Personcentered Expressive Arts Therapy Is Founded All of the Following Notions Except

When art and psychotherapy are joined, the scope and depth of each can be expanded, and when working together, they are tied to the continuities of humanity's history of healing. —Shaun McNiff, The Arts and Psychotherapy

Role of the psychotherapeutic procedure is to awaken the creative life-force energy. Thus, creativity and therapy overlap. What is creative is ofttimes therapeutic. What is therapeutic is frequently a creative process. Having integrated the creative arts into my therapeutic practise, I use the term person-centered expressive arts therapy. The terms expressive therapy or expressive arts therapy by and large denote dance therapy, fine art therapy, and music therapy. These terms as well include therapy through journal writing, verse, imagery, meditation, and improvisational drama. Using the expressive arts to foster emotional healing, resolve inner conflict, and awaken individual inventiveness is an expanding field. In the capacity that follow, I hope to encourage you to add expressive arts to your personal and professional person lives in ways that enhance your ability to know yourself, to cultivate deeper relationships, and to enrich your methods as an artist, therapist, and group facilitator.

What is expressive arts therapy?

Expressive arts therapy uses various arts—movement, drawing, painting, sculpting, music, writing, sound, and improvisation—in a supportive setting to facilitate growth and healing. It is a process of discovering ourselves through any art course that comes from an emotional depth. It is not creating a "pretty" picture. Information technology is not a dance ready for the stage. It is not a poem written and rewritten to perfection.

We express inner feelings past creating outer forms. Expressive art refers to using the emotional, intuitive aspects of ourselves in diverse media. 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. Talking about our feelings is besides an important way to express and discover ourselves meaningfully. In the therapeutic world based on humanistic principles, the term expressive therapy has been reserved for nonverbal and/or metaphoric expression. Humanistic expressive arts therapy differs from the analytic or medical model of art therapy, in which art is used to diagnose, analyze and "care for" people.

Most of the states accept already discovered some attribute of expressive fine art as being helpful in our daily lives. You lot may doodle as you speak on the phone and find it soothing. You may write a personal periodical and detect that as you write, your feelings and ideas change. Perchance you lot write downwards your dreams and look for patterns and symbols. You lot may paint or sculpt as a hobby and realize the intensity of the feel transports you out of your everyday bug. Or perhaps you sing while you lot drive or go for long walks. These exemplify self-expression through movement, sound, writing, and art to alter your state of being. They are ways to release your feelings, clear your listen, enhance your spirits, and bring yourself into college states of consciousness. The process is therapeutic.

When using the arts for self-healing or therapeutic purposes, we are not concerned about the dazzler of the visual art, the grammer and fashion of the writing, or the harmonic flow of the song. We use the arts to allow go, to express, and to release. Besides, we can gain insight by studying the symbolic and metaphoric letters. Our fine art speaks back to us if nosotros take the fourth dimension to allow in those messages.

Although interesting and sometimes dramatic products emerge, nosotros get out the aesthetics and the craftsmanship to those who wish to pursue the arts professionally. Of course, some of us get so involved in the arts every bit self-expression that we later choose to pursue the skills of a detail art grade. Many artist-therapists shift from focusing on their therapist lives to their lives every bit artists. Many artists sympathize the healing aspects of the creative procedure and become artist-therapists.

Using the creative process for deep inner healing entails further steps when we work with clients. Expressive arts therapists are enlightened that involving the mind, the body, and the emotions brings forth the client's intuitive, imaginative abilities as well as logical, linear thought. Since emotional states are seldom logical, the use of imagery and nonverbal modes allows the client an alternate path for self-exploration and communication. This process is a powerful integrative forcefulness.

Traditionally, psychotherapy is a verbal form of therapy, and the verbal process will always be important. However, I find I can quickly understand the world of the customer when she expresses herself through images. Color, form, and symbols are languages that speak from the unconscious and take particular meanings for each individual. As I listen to a customer'due south explanation of her imagery, I poignantly come across the world as she views information technology. Or she may use movement and gesture to show how she feels. As I witness her movement, I can understand her earth past empathizing kinesthetically.

The client'due south self-knowledge expands equally her movement, art, writing, and sound provide clues for farther exploration. Using expressive arts becomes a healing process too as a new linguistic communication that speaks to both client and therapist. These arts are stiff media in which to detect, feel, and have unknown aspects of self. Verbal therapy focuses on emotional disturbances and inappropriate behavior. The expressive arts motility the client into the globe of emotions and add a further dimension. Incorporating the arts into psychotherapy offers the client a way to use the free-spirited parts of herself. Therapy may include joyful, lively learning on many levels: the sensory, kinesthetic, conceptual, emotional and mythic. Clients report that the expressive arts have helped them go beyond their problems to envisioning themselves taking action in the world constructively.

What Is Person-Centered?

The person-centered aspect of expressive arts therapy describes the bones philosophy underlying my work. The customer-centered or person-centered approach developed by my male parent, Carl Rogers, emphasizes the therapist's role as being empathic, open, honest, coinciding, and caring every bit she listens in depth and facilitates the growth of an individual or a group. This philosophy incorporates the belief that each individual has worth, dignity, and the capacity for self-direction. Carl Rogers's philosophy is based on a trust in an inherent impulse toward growth in every private. I base my arroyo to expressive arts therapy on this very deep faith in the innate capacity of each person to attain toward her full potential.

Carl's enquiry into the psychotherapeutic process revealed that when a client felt accepted and understood, healing occurred. Information technology is a rare experience to feel accepted and understood when you are feeling fear, rage, grief, or jealousy. Yet information technology is this very acceptance and agreement that heals. As friends and therapists, nosotros oftentimes think we must accept an answer or give advice. Withal, this overlooks a very basic truth. By genuinely hearing the depth of the emotional pain and respecting the individual's power to find her own answer, nosotros are giving her the greatest gift.

Empathy and acceptance give the individual an opportunity to empower herself and discover her unique potential. This temper of understanding and acceptance also allows you lot, your friends, or your clients to feel safe plenty to attempt expressive arts as a path to becoming whole.

The Creative Connexion

I am intrigued with what I call the creative connection: the enhancing coaction among movement, fine art, writing, and sound. Moving with sensation, for example, opens u.s. to profound feelings which can then be expressed in color, line, or form. When we write immediately later the motility and art, a free menses emerges in the process, sometimes resulting in poesy. The Creative Connection process that I have developed stimulates such self-exploration. It is similar the unfolding petals of a lotus bloom on a summer day. In the warm, accepting environment, the petals open to reveal the flower's inner essence. Equally our feelings are tapped, they become a resource for farther self-understanding and inventiveness. We gently allow ourselves to awaken to new possibilities. With each opening we may deepen our experience. When nosotros attain our inner core, nosotros find our connection to all beings. We create to connect to our inner source and to reach out to the globe and the universe.

Some writers, artists and musicians are already aware of the creative connection. If you are one of those, you may say, "Of grade, I always put on music and trip the light fantastic toe before I paint." Or, as a writer, y'all may go for a long walk before you sit at your desk. However, you are non alone if you are one of the many in our club who say, "I'one thousand not artistic." I promise this book entices you to endeavour new experiences. You will surprise yourself.

I believe we are all capable of existence profoundly, beautifully creative, whether nosotros apply that creativity to relate to family or to pigment a motion-picture show. The seeds of much of our inventiveness come from the unconscious, our feelings, and our intuition. The unconscious is our deep well. Many of u.s.a. have put a lid over that well. Feelings can be constructively channeled into creative ventures: into dance, music, art, or writing. When our feelings are blithesome, the fine art form uplifts. When our feelings are trigger-happy or wrathful, nosotros tin transform them into powerful art rather than venting them on the earth. Such fine art helps united states of america accept that attribute of ourselves. Self-acceptance is paramount to pity for others.

The Healing Power of Person-Centered Expressive Arts

I discovered personal healing for myself as I brought together my interests in psychotherapy, fine art, dance, writing, and music. Person-centered expressive therapy was built-in out of my personal integration of the arts and the philosophy I had inherited. Through experimentation I gained insight from my art periodical. I doodled, let off steam, or played with colors without concern for the effect. Unsure at first about introducing these methods to clients, I suggested they endeavor things and then asked them for feedback. They said it was helpful. Their self-agreement increased speedily and the advice betwixt us improved immensely.

The aforementioned was true as I introduced movement, sound, and freewriting for self-expression. Clients and group participants reported a sense of "new beginnings" and freedom to exist. Ane group member wrote: "I learned to play again, how to let go of what I 'know'—my successes, achievements, and noesis. I discovered the importance of being able to begin over again." Another said: "Information technology is much easier for me to deal with some heavy emotions through expressive play than through thinking and talking about it."

It became apparent that the Creative Connexion process fosters integration. This is clearly stated by i client who said, "I discovered in exploring my feelings that I could break through inner barriers/structures that I gear up for myself past moving and dancing the emotions. To draw that feeling after the move connected the procedure of unfolding."
It is hard to convey in words the depth and power of the expressive arts process. I would like to share a personal episode in which using expressive arts helped me through a difficult menstruum. I promise that, in reading it, you will vicariously feel my process of growth through move, art, and journal writing in an accepting surround.

The months afterwards my male parent's death were an emotional roller coaster for me. The loss felt huge, withal there was too a sense that I had been released. My inner feeling was that his passing had opened a psychic door for me likewise as having brought dandy sorrow.

Expressive arts served me well during that time of mourning. Two artist-therapist friends invited me to spend time working with them. Connie Smith Siegel invited me to spend a week at a cottage on Bolinas Bay. I painted one black picture after another. Every time I became bored with such nighttime images, I would commencement some other painting. Information technology, too, became moody and dour. Although Connie is primarily an creative person, her therapeutic training and power to take my emotional country gave me permission to exist authentic.

As well, I went to a weekend workshop taught by Coeleen Kiebert and spent more than time sculpting and painting. This fourth dimension the theme was tidal waves—and again, black pictures. One clay slice portrays a head peeking out of the underside of a huge wave. My sense of being overwhelmed past the details of emptying my parents' home, making decisions nigh my father's belongings, and responding to the hundreds of people who loved him was taking its price. In one case again, my art piece of work gave gratuitous reign to my feelings and then yielded a sense of relief. Coeleen's encouragement to use the art feel to release and understand my inner process was another big pace. I thought I should be over my grief in a month, but these two women gave me permission to keep expressing my river of sadness. That year my expressive fine art shows my connected sense of loss also every bit an opening to new horizons.

As is often true when someone feels deep suffering, there is also an opening to spiritual realms. Three months after my begetter's death, I flew to Switzerland to cofacilitate a training grouping with creative person-therapist Paolo Knill. Information technology was a fourth dimension when I had a heightened sense of connectedness to people, nature, and my dreams. Amazing events took identify in my inner being. I experienced synchronicities, special messages, and remarkable images. One night I found myself awakened past what seemed to be the beating of many large wings in my room. The side by side morning time I drew the feel as best I could.

One afternoon I led our group in a motion activity chosen "Melting and Growing." The group divided into pairs, and each partner took turns observing the other dancing, melting, and then growing. Paolo and I participated in this activity together. He was witnessing me every bit I slowly melted from being very tall to collapsing completely on the floor. Subsequently I wrote in my journal:

I loved the opportunity to melt, to permit go completely. When I melted into the floor I felt myself totally relax. I surrendered! Instantaneously I experienced being struck by incredible low-cal. Although my eyes were closed, all was radiant. Astonished, I lay quietly for a moment, and so slowly started to "grow," bringing myself to full height.

I instructed the group participants to put their movement experiences into art. Extensive light is difficult to paint, only I tried to capture that stunning experience in color.

Reflecting on these experiences, it seems that my middle had cracked open. This left me both vulnerable and with great inner forcefulness and light. A few days later some other moving ridge picture emerged. This fourth dimension bright blue/greenish h2o was illumined with pink/aureate sky.

These vignettes are part of my inner journey. I share them for 2 reasons. Offset, I wish to illustrate the transformative ability of the expressive arts. Second, I want to indicate out that person-centered expressive therapy is based on very specific humanistic principles. For instance, it was extremely important that I was with people who immune me to be in my grief and tears rather than patting me on the shoulder and telling me everything would be all right. I knew that if I had something to say, I would be heard and understood. When I told Paolo that I had the sensation of being struck with light, he could accept said, "That was but your imagination." Still, he not but understood, he told me he had witnessed the dramatic effect on my face up.

Humanistic Principles

Since non all psychologists agree with the principles embodied in this book, information technology seems important to state them clearly as the foundation for all that follows:

• All people take an innate power to be artistic.
• The artistic procedure is healing. The expressive product supplies of import messages to the individual. Still, it is the process of creation that is profoundly transformative.
• Personal growth and higher states of consciousness are achieved through self-sensation, self-agreement, and insight.
• Self-sensation, understanding, and insight are achieved by delving into our emotions. The feelings of grief, anger, pain, fright, joy, and ecstasy are the tunnel through which we must pass to go to the other side: to self-awareness, understanding, and wholeness.
• Our feelings and emotions are an energy source. That energy tin exist channeled into the expressive arts to be released and transformed.
• The expressive arts—including movement, fine art, writing, sound, music, meditation, and imagery—lead us into the unconscious. This often allows u.s. to express previously unknown facets of ourselves, thus bringing to light new information and sensation.
• Art modes interrelate in what I phone call the creative connection. When nosotros motility, it affects how nosotros write or paint. When nosotros write or paint, it affects how we feel and think. During the creative connection process, i art form stimulates and nurtures the other, bringing u.s. to an inner core or essence which is our life energy.
• A connection exists betwixt our life-force—our inner core, or soul—and the essence of all beings.
• Therefore, as we journey inward to discover our essence or wholeness, nosotros discover our relatedness to the outer world. The inner and outer become one.

My approach to therapy is also based on a psychodynamic theory of individual and grouping process:

• Personal growth takes place in a safe, supportive environment.
• A safe, supportive surround is created by facilitators (teachers, therapists, grouping leaders, parents, colleagues) who are genuine, warm, empathic, open, honest, congruent, and caring.
• These qualities can be learned all-time past first being experienced.
• A client-therapist, teacher-student, parent-kid, married woman-husband, or intimate-partners relationship tin be the context for experiencing these qualities.
• Personal integration of the intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual dimensions occurs past taking time to reflect on and evaluate these experiences.

The accompanying effigy shows the Creative Connection process and principles, using expressive arts therapy. It shows how all art forms affect each other. Our visual art is inverse by our movement and body rhythm. Information technology is also influenced when nosotros meditate and go receptive, allowing intuition to be agile. Likewise, our motion can be affected by our visual art and writing, and then forth. All the creative processes help united states of america find our inner essence or source. And when nosotros find that inner source, we tap into the universal energy source, or the commonage unconscious, or the transcendental experience.

Come with me, if you will, on a journey of inner exploration to awaken your inventiveness. Peradventure you lot are a author who shies abroad from visual fine art, or an artist who says,"I tin't dance," or a therapist who would like to discover methods for enhancing the counselor-client relationship. I invite you into your own surreptitious garden.

Reprinted with permission from The Creative Connection: Expressive Arts every bit Heaing, by Natalie Rogers, published by Science and Behavior Books.

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• Understand the meaning of the term expressive arts therapy.
• Consider possibilities for personal growth through creative expression.
• Increase awareness of the differences between using fine art expressively and diagnostically.

Natalie Rogers, PhD, REAT, is Distinguished Consulting Faculty at Saybrook Graduate Schoolhouse and has previously been on the faculties of the California Institute of Integral Studies and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. In 1984 she founded the Person-Centered Expressive Arts Therapy Institute and its parent organisation, Resources for Creativity and Consciousness, where she participated as teacher, trainer, workshop facilitator, consultant, and board member until its closing in 2005.

Dr. Rogers is a psychotherapist whose practices in California, Hawaii and Massachusetts have combined expressive arts with person-centered therapy with children, adults, families and groups. She is the girl of Dr. Carl Rogers and has written 2 books: The Creative Connexion: Expressive Arts As Healing and Emerging Adult female: A Decade of Midlife Transitions. She has trained professional person in expressive arts therapy around the world.

CE credits: 1

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the meaning of the term expressive arts therapy.
• Consider possibilities for personal growth through creative expression.
• Increase awareness of the differences between using art expressively and diagnostically.

Articles are not approved by Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) for CE. Run into complete list of CE approvals here

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Source: https://www.psychotherapy.net/article/expressive-art-therapy

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