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Member since Apr 18, 2006, follows 1 people, 0 public groups, 147 public bookmarks (1297 total).

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  • Art Therapy and Political Violence: With Art, Without Illusion on 2008-07-29
  • About Niche | NICHE magazine on 2007-01-17

    • NICHE Magazine
      Business Strategies and Wholesale Crafts for the Progressive Retailer

      About Us...


      Published by The Rosen Group, NICHE magazine was founded for the purpose of connecting art galleries and craft retailers with the finest wholesale crafts, handmade gifts and decorative art objects made in artist studios throughout the United States and Canada.

  • The Use Of Art And Psychodrama In Therapy on 2006-07-10
    • The Use Of Art And Psychodrama In Therapy



      by Carol Ferrante-Smuckler, CSW

      Artist and Psychotherapist





      I became intrigued by the use of the creative arts in therapies through
      my own self discoveries while artmaking. I found that through looking at the
      paintings I made, I "saw" that there was more to my experiences, to life than
      I had thought.


      That is one of the mainstays of the creative arts therapies, concretizing our
      experiences, fears, joys, pain, conflicts, and offering the possibilities of new
      awareness, new ways of being in an animated way. It is an action based, sensory-
      based mode of therapy approach that offers a very enlivening, interactive
      aspect to the therapy session. Sometimes the body knows what's inside us
      before words can speak of them, or at least knows sooner and possibly with
      more truth. And as we all know, that which is held or hidden can harm us internally
      or is acted out in our relationships, or acted on ouselves through substance
      use or abuse.



      Art can be used in and of itself or combined with other expressions, such
      as psychodrama, movement and writing or music.
      I am most familiar with art and psychodrama, which this article will mostly
      concern itself with.


      To begin, the client is given an array of materials to choose from. The
      exercise can be very structured (draw a picture of your family of origin
      doing something) or free form (draw what you are feeling today). For a
      preliminary, the client can scribble, move his or her body, listen to
      music and more. If one were to combine psychodrama with the art exercise
      of "draw a picture of your family of origin doing something," the
      possibilities are interesting. One thing would be to use an empty chair and
      have the client speak to one of the family members and then reverse
      roles. The therapist can interview each family member through the client. The client can
      use clay to form a sculpture of the family and move it around, or the client
      can write a sentence or two about each family member and then give voice to each
      person.


      Another exercise can be to draw the way you feel inside, and on the
      other
      side, the face you show to the world. The therapist can then interview each
      part in a different chair, or the client may form a body sculpture of the
      images.


      In a group or with an individual, the therapist can offer a pool of various
      animals which the client picks from. The client can act like that animal, or
      write what message that animal is sending to him or her.


      Through the use of arts, we can expand our behavioural repertoire, experiment
      with novel ways of being, make use of our innate creativity, and say to others
      what
      may not be possible outside the therapy office. All this is done in the
      safety
      of the therapist's office, with the therapist as witness, or in a group
      situation, where the group becomes witness to our emerging selves which now finds
      new modes of expression in a social context.



      Carol Ferrante-Smuckler, CSW, is a psychotherapist who has been in private practice for over 15 years. She is a certified social worker working in an empathetic, supportive capacity to help people grow and develop and deal with stress, depression and relationship problems. As an artist, she knows the value of aestetics in healing and has training in art therapy and psychodrama. Contact her at Artyist@aol.com or visit her ByRegion Healers webdisplay and her ByRegion Artists webdisplay.


  • Cultural Studies Central on 2006-07-03
    • Cultural Studies Central




       

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  • Zone of Proximal Development: Dialogue, Otherness, and the "Third Voice" on 2006-07-02
  • Psyche Matters: Psychoanalytic Papers Online on 2006-06-26

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