I am going to take a little different approach this time in the blog for this week's session. This is because I was completely blown away by Lori's presentation. First of all, being a retired physician, and therefore with a huge science background, I was certainly grounded in the materialistic narrative of world view. Carried to an extreme, to me this means that the brain is the brain and it basically consists of biochemical reactions that produce electrical currents from one area of the brain to another in pathways and networks. And it would be these currents that somehow create our consciousness. Of course, after all these years in our Spirit Mind Body Group, these rigid materialistic views of consciousness have been modified by exposure to the strong Buddhist bent of this group, and to the strong intellects and spiritual knowledge and practices of the members of the group. This means that I can identify with many of our spiritual topics as they are presented. But this presentation was something totally foreign to me. Of course I had a simplistic view of using art in therapy. My view could be likened to the simplistic view of art being used in a TV crime show where a child is asked to make a drawing representing her life, or her family, or something that happened to her and then using that drawing to imply and then ascertain if some sort of crime was committed and seen by the child. A very simplistic view indeed, as I learned from Lori's presentation.
Lori was kind enough to provide through Sharleen copies of three articles on which she based her presentation. If you have not received these in your emails, please let Sharleen know at sharleen@itech-mke.com and she can either send you a copy in your email or either she or I could make a hard copy for you and get it too you. I am only going to present a very brief summary of some of the concepts that she considered here because they are quite complex, and I think can best be understood by reading these articles. I cannot put a link to them or copy them here because they are in PDF format and blogger.com does not let me upload them. Because Lori has already done some dramatic condensing of these concepts, for me to further summarize, we will lose significant meaning. Therefore, here are some definitions and brief outline topics. But I advise reading the whole articles.
Summary of Lori's presentation:
Response art is making art in response to another art piece. Don Jones was an art therapy pioneer who used art as an asylum and a way to survive. Talk therapy combined with painting has evolved over time.Art is used to form a relationship, as a way to communicate, and helps the therapist understand the client. The therapist needs to ask: "How does the art want me to work? This helps cut through the verbal because many times the client can not use words well to describe or relate.
Sometimes the art therapist literally and sometimes figuratively sits in the client's chair, using his art media, to recreate the client's artwork. The therapist brings in the conscious as well as the pre conscious portions. At other times, the art therapist uses the perceptions and feelings of the client to make art. Art allows whatever needs glimpsing to be seen when the words do not come.
Lori went into some detail about the Franklin article on mirror neurons. The article describes a part of the macaque's brains where there are what are called mirror neurons. This is thought to happen in humans as well. When we see another being move, obviously using motor neurons to accomplish that movement, there are mirror neurons that also fire up while seeing another move. These mirror neurons do not make the viewer move, but instead there is an implicit automatic unconscious embodiment of another. This provides a completely different way of experiencing the other.
Another way to look at art therapy utilizes the fact that a person appreciates art with their feeling. The art viewer often puts themselves into the art, empathizing with the painting and also the painter. As consciousness is concerned, I, the viewer am totally part of the art. This is called aesthetic Einfuhlung, a German word that means aesthetic empathy.
Intersubjectivity plays a role Explain Definition: comprehensible to, relating to, or used by a number of persons or conscious beings as a concept or language.
Also attachment theory enters into art therapy. The therapist and the client share a subjective state to form an attachment. Lipp, a prominent theorist worked with a mother and child. The eye can penetrate into art to bridge the space between self and other. Art therapy works to get a felt sense of the art to help expression. The art object becomes a safer place to hold the feelings. It is not just a formulaic way to interpret what is expressed in the art creation. Rather the purpose is more to get into the art. One psychoanalyst by the name of Donald Winnicott would start a squiggle with an art medium. The patient would then complete the squiggle. The patient then gives a narrative. The art, or just the squiggle, has become a place to hold the story or the narrative. One can approach the painting if that is the medium as a message from the inner person, the client. In this way, art therapy is related to meditative practice and to psychotherapy. Transference and countertransference end up playing a role as well.
Another way to use art therapy is to encourage dialogue with an art image with the image as a living being. One could ask the image "What do you want? How do you feel?"
In art therapy, there occurs a contemplative relationship. The artist and the subject have a reciprocal relationship.
End of Summary.
This is Lori's field of study and she has the wonderful benefit of having read in depth and studied the current field of art therapy and she now practices this field at St. Luke's along with her studies. She did a marvelous and very thorough job of summarizing the extensive and intensive work and conclusions of several articles written by no doubt experts in this relatively new and emerging area of study. Lori was kind enough to provide three of these articles to each member of the group who has emails listed with Sharleen. I have read these articles and they certainly made this morning's presentation more clear. However, she did very concisely present a summary of these articles. What I found most remarkable was the complexity and variability of the processes used now in art therapy. Knowing the psychological complexities of human behavior, I am amazed that these processes have become as successful as apparently they have become. Here I would like to just quote a small section of one of thee articles which describes all the communicative connections that have to take place in the therapist, in the client, and then in the figurative space between these two individuals all also influenced by the interpretative complexities of non verbal artistic creation. That this works and I have no doubt that it does, amazes me. Here is the quote: From: Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association. "Affect Regulation, Mirror Neurons, and the Third Hand Formulating Mindful Empathic Art Interventions." Michael Franklin PhD, Naropa University, Boulder, CO April 22, 2011.
"The layered elements that form visual empathic, responses ultimately unfold in a quick succession of subtle, albeit informed, intuitions that result from education, clinical training, and overall life experience. Because these informed intuitions emerge as automatic thoughts, it may be helpful to describe the process of their emergence, as follows:
"The progression of empathic insight and response begins with a contemplative mindful lens, in which the art therapist's intention should be to slow down and remain present without judgements (Franklin, 1990). This initial phase attempts a neutral posture, suspending the habit of judging, categorizing, explaining, or knowing. The goal is to be mindfully present to presenting imagery and behavior, bracketing out points of bias or impulsive interpretations that might contaminate a fresh, beginner's mind. The desired attitude is that of meeting a stranger for the first time with a welcoming, unconditional presence.
"Next, the therapist aims to receive the ongoing, multiple, communications of the client -- including verbal, visual, behavioral, and somatic cues -- within the therapist's own body. it is also important to observe facial expressions and nonverbal patterns unfolding in the environment (Schlore & Schore, 2008). Being mindfully receptive to this relational field will cultivate an intrapersonal tolerance for the ambiguous, layered information emerging in the session.
"The therapist then directs his or her efforts toward becoming phenomenologically aware of the primary core formal elements that comprise these verbal, visual, behavioral, and somatic cues. The therapist must check transference and countertransference reactions and sort out related and unrelated personal identifications with the art and other expressions presented. Given the likelihood that the therapist's mirror neuron system has been activated, somatic cues can be used as sources of information to monitor. the therapist filters all of this information by omitting irrelevant material and distilling the primary data into the core content to be communicated. The core content becomes the consolidated emotional center of all verbal, visual, and somatic communications (Sobol & Willims, 2001).
"The core material is sifted further when the art therapist aligns it with similarities in his or her personal history that are based in resonance rather than over identification. As with the difference between empathy (feeling within), and sympathy (Feeling for), the therapist carefully monitors the potential for merger through projective identification. At this point contertransference becomes available as a form of sublimated empathy.
"Acting in the hold of the "third Hand" or auxiliary ego, a visual narrative is then judiciously crafted. this consolidated and symbolic communication responds to what Schlore and Schore (2008) called the "music" behind discursive language. Finally, visual intervention is offered in the least intrusive way when the therapist attunes to the client's artistic style or visual "handwriting" (Kramer, 1986). This completes the empathic art process.
"To summarize, in this image- and client-centered approach, isomorphic expression from the client is answered with empirically accurate, isomorphic expression from the art therapist. In essence, the art therapist receives the affect of the client from his or her art and other layered expressions, manages initial ambiguities by skillfully filtering this material through personal yet objective identifications and associations, and offers back an artistic response. This response consolidates and communicates with clarity the emotional center of the changes experienced in the session.
"The crafting of empathic art responses requires several additional considerations. First, it is necessary to take into account one's own unconscious processes and messages. The intersubjective exchange between client and art therapist is actually an interaction of two intermingling histories. (Teicholz, 1999). The postmodern perspective is that no true objective reality exists; rather, multiple subjective realities are constructed out of personal experiences. The therapist's subjective perception is therefore crucial because it is always possible for unconscious messages to be communicated through the therapist's misattuned responses. This is why meditation practice is an important intrapersonal strategy for cultivating awareness, attention, and intention, all of which help monitor any subtle miscues.
Due to the complexities and the vast trove of information presented last Thursday morning, I suggested that we use this next week's Bake Off to further discuss some of these concepts. We will have more or less, a directed Bake Off, rather than the usual free for all. I do believe that several of our group had comments to make. I advise members to read the articles, and jot down questions, comments, or other narratives that might contribute to this discussion next week.
In my usual attempt to provide something visual and not just endless written words in this blog, I thank Dave K. for sending me this you tube link. I think it demonstrates art therapy to an extreme. Of course, the creator of these amazing structures did them as a therapy for himself, but I think we can all receive some therapy from viewing what he has done.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/oxcftjJ39BU
Here is an idea for a future meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7YFrMqbcQ8
3 minute art therapy are youtube videos made by Pamela Hayes, art therapist. Most are more primitive or crafty art than what Lori has described, but I think the idea of Winnicott carried further by his students and now Pamela Hayes who has two people exchange squiggles and then has other person make the squiggle into a drawing.
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