis/what/ps2.htm
Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt therapy grew out of the psychoanalytic movement and was developed by
Laura and Fritz Pearls. It is an “action- oriented” therapy based
on creative enactment. The objective of Gestalt therapy is to generate awareness
and insight so that clients become aware of what they are doing, how they’re
doing it, and are guided to explore new possibilities for change through enactment.
“Perls used Gestalt therapy enactment techniques such as role-play, movement,
and dialogue as ways of working with charged situations and relationships. His
idea was that whatever disturbs us from the past needs to be replated in the
present in order for us to feel it, understand its impact on our lives, and
find relevant resolution to who we are now.”(from The Expressive Body
in Life, Art and Therapy by, Daria Halprin)
The theory of Gestalt Therapy takes as its centerpiece two ideas. The first
is that the proper focus of psychology is the experiential present moment. The
second idea is that we are inextricably caught in a web of relationship with
all things. It is only possible to truly know ourselves as we exist in relation
to other things.
www.aagt.org
Intermodal Expressive Therapy
Intermodal Expressive Therapy was developed at Lesley University (Cambridge,
MA) in 1974 by Paolo Knill, Shaun McNiff, Norma Canner and others. This model
integrates the many art therapies into an interdisciplinary framework with the
emphasis on creative process.
"Intermodal therapy is being able to use one art form to enhance another,
and being able to move from one form to another to enhance the process."
Expressive Therapy is a discipline that uses the practice of the arts and their
products to foster awareness, encourage emotional growth and enhance relationships
with others. Expressive therapy distinguishes itself from its closely allied
disciplines of art therapy, music therapy, dance/movement therapy and psychodrama
by being grounded in the interrelatedness of the arts. Expressive Therapy makes
the internal images and metaphors of imaginations tangible through the use of
movement, words, sounds, and images.
Links
International
Expressive Arts Therapy Association- who, among many other things, host
a great conference
every other year.
Adriana Marchione
& Creative Source- Offers Bay area groups based of Life/Art process.
( I did 2 internships with her)