Presence and Process in Expressive Arts Work

At the Edge of Wonder

Sally Atkins, Herbert Eberhart

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780857008114
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

What are the basic attitudes, values, and practices that are essential for effective work with the expressive arts? This book explores the answer to that question.

The authors examine in depth the concepts of 'presence' - a way of 'being' - and 'process' - an open and trusting way of working - in the professional helping relationship and in the making of art. They introduce readers to the premise of the 'uniqueness of persons' that underpins these ideas, and look at how to realize them in practice. Diverse experiences are also shared of using the arts in group and individual work in a variety of settings, from team building and education to counseling, psychotherapy and supervision.

This book is a comprehensive, foundational guide for all practitioners who use the expressive arts as a way of facilitating learning, growth, healing, and change, including expressive arts therapists and students, counsellors, coaches, and other helping professionals. With its clear structure and straight forward style, the book is appropriate also for beginners in these professional fields.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Sally Atkins

The purpose of this book is to set forth several basic ideas that inform our way of being with others as helping professionals. We are seeking to explore the question: What are the basic attitudes, values and practices that are necessary for effective professional work with the expressive arts? This book is intended as a foundational guide for both beginning and experienced professionals who use the expressive arts as a way of facilitating learning, growth, healing and change. In this introductory chapter we offer a perspectival landscape of the book. This includes a brief overview of the field of expressive arts and the importance of the arts themselves in the practice of expressive arts work, which we explore further in Chapter 2. We introduce the concepts of presence and process in expressive arts, which we will explore further in Chapters 3 and 4, and we share our ideas about the importance of the basic attitude of the uniqueness of individuals.

In this book we wish to emphasize and elaborate the importance of two basic concepts, presence and process. First, we examine the personal presence of the change agent, both as a way of being and as a process of encounter, in building a facilitative relationship and a holding space, both of which are crucial requisites to working with the arts. A facilitative relationship is one that encourages self-awareness, learning, healing and emergent understanding. A holding space is a relational space of physical, psychological and emotional safety and support, a space of connection, compassion and acceptance.

Second, we emphasize that a process orientation toward working with others, especially with the arts, can enhance the possibilities for effective outcomes. Focusing on what is happening in the art-making experience and trusting in whatever arrives in that relational art-making process are exciting and fruitful ways to work. Working with the arts in this way is a fundamental shift in worldview away from the objectivist and deterministic worldview of Newtonian science towards a process-based view of reality in which the world is seen as systems of interactive and interconnected processes rather than collections of objects.

We choose to address these concepts through the lens of the helping professions broadly conceived. These are the professions dedicated to learning and change on the part of individuals, groups, organizations and societies, and they include educators, health care professionals, psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers, counselors, coaches, supervisors, organizational consultants and other change agents. We realize that there are significant discourses around the concepts of presence and process in other disciplines; however, our purpose here is to focus our elaboration of these constructs primarily as they relate to human-to-human interaction within the context of expressive arts work in the helping professions. The basic concepts of presence and process underlie and support all work in the helping professions, and they are particularly important in working with the arts because of the power of the arts to activate cognitive processes, evoke emotion, bypass personality defenses and make aspects of the unconscious conscious.

1.1 The Field of Expressive Arts

We are working within the context of the field of expressive arts, a field of professional theory and practice dedicated to using any or all of the arts together in an interdisciplinary and integrated way in the service of enhancing quality of life. Although the integrated use of the arts in the service of life is as old as human history, as a professional field expressive arts began in the 1970s. Since that time, the expressive arts have found their way into the practice of counseling, consulting, education and therapy in many parts of the world. In the mid-1990s, an international professional association, The International Expressive Arts Therapy Association, was created to provide professional standards and an international forum for artists, therapists, consultants and educators. The association offers biennial international professional conferences and outlines rigorous credentialing processes for registration as a Registered Expressive Arts Consultant/Educator (REACE) and as a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT).

The use of the term “expressive” may be somewhat misleading. This term privileges one aspect of expressive arts work, externalizing and communicating the internal world; however, as we will elaborate further, expressive arts involves receptive, expressive and shaping dimensions. In this field, art making is seen as a primary mode of inquiry combining creative imagination with embodied experience. The arts, when approached in this manner, offer a pathway that can open us to a fuller experience of being and becoming in the world. Expressive arts theory and practice are heavily influenced by postmodern thought within the respective disciplines of psychology, philosophy, education and the arts. Embedded in the field of expressive arts is a questioning of the status quo. Our theoretical stance includes the belief that meaning is contextual, subjective, multiple and co-constructed in relationship. This theoretical stance includes an understanding that our thinking is influenced by language systems and by historical, cultural and political discursive landscapes.

In the expressive arts field we emphasize both the process and the product of the art making. This primary focus on art making is what distinguishes the work from traditional talk-oriented ways of counseling and consulting, where the arts, if used at all, are seen simply as vehicles of communication, emotional expression or assessment. Even when the arts are used in more traditional forms of counseling, consulting, educational and organizational development, they often are seen as adjunctive and subservient to theoretical and methodological frameworks of the social sciences rather than as the primary focus of the work. In the field of education, the arts often are considered a frill rather than a basic way of knowing and a fundamentally important part of the educational curriculum.

Within therapeutic practice, the professional creative arts therapies traditionally have emphasized primarily a single arts modality. Each of the discipline-based arts therapies, such as music therapy, art therapy, poetry therapy, drama therapy and dance/movement therapy, has made important contributions to our understanding of the efficacy of the arts in facilitating change. In each of these fields, research on the efficacy of the arts is documented in professional journals and discussed at professional conferences, and each field has its own standards for registration and practice.

In contrast to the emphasis on a singular or primary arts modality as the focus, the field of expressive arts emphasizes an interdisciplinary and intermodal approach to working with the arts. In the expressive arts we recognize the sensory basis and fundamental interrelationship of all of the arts disciplines with each other. We recognize that language, visual and auditory perception, rhythm, movement, and the shaping of space and form are all interwoven in our experience of the world.

Expressive arts work, in addition, addresses not only therapeutic change, but also the broader contexts of change within organizations and societies as well. We know from our professional experience that the expressive arts can be a powerful way to work, not only in therapeutic settings, but also in all situations where positive change is desired. While both authors come from training and practice primarily in therapeutic and educational fields, here we wish to address as well the broader contexts in which the expressive arts currently are being used. The arts can be effective in many contexts, including counseling, coaching, psychotherapy, supervision, organizational development, team building, education and social change. We have used the expressive arts with teams in organizations, with graduate and undergraduate university students, with elders, with children of all ages and with professional supervisees, in addition to our counseling, coaching and psychotherapy contexts. Now the expressive arts are being used around the world for social justice and for social change, particularly in situations of political unrest and postwar trauma.

1.2 Presence and Process in Working with the Expressive Arts

Empirical research continues to demonstrate the efficacy of the arts with widely differing populations in diverse settings. The arts can, indeed, provide such an effective means of addressing issues of human suffering, building community and facilitating change, that it is easy to focus primarily on the arts themselves in situations of helping, taking for granted the attitudes and practices needed to use the arts effectively. Here we focus primarily on the basic concepts of presence and process and how they apply specifically to working with the expressive arts. Both of these concepts are multifaceted, co-constructed phenomena and not easy to separate or to write about. However, our belief in their importance in expressive arts work, as in all helping relationships, calls us to address them. In doing so we also address the beliefs, attitudes and practices that shape our work and bring us joy in witnessing personal growth and change in others and in ourselves.

Professionals in many fields, including those using the arts, often look for a how-to guidebook to follow in their practice. In the field of education, programmed lesson plans and outcomes-based assessment often dominate pedagogical practice. Even the practices of professional counseling and therapy have become subject to time-limited sessions with programmed treatment planning manuals and procedural protocols. In this book we wish to emphasize that effective work in all helping professions is more about fundamental values, attitudes and ways of being than about the specific techniques used or which particular arts modalities are incorporated. The quality of presence and the trust needed to work in a process-oriented way are fundamental aspects of the work. In this way we could say that expressive arts practice is more about who you are, how you are and how you think than what you do.

1.3 Crossing Cultural Backgrounds

Currently various theories and approaches to expressive arts work are emerging around the world. Our discourse on expressive arts is informed in particular by the work in this field happening at the European Graduate School (EGS) in Switzerland, where both authors teach, and the work as it is being defined and developed by the interdisciplinary faculty of the Appalachian Expressive Arts Collective at Appalachian State University (ASU) in North Carolina. Although we, as authors, share interests and experience related to the topics of this book, we come from different cultural backgrounds.

Herbert Eberhart is a Swiss clinical psychologist and social worker living in Zurich. He is Professor Emeritus of the Zurich School of Social Work. Currently he teaches at the EGS in Switzerland and provides brief therapy, coaching and supervision for clinicians and other individuals seeking personal and professional growth. Herbert’s resource-oriented practice as a supervisor and coach reflects his embodiment of both presence and process. He is particularly interested in the challenge involved in finding a rich and appropriate language to meet the arts on an adequate level and to activate the inherent resources that lie within each person and situation. His writings include two textbooks in German, Lösungskunst. Lehrbuch der Kunst und Ressourcenorientierten Arbeit, with Paolo Knill (Eberhart and Knill 2009), the definitive book on intermodal decentering with the arts, and Beratung als Strukturierter und Kreativer Prozess. Ein Lehrbuch für die Ressourcenorientierte Praxis, with Andreas Bürgi (Bürgi and Eberhart 2006). He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters in both German and English, including, most recently, “The Arts Work: The Process of Intermodal Decentering in Professional Conversations” in Poiesis: Journal of the Arts and Communication (Eberhart 2012).

Sally Atkins is an American poet, expressive arts therapist, psychotherapist, psychologist and university professor, living and teaching in the Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina in the United States. She is Professor of Human Development and Psychological Counseling at ASU, where she founded the Expressive Arts Therapy Program. She also has served in a number of leadership and administrative positions including Director of Organizational Development for the university. She has been a core faculty member of the EGS since 2000. Her particular interests in expressive arts include dream work, therapeutic writing, arts-based research, ecotherapy, indigenous healing practices and building community through collaborative process in the arts. Her writings include two co-authored textbooks, Expressive Arts Therapy: Creative Process in Art and Life (Atkins et al. 2003) and Sourcebook in Expressive Arts Therapy (Atkins 2007), two books of poetry, and numerous professional articles and book chapters, including, most recently, “Lessons from the Trees” in Voices: Journal of the American Academy of Psychotherapists (Atkins 2013).

Our respective cultural and language backgrounds have led us to explore our differences as well as our commonalities both in theory and in practice. We have enjoyed a rich and ongoing dialogue through regular meetings each summer in Switzerland. In these dialogues we have sought to understand the thinking behind our own and each other’s ideas and the attitudes and values that underlie our ideas. Thus, each chapter in this book reflects our collaborative thinking based on our conversations together and our conversations with others about the topics we explore...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Of Related Interest
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword by Paolo Knill
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Embracing Surprise: The Importance of the Arts in Expressive Arts Work
• Chapter 3: The Courage to Meet the Other: Personal Presence in the Helping Relationship
• Chapter 4: The Adventure of the Unknown: Working in a Process-Oriented Way
• Chapter 5: Conclusion
• Appendices: Introduction
• References
• Subject Index
• Author Index
• Also available