Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy

Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy
of related interest
Art-Based Research
Shaun McNiff
ISBN 1 85302 621 2 pb
ISBN 1 85302 620 4 hb
Therapeutic Presence
Bridging Expression and Form
Edited by Arthur Robbins
ISBN 1 85302 559 3 pb
Tapestry of Cultural Issues in Art Therapy

Edited by Anna R. Hiscox and Abby C. Calisch
ISBN 1 85302 576 3 pb
Poiesis
The Language of Psychology and the Speech of the Soul
Stephen K. Levine
ISBN 1 85302 488 0 pb
Using Voice and Movement in Therapy

The Practical Application of Voice Movement Therapy
Paul Newham
ISBN 1 85302 592 5 pb
Therapeutic Voicework
Principles and Practice for the Use of Singing as a Therapy
Paul Newham
ISBN 1 85302 361 2 pb
Foundations of
Expressive Arts Therapy
Theoretical and Clinical Perspectives
Stephen K. Levine and Ellen G. Levine
Jessica Kingsley Publishers

London and Philadelphia
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material
form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and
whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication)
without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the
provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a
licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road,
London, England W1T 4LP. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission
to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.
Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result
in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.
The right of the contributors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted
by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1999 by

Jessica Kingsley Publishers
116 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JB, UK
and
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia PA 19106, USA
www.jkp.com
Second impression 1998

Third impression 1999
Fourth impression 2004
© Copyright 1999 Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Foundations of expressive arts therapy : theoretical and clinical perspectives
1. Arts - Therapeutic use
I. Levine, Stephen K. II. Levine, Ellen G.
615.8’5156
ISBN-13: 978 1 85302 463 4 pb

ISBN-10: 1 85302 463 5 pb
Printed and Bound in Great Britain by

Athenaeum Press, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
Dedication
For all the students of expressive arts therapy who have been
our teachers, and for Jennifer Sjenta Dancer Haberman
(1970–98), whose brief life was a swirl of color.
Contents
Introduction 9
Part I Philosophical and theoretical perspectives

1 Poiesis and post-modernism: the search for a foundation
in expressive arts therapy 19
Stephen K. Levine
2 Soul nourishment, or the intermodal language

of imagination 37
Paolo J. Knill
3 The necessity of form: expressive arts therapy in

the light of the work of K.E. Løgstrup 53
Majken Jacoby
4 Artistic inquiry: research in expressive arts therapy 67

Shaun McNiff
Part II Clinical perspectives

5 Voicework as therapy: the artistic use of singing and
vocal sound to heal mind and body 89
Paul Newham
6 The creative connection: a holistic expressive arts process 113

Natalie Rogers
7 Living artfully: movement as an integrative process 133

Daria Halprin
8 Layer upon layer: a healing experience in the art studio 151

Annette Brederode
9 Music as mother: the mothering function of music through
expressive and receptive avenues 171
Margareta Wärja
10 Between imagination and belief: poetry as

therapeutic intervention 195
Margo Fuchs
11 Poetry in the oral tradition: serious play with words 211

Elizabeth Gordon McKim
12 The Theater of the Holocaust 223

Yaacov Naor
13 In exile from the body: creating a ‘play room’

in the ‘waiting room’ 241
Melinda Ashley Meyer
14 On the play ground: child psychotherapy and

expressive arts therapy 275
Ellen G. Levine
The Contributers 274

Subject Index 276
Author Index 280
Introduction
This book gathers together a multiplicity of perspectives which represent the

field of expressive arts therapy at this point in time.We hope thereby to offer a
survey of the field which shows both the diverse theoretical perspectives that
underlie it as well as the different approaches to practice which these
perspectives inform. To us, the multiplicity of perspectives involved is a sign
of the health of our profession: expressive arts therapy is a work-in-progress.
All our contributors, as well as many others not included in this volume, can
be seen as artists shaping our field together by their own individual efforts.
Expressive arts therapy as a separate field of professional practice is, in
fact, a comparatively recent development. Its origins can be traced back to
the early 1970s when Shaun McNiff, Paolo Knill, Norma Canner and others
founded the Expressive Therapy Program at Lesley College Graduate School
in Cambridge, MA. The philosophy of this program embraced an intermodal
or interdisciplinary approach to the arts therapies, in contradistinction to the
specialized arts therapy training programs then in existence. Connections
were made with indigenous healing systems, such as shamanism (McNiff
1981), and with contemporary philosophical developments, such as
phenomenology, hermeneutics and, more recently, deconstructionism. The
Lesley College program fostered the development of a creative therapeutic
community of students and faculty; Paolo Knill, in particular, following the
work of Anna Halprin and others, developed the principles and practice of
community art-making.
Since its beginnings, the Lesley program has trained over a thousand
students in the field of expressive arts therapy. Many of them have gone on to
work as therapists in clinical settings and to teach in institutes and other
training programs. In the late 1980s, Paolo Knill began to develop training
programs in Europe and North America which were affiliated with Lesley
College. Under the title of the International School of Interdisciplinary
9
10 FOUNDATIONS OF EXPRESSIVE ARTS THERAPY
Studies (ISIS), programs were established in Switzerland, Canada, Denmark

and Germany. These programs featured training in intermodal expressive
arts therapy within the framework of a creative learning community.
The ISIS programs, together with similarly oriented training programs in
Europe, were subsequently organized into the European Network of
Expressive Therapy Training Centers. This consortium of training programs
began to sponsor an annual intensive training week and celebration of the
arts, called the Easter Symposium, held every year in a different European
country over the Easter holiday. The success of the Easter Symposium and
the extension of the Network to North America resulted in the inauguration
of an annual Harvest Symposium in 1995. At this point, the European
Network became broadened into the International Network of Expressive
Arts Therapy Training Centers. At the time of writing, new ISIS programs are
being developed in Israel, the southwestern United States and California.
At the same time as training institutes began to proliferate, new academic
programs were also emerging. The European Graduate School, based in
Switzerland, began to offer Masters degrees in Expressive Arts Therapy and
an advanced leadership training, the Certificate of Advanced Graduate
Studies, leading to a PhD, in 1996. In California, the California Institute of
Integral Studies began its Masters-level graduate training in 1996.
Therapists and trainers in the field also came together to form a
professional organization, the International Expressive Arts Therapy
Association (IEATA). Founded in 1994, the IEATA saw itself as an alternative
to the specialized arts therapy organizations, not only in terms of its
intermodal character but also because it encouraged educators and artists as
well as therapists to become members. The IEATA has since inaugurated a
professional registration process for expressive arts therapists, and has
sponsored three major conferences in the United States and Canada.
The growth of expressive arts therapy over the past 20 years has resulted
in its formation as a separate and independent field. Hopefully, the times are
gone when arts therapy specialists would challenge the very possibility of an
intermodal approach. At the same time, the establishment of this field
requires its practitioners to understand its specific nature and its
interrelationship with other modes of practice, as well as the theoretical
frameworks which underlie it.
In the first place, the definition of the field needs to be clarified. To some
extent, we feel, expressive arts therapy will never have a clearly defined mode
of operation. Like all interdisciplinary practices, it cannot be limited to a
INTRODUCTION 11
particular framework. Its interdisciplinary nature requires an ability to bring

together disparate perspectives and practices without privileging any one of
them.
Expressive arts therapy is grounded not in particular techniques or media
but in the capacity of the arts to respond to human suffering. The
fundamental concept of aesthetic responsibility (Knill, Barba and Fuchs
1995) implies an ability to use appropriate media for therapeutic purposes.
The expressive arts therapist must therefore be prepared to work with sound,
image, movement, enactment and text as they are required in the encounter
with the lived situation of the client.
This multidimensional approach has sometimes been accused of
eclecticism in the sense of an incoherent collection of approaches. What saves
the field from this charge, in our opinion, is its rootedness, on the one hand,
in the possibilities of sensory expression originating in lived bodily
experience and, on the other, in the unity of the imagination as a creative
source of meaning. It is the same body which moves, listens, sees and speaks.
These sensory modalities underlie the formation of artistic disciplines. All the
various modes of bodily expression are gathered up in the unity of the
perceiving and moving body (Merleau-Ponty 1966). In the same way, the
imagination expresses itself in a multiplicity of forms. Whether through
fantasy, dream or art work, the imagination has the capacity to utilize every
sensory modality in the creation of new meaning. Imagination is intermodal
in its very essence.
This fundamental human capacity, which the Greeks called, ‘poiesis’,
guarantees that the varieties of artistic expression have a common origin
(Levine 1997). In fact, through the course of human history, whether in
healing ritual or dramatic enactment, the arts have been first and foremost
employed in interdisciplinary ways. It is only in very recent times that the
specialization of the arts has been codified as the appropriate form for
creative expression. Most recently, of course, the taken-for-granted division
of the arts has broken down, with the emergence of performance art and the
electronic media of movies and television, all of which are thoroughly
intermodal.
Of course, expressive arts therapists cannot claim to be specialists in every
artistic discipline, though some of them, in fact, have multiple competencies.
What they can claim, however, is to be specialists in intermodality; that is, to
be capable of grasping the junctures at which one mode of artistic expression
needs to give way to, or be supplemented by, another. This sensitivity to the
specific creative needs of the moment is a particular goal of training in this

field, sometimes expressed by the phrase ‘low skill, high sensitivity’.
The difficulty in establishing a univocal definition of expressive arts
therapy practice is reflected in the multiple theoretical frameworks which
have been adopted by practitioners. A basic question for expressive arts
therapists is the possibility and desirability of a single theoretical framework.
Should there be one theory of expressive arts therapy or are the theoretical
foundations of the field as multiple as its modes of practice?
One of the major issues implied by this question is the relevance of
psychological theory. Should expressive arts therapy look for viewpoints
established by psychology and the psychotherapies or should it seek to
develop its own perspective? A perusal of the contents of this volume will
show that there is a variety of positions on this question, ranging from
reliance on a particular psychological framework, such as object-relations
theory or a person-centered approach, to the attempt to define a specifically
arts-based foundation. Partly, this question needs to be responded to by
future work. It is one of the tasks of graduate and post-graduate education in
this field to encourage students and teachers to develop a point of view that
will do justice to both the artistic and therapeutic dimensions of our work. At
this point we would like to remain open to a multiplicity of theoretical as well
as practical perspectives.
In the first chapter of this book, ‘Poiesis and Post-modernism: The Search
for a Foundation in Expressive Arts Therapy’, one of the co-editors, Stephen
K. Levine, questions the very notion of a theoretical foundation for the field.
Drawing upon his philosophical training, Levine applies the deconstructive
approach of contemporary thinking to the quest for a fundamental principle
which would ground the field. By focusing on the concept of poiesis in
relation to some key figures in the development of the philosophy of art,
Levine attempts to establish a non-foundational ground for the therapeutic
imagination that would liberate it from pre-established perspectives.
In ‘Soul Nourishment, or the Intermodal Language of Imagination’,
Paolo J. Knill, drawing upon the principles of Minstrels of Soul: Intermodal
Expressive Therapy (1995), which he co-authored, presents the expressive arts
within a general framework of the existential significance of imagination and
play. It is because the arts are rooted in the existential capacity of the
imagination to transcend literal reality that they can serve to present
alternative possibilities of being to us. The historical and anthropological
continuity of imagination, play and art shows their essential significance in
INTRODUCTION 13
human existence. The arts can thus serve as a kind of preventive diet as well
as a medicine to ensure human well-being.
Majken Jacoby, in ‘The Necessity of Form: Ethics and Aesthetics in
Expressive Arts Therapy’, points to the roots of aesthetics and art-making in
our sensory inherence in the world. ‘Human nature,’ as she says, ‘has a
sensory basis’; in our artistic work, we try to articulate the tuned character of
the human response to the world. The articulated attunement of the arts
enables them to be carriers of the ‘sovereign life utterances’, those
fundamental expressions of compassion and trust that open us to the world
and to others. There is thus a ‘necessity of form’, an ethical demand to ‘take
care of the life we hold in our hands’ by shaping it in poetic openness.
The arts are thus seen not only in relationship to beauty but also to truth.
The practice of art, Shaun McNiff tells us in his chapter, ‘Artistic Inquiry:
Research in Expressive Arts Therapy’, affords us insights into life that are not
available through strictly cognitive means. Art can thus be pursued as a mode
of research, a way of knowing that is particularly appropriate for
practitioners of the field of expressive arts therapy. McNiff ’s perspective has
important implications for graduate research in the field. Will we see a new
generation of researchers who are bold enough to base their inquiries in the
practice of the arts rather than scientific cognition? Such a development
would, above all, restore life and imagination to the practice of knowing
itself.
In the second part of our book, we turn to the clinical implications of an
expressive arts approach to therapy. Here we see a variety of modalities
employed as well as a variety of theoretical approaches, some based on
psychological frameworks, some more rooted in the practice of the arts. No
matter what the framework, we sense a common concern with human
suffering and the possibilities of an artistic response. Paul Newham, using a
broad theoretical perspective which incorporates, inter alia, depth psych-
ology, phenomenological philosophy and avant-garde theater, focuses upon
the therapeutic use of the voice within the expressive arts in, ‘Voicework as
Therapy: The Artistic Use of Singing and Vocal Sound to Heal Mind and
Body’. Newham’s development of a new form of expressive arts therapy,
therapeutic voicework, is an important contribution, of especial interest in
that it has been created independently of the shared history and institutional
affiliations which tie together the other contributors to this volume.
Natalie Rogers, one of the pioneers of the field, presents her clinical
approach within the framework of the person-centered philosophy
developed by her father, Carl Rogers. ‘The Creative Connection: A Holistic

Expressive Arts Process’, understands the intermodal approach to arts
therapy within a holistic perspective. Wholeness and self-actualization are
seen as the goals of therapeutic work: the arts are necessary precisely because
of their capacity for expressing the totality of the self.
In Daria Halprin’s ‘Living Artfully: Movement as an Integrative Process’,
the body’s capacity to express itself through movement is understood as the
basis for the integration of alienated parts of the self. ‘The vision of a creative
and embodied life’ provides the possibility for locating expressive arts
therapy within the larger task of ‘the healing of our broken world’. For
Annette Brederode, as we can see in ‘Layer upon Layer: A Healing Experience
in the Art Studio’, the medium of visual art can serve as the foundation for an
intensive process of image-work that results in an integration of other artistic
media in the service of a restored imaginative capacity. Studio work is taken
seriously by both these authors as the basis of expressive arts therapy.
In ‘Music as Mother: The Mothering Function of Music through
Expressive and Receptive Avenues’, Margareta Wärja situates her work
within a psychological understanding of the mother–child relationship in
order to grasp the capacity of a music-oriented expressive arts therapy to
reach the deepest layers of the psyche. For Wärja, music’s ability to reach the
pre-symbolic levels of human experience, our basic bodily and emotional
existence, renders us able to heal our deepest wounds. Music, ‘the queen of
time’, restores us to life.
Music and voice were originally employed together as song. Poetry
remains for us an art of vocal imagination which touches the soul. In
‘Between Imagination and Belief: Poetry as Therapeutic Intervention’,
Margo Fuchs finds the words to play between the basic belief that we need to
exist in the world and our imaginative potential to create new and other
realities. The possibility of poetry as therapeutic intervention rests upon the
space between imagination and belief in which words play.
For Elizabeth Gordon McKim, this is ‘serious play’. Her chapter, ‘Poetry
in the Oral Tradition: Serious Play with Words’, reminds us that poetic
language is part of our inheritance. Beyond formal patterns of rhythm and
rhyme, poetry takes us back to our primal saying and seeing, our ability to
make a world with words.
In ‘The Theater of the Holocaust’, however, Yaacov Naor reminds us that
sometimes the worlds we make can be shattered beyond repair. His
psychodramatic work with the children of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust
INTRODUCTION 15
and the children of German parents of the World War II generation shows
that theater is an arena in which conflict and agony can be contained. The
expressive arts can thus be seen as a means of confronting the legacy of evil
which haunts us all.
Similarly, Melinda Ashley Meyer’s ‘In Exile from the Body: Creating a
“Play Room” in the “Waiting Room”’ shows the power of expressive arts
therapy to address the consequences of violence, torture and suffering which
our own time can claim. By creating a play room out of the waiting room of
Bosnian exiles living in Norway, she demonstrates the continual need for the
work of the expressive arts in restoring life to dead souls.
Finally, our other co-editor, Ellen G. Levine, takes us back to the world of
child’s play as she attempts to integrate her training as a child psychoanalyst
with her work as an expressive arts therapist, as she did in her book, Tending
the Fire: Studies in Art, Therapy and Creativity (1995). Perhaps all of our work
takes place on the ‘playground of the imagination’; perhaps the ultimate
foundation for our work is play.
In looking back over the contributors to this volume, we are struck not
only by the diversity of media and theoretical approaches, but also by the
diverse national origins of our authors. Canada, Denmark, England,
Holland, Israel, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States are all
represented. The international character of this volume is well suited to a
field which aims for the inclusiveness which multiplicity brings. Expressive
arts therapy may never have an identity which can be defined in a simple way.
Identity, Heidegger tells us, ‘… always moves towards the absence of
difference’. Yet without embracing identity, we may be sure that we work in
the ‘same’ field in all our differences, for ‘the same … is a belonging together
of what differs, through a gathering of difference … The same gathers what
is distinct into an original being-at-one’ (Heidegger 1975, pp.218–219).
We hope that this volume will gather our differences while respecting
their variety. The being-at-one, or unity, of expressive arts therapy can only
arise out of this play of difference.
References
Heidegger, M. (1975) Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. A. Hofstadter. New York: Harper
and Row.
Knill, P.J., Barba, H.N. and Fuchs, M.N. (1995) Minstrels of Soul: Intermodal Expressive
Therapy. Toronto: Palmerston Press.
Levine, E.G. (1995) Tending the Fire: Studies in Art, Therapy and Creativity. Toronto:
Palmerston Press.
Levine, S.K. (1997) Poiesis: The Language of Psychology and the Speech of the Soul. London:
Jessica Kingsley.
McNiff, S. (1981) The Arts and Psychotherapy. Chicago: Charles C. Thomas.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1966) Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
PART ONE
Philosophical and Theoretical

Perspectives
CHAPTER 1
Poiesis and Post-Modernism:

The Search for a Foundation in
Expressive Arts Therapy
Stephen K. Levine
In a story by the American author William Saroyan, the protagonist

repeatedly states, ‘No foundation anywhere down the line!’ It is like a magic
charm that he says over and over again, as if naming the chaos were a means
of warding it off. What does it mean to search for foundations in a chaotic
time, a period of history in which, as Yeats put it, ‘Things fall apart; the centre
cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’?
One of the main tendencies in contemporary philosophical thought is a
critique of ‘foundationalism’, the notion that there is a fundamental ordering
principle which can ground history and provide meaning for human
existence. Foundationalism is associated with regimes of power, ideologies
that express domination in theoretical garb. The principle of order becomes a
justification for the suppression of the Other, that class, race or gender which
must serve the ruling groups. With the ending of European imperial rule, the
primacy of this ordering principle also comes into question. Why does
philosophy in its traditional form of metaphysics look for a foundation for
thinking, and what are the implications of such a way of seeing? These
questions are particularly relevant for an understanding of expressive arts
therapy.
Traditional aesthetics operates within a foundational framework based
upon the notion of form; art is thereby seen as a mode of giving order to the
chaotic flux of experience. Beauty, in this framework, is the correlate of a
process of integration; for Kant, the exemplary modern philosopher of art,
whatever brings about a harmony of the faculties of the mind is experienced
as beautiful. In expressive arts therapy, however, the experience of beauty is
often associated with discordance and chaos rather than formal perfection.
19
Beauty is what takes one’s breath away; it is literally breath-taking, as Paolo

Knill reminds us (Knill, Barba and Fuchs 1995). The therapeutically
effective work of clients often is jarring rather than soothing; it is an
expression of suffering which strikes the witness to the core; it does not
allow for the ‘aesthetic distance’ which one can take in the face of formally
perfected work. Of course, clients’ work can also be joyful, even ecstatic, but
this ecstasy, again, is a mode of being ‘struck by beauty’ rather than
disinterested contemplation from a distance.
If traditional aesthetics cannot serve as a foundation for expressive arts
therapy, then how are we to proceed? What concept of art and human
existence will enable us to account for the power of a kind of art-making
which is so radically different from traditional models? How will our
thinking differ from the foundationalism of Western metaphysics, with its
attendant emphasis on order and form? What kind of thinking, one might
ask, can embrace chaos without falling into despair? In order to attempt to
answer these questions, we need to be able first to interrogate the
metaphysical tradition in which we stand. Thinking is always situated; we
can no more jump out of our historical situation than we can make the
proverbial leap over Rhodes. Rather, what we must try to do is to find within
the tradition that has been handed down to us the possibilities for renewal.
Only such a seeking will enable us to go beyond this tradition in an authentic
way.
The basic tendencies of philosophical metaphysics can be seen most
clearly in the classical formulation of Western philosophical thought, the
dialogues of Plato. Here we can see the emergence of what Plato himself
called ‘the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy’, a quarrel which
ends in the banishment of the poets from the just city described in the
Republic. We must remember that in classical Athens the poets were seen as
the educators of the people. The epic poems of Homer, in particular, were
familiar to every educated citizen. Moreover, the tragic dramas were
considered to be an essential part of political life, so much so that at one time
every member of the polis (the city) was required to attend the festivals at
which they were presented.
Thus Plato was proposing something itself untraditional when he
attacked the poets for the harmful political effects of their work. This attack
can only be understood within the fundamental principles of Plato’s
thought. For the philosopher, the world of everyday life was viewed as a
realm of coming into being and passing away; change and instability were
POIESIS AND POST-MODERNISM 21
seen as characteristic of human experience. Not only does this mean that
politics runs the risk of chaotic disorder, but also the very concept of truth
comes into question. If the world in which we live is constantly changing,
then how can we grasp a truth which is permanent and unalterable? For
Plato, it was a given that truth cannot change, else it would become untruth;
therefore if there is any truth at all, it cannot be in the visible, changing world
in which we live. For this reason, Plato was led to the notion of an invisible
world of truth, a world beyond the visible in which the unchanging
principles of Being would inhere.
Such an unchanging principle he called an eidos or idea, usually translated
in English as ‘Form’ or ‘Idea’. Eidos originally meant the ‘visible form’ of
things, that which appears to us; in Plato’s thinking, it takes on the sense of
that which, itself invisible, makes things visible to us. The Forms or Ideas,
themselves unchanging and perfect, are that which give this visible world the
degree of intelligibility which it has. However, what we perceive through the
senses can never have anything more than a passing resemblance to true
Being; the latter can only be known by pure thought.
The clearest example of Plato’s theory of forms is in the ‘allegory of the
cave’, which can be found in Book VII of the Republic. There the world of
everyday life is depicted as a realm of shadows; human beings are likened to
prisoners kept in a cave who are shown images of what is real, images which
they take to be true reality. If a prisoner were to be liberated from the cave,
Plato says, and taken to the surface of the Earth, he would see the real things
of which he formerly saw only images; ultimately he would see the Sun itself,
which is the source not only of the visibility of things but of their very
existence. For Plato, life in the cave is like our life on Earth; what we take to be
real are only shadows and images of true Being. The prisoner’s liberation is
analogous to the education of the philosopher; the latter will come to
understand not only the forms of things but the very source of their existence
and intelligibility, what Plato calls the Form of the Good. This notion of an
ordered realm of forms, culminating in the single, unchanging Form of the
Good, is clearly antithetical to the disorderly world depicted in the works of
the poets. For Homer and the tragedians, the gods themselves are multiple
and changing. Moreover, they are subject to human passions, flying into
rages or driven by lust. Such an image of the divine, Plato thinks, cannot serve
as the basis for a philosophical education, in which a knowledge of the
eternal and unchanging is designed to bring about right order in the soul and
in the city.
Furthermore, not only do the poets produce psychological and political

disorder, they also lay claim to a knowledge which is patently untrue. Here
Plato’s metaphysical critique of art is most evident: the artist not only does
not know the world of true Being, what he produces is merely an imitation of
this visible world, itself an imitation of the real. Plato understands art as
mimesis, imitation. The poet is an imitator, twice removed from the truth. The
illusions of his art stand in stark opposition to the truth which philosophical
dialogue can attain. For this reason, except for hymns to the gods and praises
of great heroes, poetry must be banned from the just city; the poets will only
be re-admitted when they can prove through reasoned discourse that their
work is beneficial to men.
Plato’s thought is too rich and complex to be reduced to this schematic
outline. In particular, there is an interesting residue of the mimetic in the
Platonic dialogues which creates an instability in the very ground of his
thinking. In the first place, the dialogue form is itself an instance of mimesis;
ideas are presented in dramatic interaction, not as abstract propositions. In
addition, Plato resorts to mimesis at every turn in the presentation of his
thinking. In the Republic, the construction of a just city in speech is itself a
poetic act; such a city exists only in the imaginal realm. Moreover, metaphors
abound in the dialogue; the very allegory of the cave, designed to be an
attack on mimesis, uses concrete imagery to achieve its goal. Finally, the
dialogue itself, like many of Plato’s dialogues, ends not in logic but in myth,
in this case a mythical account of the life after death for those who lead just
and unjust lives, respectively.
This hidden mimetic element in Platonic discourse hints at the
impossibility of foundational thinking; any metaphysics of Being is rendered
suspect by the necessity of its presentation. The foundational principle must
become present in the world which it claims to transcend. This necessity
renders the distinction between being and appearance problematical. The
world of the senses may be taken as an appearance, but even an appearance
has the being of a phenomenon. Once this is admitted, the entire realm of
experience is given back to us as something to be thought in its own right.
The arts, which are grounded in what is presented to the senses, need to be
restored to their legitimate place in thought.
The Platonic critique of mimesis resounds throughout Western
philosophy. This critique is based upon a metaphysics of form, in which the
eternal and unchanging are given pre-eminence. Aesthetic thinking takes
place within this framework; thus art can only have a subordinate role in
relation to philosophy; the concept, then, must necessarily be held to be

superior to the image. Even in Hegel, who tried to integrate history into the
development of the Absolute, the Idea is given a superordinate role, parallel
to the dominance of the modern political state. The truth of the image,
though not denied, is viewed as an inadequate manifestation of the Absolute,
itself fully revealed only through concepts.The principle of understanding is
thus moved from the eternal realm into history but only as its necessary and
inevitable goal. The end of history, once achieved in the perfection of the
modern state, also means the end of art.
Not until Nietzsche does a fundamentally new conception of Being come
into view, and, with it, a new valuation of art. Nietzsche overturns the
Platonic pre-eminence of the ideal over the sensual, Being over becoming.
For him this world in which we live is the real world; any concept of Being
that prefers eternity to time is merely an attempt to escape from the necessary
coming into being and passing away that marks earthly existence. Already in
The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche’s first great work, there is a critique of the
Platonic logos as a turning away from the suffering that comes with
temporality. For Nietzsche here, following Schopenhauer, Being is
conceived not as Idea but as Will: the world is the manifestation of a
fundamental striving or desire at the heart of things, a willing which
discharges itself into images which have the power to contain the pain of
desire.
Thus Nietzsche understands Greek tragedy not as it previously had been
conceived: as centered upon elegant language which reflects the serenity of
the Greek mind. Rather, the articulate perfection of the dialogue in the tragic
drama is made possible only on the basis of the energetic song and dance of
the chorus. Tragedy, as acted on the stage rather than read as literature, is a
unity of language and music in which the latter is predominant. In fact, for
Nietzsche, music is the only adequate expression of Will; as the art of the
temporal, music reflects the pulsation that is at the core of striving.
Nietzsche not only gives poetry, in the mode of tragic drama, first place
over philosophy; he also thinks their difference in poetic images. The
philosophical logos is pictured in terms of the god Apollo, associated with
light, law, measure and individuality. The tragic mythos, on the other hand, is
seen as expressing the power of Dionysus, the god of the vine, of orgiastic
frenzy, of collective celebration and ritual. The tragic dramas, in fact, were
performed at festivals honoring the god Dionysus. For Nietzsche, tragedy
originates from Dionysian rituals in which choral celebration is devoted to
the god. Only later is there a marriage of the Dionysian choral throng, which
expresses itself through music and song, with the Apollonian speech of the
individual actors.
The myth of Dionysus, associated with the sowing of seed in the
springtime, tells of a god who is dismembered and whose scattered parts are
spread over the Earth. The rituals of Dionysus celebrate the unification of the
torn-apart deity; Dionysus is re-membered in the harvest festivals in which
new life arises from the ground. In the drinking of the wine, the celebrants
feel a common existence which expresses itself through communal song and
dance.
The torn-apart, dismembered, scattered, fragmented god is, for
Nietzsche, an image of the fundamental character of existence: Being as Will.
Desire, striving, casts itself forward in an unending longing for what is not;
there is a fundamental pain at the heart of Being, a pain which can only be
accepted through art. Here is where Nietzsche distinguishes himself from his
mentor, Schopenhauer. Unlike the latter, for whom art was a means of
pacifying and calming the Will, Nietzsche sees the great art of tragic drama as
a willingness to accept the suffering of desire completely and still affirm the
value of life. Nietzsche does not wish to turn away from the Will towards an
ascetic or meditative state of non-Being, as Schopenhauer does; rather,
Nietzsche wants to find the means to accept time, Will, destruction and death
without falling into despair; for him, the art of tragedy expresses a culture
which says ‘Yes!’ to life in the face of chaos and suffering. In his view, serenity
is not at the heart of Greek culture; rather, it is the recognition of horror that
enables the ancient Greeks to stare serenely into the abyss; art is their way of
accepting their pain: as Nietzsche says, ‘… it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon
that existence and the world are eternally justified’ (Nietzsche 1967, p.52).
One can see clearly now why Nietzsche was so critical of Socrates, as
presented in the Platonic dialogues. Socrates is seen by Nietzsche as the
prototype of the new man, who strives not to accept the temporal world but
to escape from it. His philosophical dialectic is an Apollonian art which,
unlike tragedy, has lost touch with its Dionysian ground. Socratic logic
assumes it can master time and Will by creating a world of unchanging ideas.
As this logic reaches its complete form in our epoch, however, it results in a
bureaucratic and administrative culture which is devoid of life. By mastering
Will, it has left itself without value; Apollonian culture ends in a nihilism in
which nothing has meaning .Thus Nietzsche calls for a rebirth of tragedy, a
revival of the spirit of communal celebration which would overcome the
lifeless individualism of our modern scientific culture. In The Birth of Tragedy,

he portrays signs of this revival in the new operatic works of Richard
Wagner which, in their willingness to combine text, music, scene and
dramatic action into a total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk), and in their
ambition to form the basis of a national culture based on myth, recall to him
the role of tragedy in Greek life.
Ultimately, Nietzsche came to reject the standpoint of The Birth of Tragedy
as an expression of an other-worldly metaphysics in which Will is given the
transcendental role that Being previously held. However, Nietzsche never
gave up his valuation of art as a means of affirming life in the face of
suffering. In fact, he radicalized his early thought by locating the Will within
life itself: the essence of life is Will. This insight led Nietzsche to call for the
choice of art not as the vocation of the genius but as a universal way of living.
For Nietzsche, if the triumph of Apollonian culture means the death of myth,
that is, the end of any belief in the gods, then the only alternative to despair is
to become a god oneself, to take on the heroic task of giving meaning to the
universal nothingness. The creator myth of the artist must become the
guiding belief of every individual who aspires to live fully. Only in this way
can nihilistic extinction be overcome.
For Nietzsche, such a task calls for a new kind of human being, one who
overcomes the weakness of will of those who seek to escape this world; such
a being he calls the ‘overman’ (Übermensch, sometimes translated as
‘Superman’, with all its unfortunate Nazi and comic-book connotations)
(Nietzsche 1962). The overman wills beyond (über) man in that he is willing
to affirm existence in all its limitations, not to escape it into the eternal.
Nietzsche’s metaphor for this task is what he calls ‘the myth of the eternal
return’. If we can imagine that every moment of history were to re-occur
eternally, with all the pain and suffering that that implies, he asks, would we
have the courage to say ‘Yes!’ to this moment, knowing that such an
affirmation would bring with it all of existence in its train? Nietzsche here
takes up the challenge which Goethe assigned to Faust, to say of the moment,
‘Stay, thou art fair!’; but in this case the task is magnified infinitely, for such an
affirmation in Nietzsche’s perspective would be to will Being in all its
plenitude. The artistic Will of the tragic Greeks is now seen as the model for a
new mode of transhuman existence.
Nietzsche’s poetic vision accepts time and finitude as the core of what is.
In so doing, it necessitates a new concept of truth. If there is no eternal realm
of Being which can give meaning and value to our world of becoming, then
truth itself is constantly changing; in fact ‘truth’ is only what we will to be

true. Truth at any moment, for Nietzsche, is a mask for the will to power; we
value as true that which enables us to will more strongly.
In fact, even the negation of Will in Platonism (and later in Christianity,
which Nietzsche sees as a spiritualized form of Platonism, relying on the
same other-worldly ethos) is an attempt to master one’s own existence: those
who are unable to will strongly can still will for the abolition of Will.
Philosophy and religion, in Nietzsche’s view, are forms of revenge taken
against existence by those who bear the resentment of being powerless; they
represent what Nietzsche calls ‘slave-morality’. Nietzsche’s critique of these
‘higher’ modes of culture is based not on their being false, but rather on the
fact that they are covert forms of willing which, in spite of the new powers of
mind and spirit which they bring with them, lead ultimately to an exhaustion
of the Will.
Truth, for Nietzsche, then, is not the logic of Being; rather, truth is a mask
which expresses the will to power. There is no truth behind appearance; what
appears is true, as long as I will it to be so. There is thus in Nietzsche’s
thinking a new valuation of the phenomenon. Earthly existence is thought of
as the only world; appearance is given value in itself. Not only is Nietzsche’s
thinking artistic in that he gives pre-eminence to the creative power to form
images and myths which affirm life, but there is also an aesthetic valuing of
the sensuous appearances of things. The rejection of metaphysics brings with
it an acceptance of aesthetics as a mode of truth. Indeed, for Nietzsche, one
could say, as Keats did, ‘Beauty is truth, truth, beauty, – that is all Ye know on
earth, and all ye need to know’. It is only necessary to add that ‘beauty’ here
does not mean formal perfection (as in the timeless figures of the Grecian urn,
of which Keats speaks), but the temporality of the passing moment, which is
valued just for its finitude, not in spite of it. Even the myth of the eternal
return, the ‘foundation’ of Nietzsche’s later thought, is understood by him
not as absolute truth, but as a myth which can, at this point in history, give
human beings the renewed power to choose life. Its ‘truth’ resides in its
power; only insofar as it strengthens the Will does this or any other
viewpoint count as ‘true’. Nietzsche thus hopes to overcome metaphysics by
seeing his own philosophy as perspectival; Nietzsche the thinker is an artist
who creates truth in the service of life.
Here, of course, is the point on which any evaluation of Nietzsche’s
thinking must concentrate. If truth is what I will, then what stops me from
willing whatever I choose? We recall that Leni Riefenstahl’s film of Hitler’s
Nuremberg rally was called ‘The Triumph of the Will’. Is Nietzsche’s

thinking here a way of overcoming nihilism or the ultimate expression of the
nihilistic impulse?
For Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche’s philosophy is not the end of
metaphysics, but the very culmination of it. Heidegger sees Nietzsche’s
‘transvaluation of values’, his overturning of the traditional valuations of
philosophy and religion which prize eternity over time, contemplation over
Will, as caught in the same metaphysical duality as that from which it tries to
escape. In Heidegger’s view, Nietzsche does not do away with metaphysics;
rather, he substitutes a new metaphysical principle, the Will to Power, for the
traditional conception of the Absolute as Idea (Heidegger 1979).
In so doing, Nietzsche reveals the essence of this tradition itself. For
Heidegger, philosophy has always been based upon a project of the Will. Its
concept of truth implied a mastery of Being through thought and a
subsequent capacity to re-order the world into an intelligible framework.
The triumph of technology in our time, in Heidegger’s view, is the fateful
fulfillment of the Western philosophical project to understand Being and,
thereby, to overcome it. This project is itself based upon the concept of truth
as correspondence, the logical attempt to articulate Being correctly. The goal
of Western thought is the complete presence of the truth, the revelation of
Being in the statement.
Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics is not based on an opposition to it, an
opposition which, like Nietzsche’s, would carry its opponent within it in a
concealed way. Rather, Heidegger thinks that metaphysics can only be
overcome by a destructuring of the tradition, an unbuilding which reveals the
foundation of this mode of thought. Nietzsche’s heroic attempt to overcome
metaphysics results not in its abolition but in its revelation as the will to
master Being, to compel it to be present.
Letting go of the Western project of dominating Being requires a new
thinking of truth and human existence. For Heidegger, the essence of truth
can be seen not as correctness, the adequate correspondence to a pre-existing
reality, but rather as unconcealment, the opening or clearing of a space in
which what is can come to stand. Truth as unconcealment, in Heidegger’s
thinking, is contained already in the etymology of the Greek word for truth,
‘alethia’. Lethe, the river of death and forgetfulness, designates the darkness
and mystery in which Being dwells. To allow something to emerge from
concealment, a-lethia, means to become aware of the background from which
things emerge. Heidegger’s concept of truth implies that we will never have
the complete presence of what is; rather, what is grants itself to us only in
terms of its manifestation at a given moment in time. Truth happens; it is not a
timeless realm to which we must aspire; rather, it occurs within history and is
given to us as our destiny.
Therefore, for Heidegger, we do not create truth. Letting go of the project
of the domination of Being means that Nietzsche’s heroic image of the
creator willing his existence can no longer serve us as a guiding image. The
artist–creator, for Heidegger, is only a manifestation of the Will to Power,
itself the essence of the metaphysical concept of Being. If there is a role for art
in the coming-to-be of truth, it cannot be as a project of the Will.
In fact, in Heidegger’s thinking, the overcoming (or better, relinquishing)
of metaphysics does not imply a devaluation of art, but rather a different way
of thinking its place in the history of Being. In ‘The Origin of the Work of
Art’, Heidegger tries to think art as an essential place where truth happens
(Heidegger 1975). In order to do this, however, he must re-conceive the
Being of art itself.
In this essay, Heidegger interprets the origin of art not in terms of its
creator or its perceiver, but in terms of the work itself. The work of art is not,
in its essence, something produced by a creator; to think of it this way would
be to make art into a project of the Will in a metaphysical sense. But in a
similar way, art cannot be thought to owe its existence to the audience or
viewer; this would still hold to a conception that the work is produced by a
subject in command of its object; the only difference would be that the locus
of subjectivity would have shifted. Rather, as Heidegger puts it, ‘The origin
of the art work is art’ (Heidegger 1975, p.39). What this means can only be
understood by interpreting the Being of the work of art. In so doing,
Heidegger shows that the work is not a mere thing, an object which can be
measured and disposed of (though to be sure, the work can also be treated as
a thing, when weighing it for shipping costs, for example); neither is the
work a piece of equipment, something useful whose being consists in its
fitting into the purposive context of our activities in the world. Rather, a
phenomenological inquiry, that is, one that treats the work on its own terms,
shows that the meaning of equipment as well as things first comes to
appearance through the work itself. It is the work of art that reveals the
meaning of Being; therefore the work must be regarded as itself an origin in
the lives of human beings.
Art, in Heidegger’s thinking, is the place in which beings come to show
themselves as what they are. In Heidegger’s terms, art is the ‘setting-
into-work of truth’ (Heidegger 1975, p.77). Rather than see art and truth in
a contradictory relationship, as both Plato and Nietszche did (albeit in an
opposing manner), Heidegger names art as a primordial way in which truth
becomes manifest. He can do this because truth for him is not a transcendent
principle which can only be imitated in the world; rather, truth itself is an
event, a manifestation in time. Moreover, the event of truth is one which sets
humans on the paths which mark their world. As an essential manifestation
of truth, art has the capacity to give meaning and direction to human
existence.
This capacity is called by Heidegger ‘poiesis’, using the old Greek word
for poetry and art-making. Poiesis belongs to human existence as an essential
possibility; it is a fundamental way of being-in-the-world. However, because
Being is not at our disposal as a project of the Will, poiesis depends upon our
willingness to stand aside and attend to the images which are given to us. We
cannot force or compel the work; rather, art-making is a hearkening to the
granting of Being which may or may not come to the waiting and expectant
artist. Similarly, the viewer does not have the power to make the work appear
whenever he may choose; rather, he too must serve the image and pre-serve it
in its arrival.
Moreover, because truth is a happening and not an entity, the work can
never provide a mastery of its subject matter. The nature of truth as
unconcealment means that the work guards its own mystery; it can never be
given a final interpretation. There is in the work not only the manifest
meaning which it grants to us, but also the concealed background which
shows itself through what appears. Heidegger goes so far as to see this
relation between concealment and unconcealment as essential to the
work-being of the work. He calls ‘World’ that which in the work strives for
manifestation and revelation; ‘Earth’ is the term he uses for that which in the
work gives rise to meaning but which holds itself back as a sheltering-
bearing ground. The work, for Heidegger, eventuates as the struggle between
World and Earth, a struggle which can never be resolved and which holds
open the possibility of the work’s opening us to the fundamental mystery of
Being itself.
Here we approach the question of the foundation in Heidegger’s
thinking. It would be tempting for us to see his notion of ‘Earth’ as a
foundational notion, especially given the connotation of the word in its
ordinary usage as that on which we stand. But we must remember that, for
Heidegger, ‘Earth’ is precisely that on which we cannot stand; it is that which
in its preserving–concealing resists appropriation. Rather than a ground

(Grund), it is an abyss (Ab-grund). Poiesis is thus what enables us to look into
the abyss.
In order to understand Heidegger’s thinking here, we must go back to his
fundamental insight in Being and Time that human existence is not a matter of
a conscious subject who is capable of understanding and thereby mastering
reality; rather, the human being is already ‘there’, cast into a world which he
did not create and which he cannot control (Heidegger 1962). Therefore,
Heidegger refers to human existence as ‘Da-sein’ being-there. The ‘there’ of a
human being is the world of purposive activities which orients his actions. As
a being in the world, he has a concern for the things which surround him.
However, his ultimate concern is not for the world into which he has been
placed but for his own fate as a being who one day will cease to be. Da-sein is a
being-towards-death; by encountering his own mortality as his singular fate,
he can become capable of finding in what has been given to him the
authentic possibilities which lie before him. In this way, his ‘concern’ for the
world is revealed to be a manifestation of his fundamental ‘care’ for Being.
In Being and Time, then, Heidegger thinks Being within the ultimate
horizon of non-Being. Human existence is manifest as what it is only in the
light of its ceasing-to-be. By accepting the possibility of my impossibility
(death), I can stand in the world authentically without needing to hold on to
a firm ground outside of it. This theme of the non-foundational nature of
human existence is thought by Heidegger, together with his recovery of the
nature of truth, as unconcealment. Acceptance of my finitude enables me to
let go into the mysterious non-Being which allows things to be. This
non-Being, thought by Heidegger in Being and Time and subsequent essays as
the ‘Nothing’, (Das Nichts) is then re-conceived in ‘The Origin of the Work of
Art’ as ‘Earth’, the sheltering–bearing ground which withdraws in its
presencing. To think poiesis as the mode of being in which the struggle
between World and Earth comes to presence is to recognize art as central to
human existence. At the same time, poiesis is not thought as the masterful
control of Being by a subject–creator; rather, it is releasement into what is
granted. Being gives itself as art to creators and preservers; it is their task to
receive the gift.
Heidegger’s thinking is as dark and deep, perhaps, as Being itself; this
presentation should not be taken as an attempt to master it, but rather to
interpret it from a particular point of view, the point of view of expressive arts
therapy in its contemporary search for foundations. From this perspective,
several things become apparent. In the first place, Heidegger’s destruction of

metaphysics has restored the role of art to a central place in human existence.
Poiesis is what enables us to be who we are. Therefore, it is not possible to
view art as a dispensable addition to the fundamental concerns of the person.
Expressive arts therapy is possible because poiesis is the ground of human
existence.
At the same time, it becomes apparent that this ground cannot be a
foundation which secures certainty for a subject in control of his or her life.
Poiesis grounds itself in the finitude of human existence; it is precisely
because we cannot master death that we have the possibility to open
ourselves to that which lies beyond us. This means also that poiesis opens us
to the possibility of healing. The suffering which lies in the human condition
and which strikes each one of us in the form of our fate can only be met by a
surrender to Being which makes it possible to receive a blessing adequate to
our pain. The therapeutic power of art rests not in its elimination of suffering
but rather in its capacity to hold us in the midst of that suffering so that we
can bear the chaos without denial or flight.
Expressive arts therapy is, therefore, not a new fundamentalism which
would offer salvation leading to redemption; rather, in following the path of
poiesis, we open ourselves to the chaos and nullity of Being, as well as to its
order and plenitude. There is a joy in this path; but it is, as Nietzsche saw, a
tragic joy which affirms existence in the face of suffering. The only
foundation is our capacity to admit that there is no foundation, to play
among the ruins and find the gift which lies in wait for us there.
To follow Heidegger in his thinking of poiesis is to envision the
possibility of expressive arts therapy as a fundamental option for human
existence. It is, at the same time, to recognize the precarious nature of our
field, its necessary fragility and vulnerability; necessary because rooted in the
precarious nature of human existence itself. In Elizabeth McKim’s words,
‘We are scared and sac/red in the hoop of the world’ (McKim 1988, p.81).
No theoretical foundation can secure for us the certainty and control which
technical mastery offers. Rather, we stand unprotected on the ground of
Being, knowing we will fall, allowing that fall to find its resting place, the
place where image and word come together to find a new direction in the
world. There is, indeed, a faith that lies at the foundation of expressive arts
therapy; but it is not faith in a transcendent being or principle. Rather, it is the
faith that poiesis is always possible, that no encounter with non-Being is too
great to be put into a work.
Heidegger’s thinking of poiesis is itself not a foundational ground that we

can rely on. In fact, there are several lacunae in his thinking that subsequent
philosophers have tried to address and which are particularly important for
the field of expressive arts therapy. In the first place, there is the question of
the role of language in human expression. Ultimately, poiesis is understood
by Heidegger, as it was by Plato, to find its essential manifestation in poetry;
all other arts are subordinated to the art of language. This is particularly
troubling for expressive art therapists, for whom the body is the ground of all
expression (Levine 1996). Of course, it is absurd to think of expressive arts
therapy as a non-verbal practice; not only do both therapist and client use
language to understand their work, but the very intermodal nature of the
field means that poetic dialogue, story-telling and dramatic enactment are
always possible. It may even be that language is the medium in which
experience can come to its most articulate and crystallized form (Knill et al.
1995). Nevertheless, it is true that bodily expression is the primary medium
in which we work therapeutically; as Nietzsche realized, for theater to be
therapeutic, it must be enacted, not merely read; and even poetry is best
understood as performance art, not as text.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty has tried to work in the space which Heidegg-
erean thinking has opened up, while still allowing room for the bodily
expression of being (Merleau-Ponty 1966). For Merleau-Ponty, being-
in-the-world means first of all bodily being; it is through our lived bodily
experience that we take hold of the world, perceiving it through the senses as
a possible realm of action. The art work, for Merleau-Ponty, reveals this
bodily inherence of Being insofar as it opens the visible of perception to its
invisible depths (Merleau-Ponty 1966). Merleau-Ponty is thus ultimately led
to the notion of ‘flesh’ as the chiasmic intertwining of sensing and being
sensed that makes our inherence in the world possible (Merleau-Ponty
1968).
In some ways, it is surprising that there is such a comparative neglect of
the body in favor of language in Heidegger’s thinking; after all, the
deconstruction of consciousness and subjectivity, and the emphasis on Earth
as non-foundational ground, would lead one to assume that the body would
become a major focus of his thinking. Moreover, the finitude of human
existence, around which Heidegger’s thinking revolves, is first of all a bodily
finitude; we not only live in the world as bodily beings, but it is our body
which dies. In Heidegger’s preference of existence over life, there is an
over-looking of the physical texture of the being who exists. Even poetic
language is seen by him in terms of its meaning; the ‘body’ of the poem, its
sonorous and rhythmic substance, does not come into view in his
interpretation of poetic works.
Not only the body but also the experience of the Other is not clearly
visible in Heidegger’s thinking. Again, this is somewhat surprising, since
going beyond subjectivity implies relinquishing the isolated individual into
essential relation with others. However, already in Being and Time, the status
of the Other is a subordinate one. Da-sein appropriates himself by accepting
his being-unto-death; in so doing, he steps outside of the generalized
‘they’-self (Das Man) in which he had taken refuge so as not to face the terror
of existence. Death is the one thing which no one else can do for me;
assuming my being-unto-death means becoming an existing individual.
Only on that basis can I form authentic relations with others. For this reason,
Heidegger differentiates authentic care for the Other, which he calls
‘solicitude’, from the kind of concern which leaps in and tries to take away
the Other’s sorrow. In solicitude I face the Other as a potentially existing
being; only on the basis of my own authentic existence can I hope to
facilitate the existence of the Other.
Certainly there is a great truth here: I cannot relieve another human being
of the burden of existence. Moreover, unless I have taken on the task of
existence myself, I will be unable to show the way to anyone else. Yet there is
something missing in Heidegger as well; the emphasis on the individualizing
character of existence in the face of death puts into shadow the essential
relationship that is possible with another through love. In Being and Time, the
Other stands apart from me as an individual who is capable of existing
without me and without whom I too can exist. What happens, however,
when the Other needs my help in order to be, or when the Other’s suffering
calls to me in the depths of my being in such a way that my capacity to
respond to that suffering implies the sacrifice of my own individuality,
perhaps even of my existence itself ?
In the thinking of Emmanuel Levinas, we can see a concept of human
existence in which the call of the Other has precedence over my own being
(Levinas 1989). Levinas speaks here not out of the Greek metaphysical
tradition but out of a Jewish ethical framework in which care for the Other is
my primary responsibility. Levinas attempts to think in a manner ‘otherwise
than Being’, that is to say, to begin with the appeal of the Other to me rather
than with my own search for existence. Levinas’s critique of Heidegger here
may perhaps illuminate what seems to be the latter’s lack of concern for the
victims of the Holocaust. In the light of the destiny of Being, the fate of the
suffering victim shrinks into oblivion.
If expressive arts therapy is to be a response to human suffering, however,
then it must rethink the meaning of Being so that care for the Other is as
central as care for one’s own existence. Love as well as death must be thought
as basic ways for humans to be. Only thus can the relationship of therapist to
the one in need of help be understood in neither an instrumental nor an
educational way. This relational co-being also makes comprehensible the
emphasis in our field on aesthetic responsibility, the capacity of the therapist
to find an imaginal response to the client’s artistic work. In the relationship
between therapist and client, a common concern for the work develops that
binds them together in an essential manner. This binding together is more
than ‘professionalism’; it is an existential communion grounded in poiesis as
human possibility.
Finally, beyond the somatic and ethical oblivion in Heidegger’s thinking,
there is also the question of the missing political dimension as well.
Heidegger’s thinking about the political community gravitates back to the
notion of an historical people which is to become capable of fulfilling its
destiny; poiesis is thought within that framework as the act which reveals the
community’s fate and enables it to come to presence in the work. This is a
powerful notion of the political which answers the felt need of many of us for
an integral community absent in a technological world. However, this
conception of the political, like Heidegger’s conception of the ethical, fails to
account for the possibility of a politics based upon difference. In fact, an
integral community can only include that which is different as its excluded
Other; thus the unity of the Germans in Nazi times was based on the
exclusion of the Jews and other outsider groups. There is a dangerous
tendency in Heidegger’s thought to privilege a ‘people’ brought into the
fulfillment of its destiny by common allegiance to a work. This
aestheticization of politics explains his flirtation with Nazism; at the same
time, his rejection of foundationalism implies an inability ever to fully
embrace the Nazi slogan of ‘blood and soil’.
Jacques Derrida is the thinker who has taken furthest the notion of
‘difference’ contained in Heidegger’s thinking (Derrida 1973). By ‘thinking
differently’, Derrida has escaped the nostalgia that haunts Heideggerean
thought. For Derrida, ‘différance’ (with an ‘a’) signifies the act of thought in
which meaning proliferates without gravitating around a center. If there is
any community possible, it is only on the basis of this dissemination or
dispersal. Jean-Luc Nancy, following Derrida here, speaks of ‘the inoperative

community’ (la communauté desoeuvrée); that is to say, community cannot be
produced; it is not a work but a gift, a gift which recognizes the fragile
openness to otherness upon which it depends (Nancy 1991).
Expressive arts therapy, with its emphasis on communal celebration,
sometimes seems from the outside to have a cultish look, to resemble an
exclusive group. What we need to understand is that genuine community is
based not on such an exclusionary identity but on the valorization of
difference. Shaun McNiff used to love to quote Lawrence Durrell, in saying,
‘Variety is the only thing worth fighting for’. Indeed, variety is itself an
aesthetic phenomenon. Thus the true meaning of multiculturalism is not an
identity politics in which each group asserts its rights; rather, it is the savoring
of differences and the ability to find a common ground on which they can
confront one another. It is indeed through poiesis that community comes
into being, but not as worship of the same idol, rather as the proliferation of
the imagination in all its forms, the ‘pantheon’ of expressive arts therapy.
To name the body, the Other and the community as neglected sites of
Heideggerean thinking is not to take away its capacity to contribute to the
field of expressive arts therapy. In fact, given Heidegger’s concept of truth as
unconcealment, it makes perfect sense that his own thinking should cast into
shadow essential elements of human existence that appertain to our work.
We do not have to choose between seeing Heidegger as a master whom we
must obey or rejecting him as a perpetrator whose ideas abuse us. Rather,
what I am suggesting in these philosophical reflections is that we stand in the
space of post-modern thinking which Heidegger has opened up and look for
the possibilities which it offers to us. This stance implies that we go back to
the core of our work and try to think it anew on a non-foundational basis.
The lack of a ground is abyssal, but it is also liberating. In this empty space
poiesis can arise.We can only stand or fall on this possibility.
Our task is to think art-making in its therapeutic essence in terms of art
itself. If expressive arts therapy is to have any integrity, it must be thought in
its own terms, not by relying on any other ground. This requires a faith in the
power of the imagination to confront suffering which can only be lived in
therapeutic practice. Nothing can guarantee the success of our work; in fact,
it is only by being willing to face this Nothing that we can succeed. Out of
chaos and emptiness poiesis is born. Expressive arts therapy is the child of
this birth.
References
Derrida, J. (1973) ‘Différance.’ In Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory
of Signs. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1962) Being and Time. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Heidegger, M. (1975) ‘The origin of the work of art.’ In Poetry, Language, Thought. New
York: Harper & Row.
Heidegger, M. (1979) Nietzsche: Volume I: The Will to Power as Art. New York: Harper &
Row.
Knill, P., Barba, H.N. and Fuchs, M.N. (1995) Minstrels of Soul: Intermodal Expressive
Levinas, E. (1989) The Levinas Reader. Ed. S. Hand. Oxford: Blackwell.
Levine, S.K. (1996) ‘The expressive body: a fragmented totality.’ The Arts In Psychotherapy
23, 2, 131–136.
McKim, E. (1988) Boat of the Dream. West Roxbury, MA: Troubadour Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1966) Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968) The Visible and the Invisible. Evanston, IL: Northwestern
University Press.
Nancy, J-L. (1991) The Inoperative Community. Minneapolis and Oxford: University of
Minnesota Press.
Nancy, J-L. (1996) The Muses. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Nietzsche, F. (1962) ‘Thus spake Zarathustra.’ In W. Kaufman (ed) The Portable Nietzsche.
New York: The Viking Press.
Nietzsche, F. (1967) The Birth of Tragedy. New York: Vintage Books.
Plato (1987) The Republic. Trans. D. Lee. London: Penguin Books.
Further reading
Levine, S. K. (1997) Poiesis: The Language of Psychology and the Speech of the Soul. London:
Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964) ‘Eye and mind.’ In The Primacy of Perception. Evanston, Illinois:
Northwestern University Press.
CHAPTER 2
Soul Nourishment, or the Intermodal

Language of Imagination
Paolo J. Knill
In this world only play, play as artists and children engage in it, exhibits
coming-to-be and passing away, structuring and destroying, without any
moral additive, in forever equal innocence; and, as children and artists
play, so plays the ever-living fire. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the
Tragic Age of the Greek)
The arts: a fundamental way of living the ‘coming to be’ and

‘passing away’
One of the misconceptions of the expressive arts therapies is to consider it
primarily as a method that introduces the arts into therapy to make it a
superior, new or better psychotherapy. Instead, we need to look at human
suffering fundamentally differently when we include the arts in therapy. We
need to consider the complex weaving between the threads of being in the
world, history and selfhood. These threads come into the light and disappear
continuously; they are experienced over and over again with pain and
pleasure, expressed with acts of fear and folly, words of wrath and wisdom,
songs of soul and sadness, dances of good and evil in bold and base images.
In doing so, we cannot help seeing all the psychotherapies, including
expressive arts therapy, as interrelated with religion in a field fertile only with
the mud and manure of human concern. It is in the philosophical foundation
of human concern or ‘care’ (Sorge) that we can see major differences. These
differences, however, are often more evident through the model and attitude
that individual therapists apply in their therapeutic relationship, their belief
system and their personal style, than through their method of psychotherapy.
Perhaps this is also a reason why effectivity research suggests that the
37
personality of the therapist has more influence than the name of the method
they declared as their base (Kent 1978).
In introducing expressive arts therapy here, we shall therefore not try to
present the arts as a methodological commodity in psychotherapy that has to
prove its superior effectivity as measured by a behavioral science framework.
The objective of this chapter, rather, is to understand expressive arts therapy
as a school of thought in the field of human concern and care that transcends
the differences declared in methodological theories. In doing so, it
reconstructs the basic conversation about ‘being in this world’ in a healing
relationship that understands art as a fundamental way of living the
‘coming-to-be’ and ‘passing away’ of suffering.
The expressive arts therapy stance, in this inquiry, looks first at realities:
the role of play and imagination as major manifestations of ‘being in this
world’ as they become apparent through the arts. In the second part, I shall
explore an exposition of the work-oriented approach to expressive arts
therapy that lays equal importance on the process of art-making and the
accomplishment of an oeuvre. Finally, in the last part, a discussion of the
consequences of this approach will concentrate on something that could be
called ‘soul nourishment’.
The object-formation theory around these topics must, according to the
tradition of philosophy of science, choose a method and language that is
indigenous to the arts and adequate to imagination and play. Therefore, the
search for an adequate conversation becomes a ‘re-search’ of philosophical
traditions closer to phenomenological epistemology, aesthetics and
hermeneutics or musicology, art history, ethnology of the arts, religious
studies and anthropological psychology, than to behavioral science and
clinical psychology. Since a basic discourse of the arts, imagination and play
may contribute to the understanding of the human experience, suffering,
challenge and purpose in general, it is also of benefit for the understanding of
therapeutic relationships. Therapists who are skeptical enough to look
beyond the separations created by associations, schools and institutional
regulations may find an interest in this generalist view of the arts in
psychotherapy, one that does not depict a vision of a savior but a view of an
ever-living fire.
SOUL NOURISHMENT, OR THE INTERMODAL LANGUAGE OF IMAGINATION 39
Imagination, play and the arts

Arts as a human existential
In expressive arts therapy, the term ‘arts’ is used in the plural to point towards
the multiplicity that is characteristic of any art-making. In addition, the arts
are considered a fundamental phenomenon of human existence, manifest in a
multitude of traditions that are defined more in a cultural socio-economic
context than in uni-formal aesthetics along lines of separated classical
disciplines.
An understanding of the arts as a human existential cannot be separated
from play and imagination. According to Fink, play has an extraordinary
position within the fundamental existential phenomena, such as mortality,
love, work and strife. Play has priority because in all other existential
phenomena humans make a distinction between reality and unreality, while
in play, even though there is a distinction between roles and play-things of
imaginary character, the connection between reality and unreality has a
purpose and makes a sense that breaks into the total reality of things.
Following this existential notion that play and, related to it, art are
fundamental phenomena, it is reasonable to postulate that only humans, in
contrast to animals and angels, will leave traces through artifacts that are
distinct from simple tools such as commodities and utilities (Fink 1960,
pp.162–229).
A phenomenological understanding of the arts, as presented here, must
also include our market-oriented, highly specialized art disciplines of
Western culture with their virtuosity and masterpieces, but it must not restrict
itself solely to this Western manifestation of living with the arts. Moreover, a
focal point in our phenomenological understanding of the arts is the
ethnological and anthropological consideration of an integrated art and an
inquiry into the polyaesthetic, interdisciplinary and folk art tendencies
throughout the contemporary art and media scene; tendencies well
demonstrated today in the video, movie and music market. Scholars of media
literacy point out that the beneficial use of media and the quality of the
products can only improve by means of engaging people through
interdisciplinary artistic activities. This active engagement enables them to
participate in a critical and fulfilling way. This should be carefully thought
about in a media literacy campaign similar in its argument and practice to the
one for reading and writing which was held in the US. Johnson points out
that a media literacy campaign is most beneficial when practised through
expressive arts therapy. Her research shows that expressive arts therapy
methods have the advantage of using the complexity of the intermodal

discipline inherent in the media, as well as giving an opportunity to gain
self-insight (Johnson 1997).
Imagination
Imagination is the substance that dreams are made of. This substance is
spatial and temporal, even though its structure is not the same as daily reality.
It gives a space for inward perception and, one could say, a sense for an
actuality in the depth of the psyche. Imaginative perception can have an
experiential effect. It is important to understand the sensory aspects of
imagination. We may imagine sounds and rhythms, movements, acts, spoken
messages and pictures. Imagination should not be reduced, therefore, to
pictures (images) alone. In remembering dreams: ‘We may sense the movement
of swimming or hear a voice sing or speak words, experience the act of killing
and see the beautiful visual image of a city or listen to the sound and rhythm of
music. Imagination is intermodal’ (Knill, Barba and Fuchs 1995, p.25).
One could say that imagination ‘speaks to us’ in modalities of imagination
(movements, words, acts, images and sound/rhythm) that emerge within
distinct realms. We call these realms usually dream, day-dreaming or ‘free
association’, and art. In all these realms, imagination appears to have
intermodal aspects as defined above. The main difference, however, is in the
way the self engages with the un-reality of imagination. Generally, in the
dream we receive imagination passively; in day-dreaming we have an active
cognitive engagement that can exert some control or guidance. In
comparison with dreaming and day-dreaming, the artistic process, the third
realm within the phenomena of imagination, displays the strongest
possibilities of willful interaction with imagination. This interaction is a
concrete engagement with a ‘thingly’ matter through the creative act. Such
thinglyness is also an attribute in the performing arts such as music; the
formed sound is concretely present through the senses and can therefore be
shaped and witnessed. A crescendo, the growing volume of a piano for
instance, can be experienced by both the performer and the audience
simultaneously. Artists are familiar with the paradox in the interplay between
the will for a shape and giving in to guidance through the emerging form.
The arts provide a discipline for this thingly play between matter, artist,
control and letting go. In the discipline of the arts, we engage therefore in a
thingly play with imagination. Furthermore, this thinglyness creates thingly
substances as works of art (oeuvres) that can be shared in other ways than
dreams and day-dreams. Fink elaborates on this distinction with respect to

theatrical play:
We may very well stay in manifold relationships in the dream world,
while we dream; the dream world-‘I’ is together with other ‘dream world
people’. The dreaming ‘I’ however is alone. In a play on the other hand,
there is not only the community of players, according to their
(imaginary) roles defined in the play world, but there is in addition
always a real-existing (literal) community of real players, who are
opening to each other in the common engagement of the play. (Fink
1
1960, p.137)
Realities
Realities and their distinctions are a matter of the historical linguistic
discourse we are in. Any distinction, however, does not necessarily make the
experiential effect of one reality more ‘real’ than the other. The exciting
feeling that I experience when I look at a ‘real’ fireworks display may not be
so different from the excitement when I see one in a painting. It is in the
degree of opening to each other in communal engagement versus aloneness
that makes the difference, as the world coming forth will always be also
hidden and concealed. We call that experiential effect the ‘effective reality’.2 It
is created by the daily world or the dream world as, for example, dreams,
day-dreams, fantasies or art works, anything that we are in a meeting with,
that is acting upon us or on that we are acting upon. What appears from the
so-called ‘daily world’, usually referred to as ‘reality’, we designate as ‘literal
reality’. The reality that appears in dreams, daydreams, fantasy and art
becomes, then, the ‘imaginal reality’. Any understanding of the world will
have to build on interpretation through the distinctions of realities that are
defined similarly as we have done here. Imaginal reality may well be referred
to in conversations as ‘unreal’, but as Spariosu, in commenting on Fink,
explains:
The word ‘unreal’ points to the fact that the play world transcends the
causal chain of phenomena or ordinary reality, overspilling into the
1 All translations from this volume are my own.

2 This term follows closely Gadamer’s definition of ‘effective history’ in his
hermeneutics: ‘A proper hermeneutics would have to demonstrate the effectivity of
history within understanding itself. I shall refer to this as “effective history”.
Understanding is, essentially an effective historical relation’ (Gadamer 1975, p 267).
realm of appearance. In turn, appearance must not be understood in the

Platonic sense of a lesser power of being, of something superficial that is
the result of a false perception. On the contrary, ‘appearance’ describes
the way in which world-totality may manifest itself within the world, in
the play of Dasein (Human Existence). (Spariosu 1989, p.131)
Art as disciplined play

In comparison with simple play as we observe it with children, there is little
difference with artistic activity concerning the role of imagination. In both
simple play and the arts, things are played ‘as if ’ and appear differently than
outside the play. We observe one of the differences between the two in the
spatial and temporal routines. Children rarely use the concept of a clearly
defined stage, nor do they apply concrete time frames. Their play is often
initiated by verbal ‘let’s pretend spells’ such as ‘Now you could be a baby’ or
‘Now I could be dead’. In contrast, the arts disciplines display a tradition of
ritualistic facilitations that seems to help the distinction of realities. Some of
these facilitations are temporal and spatial demarcations (frames) that protect
the play from being confused with literal reality and give permission to
explore the rich and profound well of images. Fink explains: ‘As the frame
demarcates a picture, the stage demarcates the unreal (imaginary) space and
time of the play-world. The play-world space and the play-world time do not
have a location nor a duration in the real (literal) time’ (Fink 1960, p.110).
In therapeutic settings with adult populations, these traditions can help
patients to play freely. Within this play, difficult things may be expressed, and
a therapist who has an understanding of the tradition that things created in
this frame are not to be taken literally will be more effective in reflecting
different realities and symbols. The traditional disciplines not only facilitate
the distinction of realities, but also help to make sense of them by deepening
modalities of imagination into their respective languages within specific arts:
• One can talk, dream or write about images, but most certainly
images crystallize in a picture or sculpture.
There is no visual art without image.
• One can be moved through music, a story, or a scene; or one can
describe through motion pictures, but most certainly movement is
experienced strongly through its crystallization in dance.
There is no dance, mime, etc., without movement.
• One may tell, write, sing or paint about actions, but the most
impressive format is the demonstration in its crystallized form on
stage in a scene as theater.
There is no theater or film without action.
• One may walk or talk rhythmically or communicate through
sounds, whistles, or moans, but we most intensely experience
sound and rhythm that are crystallized in music.
There is no music without sound and rhythm.
• One may use poetic images, scenes, or dramatic movements, but
most accentuated is the poetic component in communication
through telling a story or writing poetry.
There is no poetry, fiction, etc., without words. (Knill et al. 1995, p.33)
It may be helpful to consider this observation in terms of facilitating the
cognitive process of finding meaning. Meaning is deepened only when the
languages of the art disciplines are kept in the polyaesthetic tradition close to
the specific senses with an understanding of their poetic nature. The
conversation we must be in, to achieve such deepening, is rather ‘from or to
the image’ than ‘about the image’. Therefore, the story that the tree tells in an
image, or the song created to those trees, intensifies the psychological
potential of the painting more than a reductionist explanation of the
image-tree. Certainly those stories, poems or songs from or to the image need
answers in a therapeutic relationship that deepen the understanding.
Interpretations that find understanding in the speech of images and, in the
answers to them, keep symbols alive.
The work-oriented approach to expressive arts therapy

Imagination, play and art as a continuity
To understand the essence in a field of philosophical or scientific inquiry, we
must look at the continuities displayed in the research questions asked and
the phenomena that are associated with the formation of an object. It would
be difficult to imagine physics without the concepts and manifestations of
force, movement, energy and matter; or education without considering the
concept of skills and the question of objectives. The continuity principle
states that the continuity within the object-formation preserves the logic of a
discipline.
When we look for the continuities displayed in a historical-comparative

study of all the healing practices, we must notice that imagination and
disciplined rituals play a major role. Contemplating contemporary
psychotherapies, for instance, we recognize the role of imagination in dream
interpretation as one that is shared with ancient traditions. Free association,
another phenomenon of imagination, is also common in many schools of
psychotherapy. Similarly, we can find forms of disciplined rituals. The strict
temporal and spatial structures, for instance, as manifest in scheduling,
contracts, room arrangements, use of substances, language, dress and
behavior codes, in practice and training can phenomenologically be
considered ritualistic. According to the ‘continuity principle’ in the
philosophy of science, we need to pay attention to systems that connect such
continuities when we attempt to build the theoretical base of a domain (Knill
1990, pp.77–79).
It is evident that the arts are the bridging existential phenomena that
unite ritual characteristics, imagination and dream-world in a way that no
other activity can do. They engage the conscious and the cognitive similarly
to free association, but give it a disciplined ritualistic thingly, temporal and
spatial substance. It is here where the phenomenological research of
expressive arts therapy has something major to offer to the other
psychotherapies, something that must be kept in mind when we consider
imagination from the perspective of the continuity principle.
In this context we need to study other phenomena that display themselves
continuously throughout history in the field of the healing practices. If we
look at the themes which surface continuously, we find themes connected to
fundamental existential phenomena, such as death, work, love and strife. In
addition, there is a search for meaning, truth and purpose that often connects
to realities that usually are either considered sacred or are not accepted by the
community one belongs to. The terminology used for imaginative precepts,
resulting from this existential search, has either positive or negative
connotations. They fluctuate between vision, revelation and faith, on the one
hand, and illusion, hallucination and delusion, on the other. Healing
practices usually have provisions to allow some kind of sharing of these
effective realities within frames, such as, for example, confession, disclosure
and ‘chimney sweeping’.
Again, we can notice that it is the arts that traditionally address these
issues and offer clear demarcations or frames that facilitate safe communal
sharing and effective distinctions. The practise of the arts, as disciplined
rituals of play in painting, sculpturing, acting, dancing, making music,

writing and story-telling, is and always was a safe container, a secure vessel
to meet existential themes, pathos and mystery. It is a discipline within which
we exercise the attitude of being open for surprises while we wait patiently
and humbly, tending the imagination. At the same time we are fully engaged
with an insisting perseverance, working within challenging limitations. The
arts also provide the multiplicity and opportunity to explore the
unthinkable, a space beyond morality, a traditional playground of light and
shadow. It is in this very practice and theoretical background that expressive
arts therapy offers the field a methodology founded on philosophical,
anthropological and present-day clinical studies, based on an historic
continuity that includes the arts.
Understanding of process and oeuvre in expressive arts therapy

A theoretical understanding of the therapeutic process in the context of
expressive arts therapy must build on distinctions resulting from the inquiry
into imagination, play, the artistic process and the role of the oeuvre. A
summary of some of these theories (Knill et al. 1995) has consequences for
setting, intervention, diagnosis, treatment planning and interpretation of
process and oeuvre:
• The interpersonal theory is formulated for group settings. It explains
the group dynamic aspects of play in the various art disciplines and
characteristics of intervention. Examples might be the obvious
socializing aspect of a group improvisation in music therapy
compared with the individualizing and centering effect in the
process of sculpturing, writing or painting. Only in the visual arts
is the distancing of and decentering in time and space from a
thingly oeuvre literally possible. It is more difficult in a dance or a
theater improvisation where imaginary reality stays simultaneous
with the thingly work (also with video documentation). In such a
case, special distancing methods originated in psychodrama will be
required.
• The intrapersonal theory reflects the cultural and biographical
conditions that influence the response towards the various art
disciplines. In contrast to educational settings, the resistance to an
artistic activity or an oeuvre may be an opportunity for a
productive intervention and also a possibility to apply one of the
‘low-skill high-sensitivity’ methods. These methods are derived
from contemporary or ethnological forms of art that emphasize the

competence of perceptual sensitivity and sensory acuteness rather
than manual skills. ‘Installation art’ may serve as an example in the
visual arts, and ‘minimal music’ improvisation could be mentioned
for the performing arts.
• The transpersonal theory results from an inquiry into the traditional
embeddedness of the different art disciplines in rituals and daily
use. Clues are gained as to how works of art that were created in
the therapeutic process can be meaningful in daily life. Pictures
mounted may have the characteristic of a totem or an altar. Poems
read again in special moments will have the effect of prayers or
mantras. Simple dance forms gained in a session with appropriate
music may have more of a chance to be done daily for grounding
than less meaningful gymnastic exercises. Works of art that are
begun in sessions can also be given for completion as homework.
Noticing the relationship to existing oeuvres, including
mythological ones, will have an anchoring effect in the community
and the world and give an opportunity to bring personal suffering
into another perspective.
• The polyaesthetic theory gives the understanding of the sensory
connections between perception and expression with respect to the
arts disciplines. The modalities of imagination do not necessarily
correspond to the art disciplines. We can distinguish ‘images’ and
‘rhythms’ in poetry, for example, and in a painting there are ‘acts’
and ‘movements’, even though we associate rhythms with music,
acts with theater and movement with dance. Similar
cross-connections exist between the sensory engagement in art
perception and expression. Dance, for instance, is not thinkable
without the kinesthetic sense together with visual and,
traditionally, also auditory senses, because dance is interrelated
with music. It is necessary, therefore, to gain an elaborate
understanding of the complex connections between the senses,
expression, perception, and the art disciplines and modalities of
imagination in making choices for an appropriate arts discipline or
intervention.
It is feasible as an example to crystallize an imagined act very
concretely to a thingly play in a theatrical structure, since there is
no theater without an act, even though there are acts shown in
paintings. However, the imagined act may want to be actualized

less concretely (thingly) as a musical action. Only the particular
therapeutic situation with its participants, which is always unique,
may give a clue to the appropriate choice. Evidently,
developmental considerations will play a role in these choices, not
solely with respect to trauma or age but also with respect to
cognition. The regaining of verbal language as a foundation to any
insight therefore has an important role in the choice of the
appropriate art discipline. Of special interest are the transfers from
any mode of imagination or art discipline to poetic and dramatic
disciplines and therefore to the word. Such methods are based on
elements of the crystallization theory.
• The crystallization theory is concerned about the elucidation in the
artistic process from its inception to the ongoing interventions and
final interpretative activities. One of the major objectives in this
process is the finding of the most appropriate material, structure,
form and frame in an adequate discipline to elucidate the content
coming forth. Sometimes the material has to be modified during
the process (e.g. a change of instruments in music); the discipline
has to be changed (e.g. transferring from painting to writing); the
temporal or spatial frame has to be altered (e.g. enlarging the
stage, reducing movement to the essential); or another dimension
has to be added (e.g. adding the voice to a dance). Theoretical
concepts such as ‘intermodal transfer’, ‘intermodal amplification’,
‘intermodal substitution’, and so on, concern the rationale of these
modifications of the process. The crystallization theory also looks
at the degree of the therapist’s participation in the process.
Options of participation might be, for instance, when the therapist
is playing a part in a music improvisation, or when the therapist is
asked to read as a narrator in a performance. The process is
successfully elucidated when the emerging modality of imagination
(image, movement, act, etc.) has found a form through artistic
disciplines that can be transferred into a poetic language. This is
often a monologue, dialogue or story-telling that builds the bridge
to distinctions that are based on the artistic oeuvre. These
distinctions are in essence analytic in an art-indigenous sense. At
some point, there should always be a space for conversation in
daily language. It should be of concern, however, that the
elucidation does not slip back into reductionistic or generalized

statements that dilute the necessary particularity and specificity of
insight that has been gained.
• An aesthetic theory of the therapeutic process embraces the
theoretical challenge introduced by any therapy that expands the
realm of imagination, as a consequence of the continuity principle,
beyond dream and free association to the third level, manifest
through the arts. The fact that the emerging work of art plays a
role in this therapeutic process means that we must include
aesthetics as part of our discourse. An aesthetic theory of the
therapeutic process has to point to the possibilities of artistic
intervention and interpretation. This aesthetic notion pays
attention to the responsibility of the therapist towards the
emerging work in the process. An appropriate preparation of the
therapist that includes his or her own experiences that combine
artistic as well as therapeutic competencies is a prerequisite for a
responsibility of that kind. In the same way as the therapist
abstains from manipulations that have personal motivations
towards patients, respecting their integrity, the therapist should
respect the integrity of the emerging works. Effective supervision
will therefore also consider counter-transference issues with respect
to the attitude towards the works of art. The therapist’s
interventions resulting from such attentiveness may include
suggestions about the use of paint material, change of roles in a
theater, the use of breath in a song, giving attention to the feet in a
dance, and so on. These and similar suggestions should always
serve the emergence of the work and may bring the process to the
point where patient and therapist are touched, surprised and
moved by the ‘quite rightness’ of the unexpected. This
intervention is called ‘aesthetic probing’ and has to be based on an
attitude we call ‘aesthetic responsibility’. Not unlike the facilitation
of free association, this intervention must serve the emerging
imagination and not the fantasy of the therapist about what ought
to arrive. The difference here is that the emerging imaginative
reality has a ‘thingly substance’ and is therefore available for both
therapist and patient as a third or ‘transitional’ object that is
manifest as a work of art. This ‘thingly substance’ is also part of
the performing arts. A dance, a theatrical play or a musical piece
can be witnessed as a real sensory experience, a quality that cannot

be attributed to the dream or free association. Works that result
out of art-making must be epistemologically considered as what
they are in their thingly appearance. They do not stand for
something else. Their language follows the grammar of aesthetics
also when they have the freedom of using the vocabulary of the
psyche as much as that of everyday life. Any response will be, in
terms of hermeneutics, an interpretation. An aesthetic theory of the
therapeutic process considers interpretation as necessary for
understanding but stresses the thought that interpretation is a
response, listening carefully to the language of the work, and not an
explanation in a theory foreign to the object. This kind of
interpretation serves foremost the emergence of an ‘aesthetic
response’. The immediacy and surprising ‘Aha’ effect that results
ought not to be confused with neatness or formal beauty. It can
come also from a work showing pain, suffering or rage. The
phenomenon of ‘aesthetic response’ has similarities to the ‘felt
sense’ in the focusing theory by Gendlin, who describes it as a
response to a ‘quite right’ image as a condition for insight (Gendlin
1981).
Soul nourishment, or the metabolism of psyche

A broad concept of diet and medicine
The concepts presented in this section need further development, but they
offer a perspective that could have consequences reaching beyond the
dividing lines in the field of human services. The concept of ‘diet and
medicine’ reaches far beyond the physical metabolism of the body. The word
‘diet’ (in Greek, diaita) meant originally a manner of living. Later it was used
for a regulated manner of living to maintain health, and finally it made
exclusive reference to eating habits. In a psychosomatic understanding, we
could extend it to the regulated nourishment of psyche, or soul. In such a
framework, the term ‘diet’ would concern a balanced regulation or corrective
regulation of the ongoing daily somatic and psychic nourishment and
metabolism.
‘Medicamentum’ (Latin) or ‘medicine’ was first applied for anything used to
cure. In our culture it became the word for a prescription or drug, a substance
that has to be physically metabolized. In its original sense it could also be
extended again to specific corrective substances of a psychic nature necessary

during a certain period of coping with a disease.
Extending this idea, we need to define a metabolism of the soul and find
the substances that would correspond to its daily nourishment. Furthermore,
we would need to find the substances that would correspond to medicines.
The study of the continuities in the field of healing practices might give us a
lead in this search. 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.
It would be reasonable to stipulate that dreams, imaginative thinking and
play may belong to the psychic substances that when not available or not
metabolized correctly may cause disturbances. Contemporary sleep research
seems to point in that direction when disturbances are associated with lack of
rapid eye movement sleep, the phase that produces dreams. This would
indicate that there is not a regular supply of that ‘nourishment’. Ethnological
studies and depth psychological schools demonstrate that paying attention
to dreams, through telling them, journaling, interpretation or enactment may
constitute a habit necessary to maintain psychological health. When the
dream is considered the ‘nourishment’, then these suggested ways of paying
attention to them would constitute their ‘metabolism’. Hence using
expressive arts therapy’s methods of dream work daily, such as journaling,
story-telling and enactment, could be considered a dietary help. The same is
true of the other ‘nourishment’ considered above (play and imaginative
thinking). The regular practise of creative writing, singing, whistling or
playing an instrument, sketching or painting, simple dance or Tai Chi
movements, decorating, playing with objects, and so on, just to mention a
few, may all be part of a healthy diet.
Expressive arts therapy as a dietary and medical practice in the psychic

metabolism
A substance must have two characteristics in order to qualify as a medicine.
First, it must be composed such that it can be metabolized by the system;
second, it must interact in a constructive way with the self-regulating forces
in the system. A medicine, therefore, is bound to a diagnostic and prognostic
situation. Under all circumstances, it is also therefore interwoven with the
therapeutic relationship, even if this is often overlooked in medical practice.
Coming back to the notion of ‘soul medicine’ and associating it with the arts
process and oeuvre, we need to look, then, at these two qualifying
characteristics. In the expressive arts therapy method, art is always generated
in the therapeutic relationship. As emphasized in an aesthetic theory of the
therapeutic process, special attention is given to the responsibility towards
the emerging work. This work of art, as a phenomenon of the
inter-structural relationship between the literal, imaginative and effective
reality, on the one hand, and the thingly substance that connects the engaged
community on the other, is a remarkable entity of the therapeutic
relationship. It makes it well suitable for a metabolism in the psychic system
in question. In fact, one could see the art work as that which arrived
exclusively for that very system, even though it should not be confused, from
a phenomenological perspective, with a mirror image or an appearance of
the system’s identity.
There are many traditional ways of relating to the art work that satisfy the
criteria of the second quality of a medicine – its interaction with the
self-regulating forces of the system. The transpersonal theory gives clues to
how pictures mounted may have the characteristics of a totem or an altar;
how poems read will have effects like prayers or mantras; how a song or
music may console; and how a mask may help to conjure fear when played.
This list can certainly be extended, especially when we add all the practices
of community art that help communities to cope with conflict and crisis, as,
for example, in death and dying ceremonies and rites of passage. Art work
composed under these circumstances interacts in a constructive way with the
self-regulating forces of the psyche and can be considered as psychic
medicine.
The question arising now is how and when the process in the session shall
and can be guided towards an oeuvre that has a potential for use as medicine
between sessions. With respect to the visual arts and writing, the emphasis is
more about how to honor the process adequately, because usually therapists
focus there on the finished work anyway. In music, dance and theater, we
shall have to find ways to score and compose with patients without tapping
unduly into the traumatic experiences of schooling. There are, however,
suitable methods derived from improvisational choreographing, play-
writing and scoring that offer promising therapeutic opportunities in their
temporal and spatial frame of reference and remembrance. With the
performing arts, usually the process gets thorough attention while the oeuvre
is less emphasized. Some of the methods that help to reverse that trend are
the dance performance scoring developed at Tamalpa Institute, the

performance scoring practised by McNiff in the art studio, and the ensemble
scoring for music and lyrics introduced by Fuchs and Knill.3
Looking at the arts as an existential phenomenon that is a gift to humans
implies the obligation to care for its continuity. This continuity is closely
related to our well-being. Therefore, the continuous weaving between world,
history and selfhood that constitutes the self-regulating forces in human
health cannot be conceptualized without the arts. A concern for art must
recognize it as an intermodal language of imagination in a disciplined play
that includes the weaving between the world of art, the history of art and the
creator-self in response to self-regulating forces. A broad conception of a diet
and medicine will then be attentive to the soul’s nourishment in its
emergence, elucidating images, acts, movement, words, sounds and rhythms.
This attentiveness will also listen, look, sense and touch the oeuvres as they
are given to us now, before and in the future as gifts that oblige us to care for
them in their ‘coming-to-be’ and ‘passing away’ of being with human
suffering.
References
Fink, E. (1960) Spiel als Weltsymbol. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Gadamer, H.G. (1975) Truth and Method: The Principle of Effective History. New York: The
Seabury Press.
Gendlin, G. (1981) Focusing. New York: Bantam Books.
Johnson, L. (1997) Media literacy education: personal and professional change.
Cambridge, MA: Dissertation at Lesley College Graduate School, Cambridge, MA.
Kent, J.K. (1978) Exploring the Psycho-social Therapies through the Personalities of Effective
Therapists. Rockville, MD: National Institute of Mental Health.
Knill, P., Barba, H. and Fuchs, M. (1995) Minstrels of Soul. Toronto: Palmerston Press.
Knill, P.J. (1990) Das Kristallisationsprinzip in der musikorientierten Psychotherapie. In
I. Frohne-Hagemann (ed) Musik und Gestalt. Paderborn: Junfermann-Verlag.
McNiff, S. (1988) Fundamentals of Art Therapy. Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas.
Nietzsche, F. (1962) Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greek. Trans. by M. Cowen. Chicago:
Spariosu, M. (1989) Dionysus Reborn. Ithaka, NY: Cornell University Press.
3 Information available: Tamalpa Institute, Daria Halprin-Kalighi, Director, PO Box

794 Kentfield, DA 94914; McNiff (1988); European Graduate School in Leuk CH
3953, Switzerland. Margo Fuchs and Paolo Knill, faculty members.
CHAPTER 3
The Necessity of Form

Expressive Arts Therapy in the Light
of the Work of K.E. Løgstrup
Majken Jacoby
Beauty tends to come unexpectedly. It sneaks up on us and takes us by

surprise. Certainly, we take pleasure in anticipation of the beauty of the Echo
Aria from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio heard many times before, and in that
case we know exactly what to expect. Not always, though, do we succeed in
really listening to it; but, if we do, it is as if we hear it for the first time. We are
surprised anew.
At times very little takes us by surprise, more often than not when we long
the most for it. Nothing much affects us. Things and events around us reach
us only like an indifferent echo from a distance. No aria any more, beauty has
gone.
Life is lonely without surprises. The lines of communication to others and
the world seem weakened, maybe even cut off, or ‘ligated’, as Løgstrup calls
it with an expression from medicine. No blood flows. The blood stream has
been blocked.
How, then – and from where – does beauty come into our lives? What is
the connection between aesthetics – that which has to do with the beautiful –
and the feeling of being cut off ?
A heretical question: are we, due to our therapeutic training and in spite of
our artistic experience, sometimes stuck in the notion that what counts is
what is ‘inside’ – where depth resides – and that the ‘outside’, the surface, is
of less value? As my parents told me when I discontentedly stared into the
mirror: beauty comes from within.
Of course, we know that form cannot be separated from content – but
don’t we do it now and again in our work, thereby running the risk that the
artistic work imperceptibly becomes an article for use only, a tool for a
therapeutic effect, accidentally acquired by means of paper and crayons,
drums and dancing – beauty or no beauty?
53
Nothing is wrong with useful articles and tools, and are not therapeutic
effects and insights exactly what we go for? Does ‘the beautiful’ – whatever it
might be – belong mainly in art schools and not necessarily in therapy?
Beauty or no beauty – it just does not change the fact that art stops being
art if it does not relate to aesthetics one way or the other. That is also true
when we deal with art created with limited skills.
'
The Danish philosopher and theologian K.E. Løgstrup had no relation to
therapy whatsoever, and he was rather skeptical of psychology – what he
knew of it – and its explanations of human nature. He was, however,
intensely concerned with the arts and what he called ‘the two world
interpretations’: the poetic (aesthetic) and the ethical.
‘In what way do the arts affect us?’ he asked. What is the relation between
the ethical and the aesthetic – is there a possible mutual reciprocity? If so,
how does it manifest itself in our lives?
Human nature has a sensory basis – this is the background of his thinking.
It is in its root aesthetic (‘aesthetic’ = having to do with the senses). Through
our senses we are irremediably intertwined with the world around us. This
fact, Løgstrup says, is what our basic condition springs from. All
interpretations of the world must be seen on this background: ‘… as our
body lives on its daily bread, so our soul lives daily in its receptiveness and
energy on the surrounding world … It is a kind of nourishment of the soul
that we know nothing about, because we consume it every single moment of
the day’ (Løgstrup 1983, p.14).1
Løgstrup was a professor of ethics for many years – he died in 1981 – and
he repeatedly discussed the connection between ethics and the arts in his
writings, among others in The Ethical Demand (1991), his best-known work,
to which I shall return. In order to follow his thinking, an introduction to a
few of his key concepts might be helpful.
Løgstrup was a phenomenologist, and he proceeds accordingly: what is it,
he asks, that reveals and characterizes our lives? What are the attitudes and
patterns, expressions and actions that are uniquely human? He is looking for
something essential, unchangeable. In his search he comes upon the
phenomena he calls the sovereign life utterances, phenomena that essentially
stay the same at all times. Trust is an example: until otherwise proved we trust
1 All quotations are translated from the Danish by Majken Jacoby.

THE NECESSITY OF FORM 55
the next person. Not only do we trust him, but we also trust his word until we
are lied to, which is what Løgstrup calls the openness of speech:
To start with we believe each other’s words, to start with we trust each
other. This might be strange, but it comes with being human. It would be
contrary to life itself to behave differently. We simply would not be able
to live. Our lives would become distorted if we in advance met each other
with an attitude of mistrust, expecting the other person to steal and lie, to
simulate and deceive. (Løgstrup 1991, p.17)
Compassion, hope, indignation, love and sorrow are other examples. He calls
them sovereign – and sometimes spontaneous – in order to show that although
they manifest themselves in the individual person, they go beyond him,
beyond time and place, history and society. They occur everywhere. They
originate directly from human nature in its interwovenness with the world.
The sovereign life utterances appear without ulterior motives, just
because we are alive. They are unconditional. As soon as considerations of
the purpose of an act or a feeling surface, as soon as thoughts about reason,
wisdom or profit make us hesitate, the compassion or trust has gone, is not
spontaneous and unconditional any more: reasons are stated and conditions
stipulated.
As a contrast to the sovereign life utterances, Løgstrup sets up different
kinds of ‘utterances’: the revolving feelings, feelings such as hate, jealousy and
envy. Instead of reaching out, they revolve around themselves and the person
who is possessed by them. The revolving feelings confine while the
sovereign life utterances open. The latter make us vulnerable. They
themselves can get distorted – trust becomes mistrust, for example – but they
are inextinguishable. They always manifest again: if not in me then in
somebody else.
Let me go back to the fact that human nature has a sensory basis: our
senses, Løgstrup maintains, seeing, hearing, touch, and so on, are an actual
entry to the world, not only a mirroring of ourselves. There is something out
there, and our senses create a bridge to it and intertwine us with all that is
around us. How Løgstrup writes about it is a long way away from positivistic
or behavioristic definitions of sensing. A positivist might argue that
sovereign life utterances, such as compassion or indignation, cannot be
shown empirically and, furthermore, to call these utterances sovereign has
nothing to do with the sensory experience itself. It is our reaction to it; we
give it a value that does not belong to the sensory experience, but to us
ourselves.
No, Løgstrup answers, this is not so; we cannot distinguish between a

sensory experience that tells us how the world is and a feeling reaction to it
that belongs only to ourselves. There is no naked sensing. The reddish color
of sand, the glittering of water, the accumulating clouds and you, my
neighbor, always evoke something more; the sensory experience is tuned,
connected to a feeling, an atmosphere and, furthermore, the tuned sensory
experience – the impression – carries a recognition/realization (Erkenntnis). Not
because we add to it – we certainly do that too – but because the sensing
being (we) and the sensed (the world) basically are of the same stuff.
This goes unnoticed, like our daily bread: ‘It is unconscious to us, also for
the reason that it is due solely to the fact that the things exist without (us
having) any thoughts of their usefulness’ (Løgstrup 1983, p.14).
In order for us to become aware of this inherent recognition, it needs to be
articulated. The artistic work, Løgstrup says, is always an attempt to articulate
the experience of this sensed tuned-ness, to give it form and shape. This
articulation in turn affects us. We come closer to ourselves and the world.
The art work is the result of a more and more precise articulation of what
is. We are informed and we understand through everyday language; everyday
language, however, as well as scientific language, does not catch the tuned
quality of the sensing, its feeling-value. As a description of reality they are
‘insufficient’. They are without enigma. A ‘sufficient’ description can only be
given by the work of art, the whole intention of which is to articulate what is
contained in the tuned-ness. This happens by means of the artistic media
which through their sense quality themselves are tuned.
Ole Jensen, a Løgstrup scholar, formulates it like this: ‘In their articulation
of the tuned world-access, the arts differ from philosophy in that the artistic
articulation of the tuned-ness itself is tuned. The arts have the tuned-ness as
form and as content at the same time’ (Jensen 1994, p.68).
The materials – the clay, the sound of the flute, the color blue – become
our teachers. They offer an invitation to be shaped according to their kind
and essence. If the art work ‘works’, it is because we have listened to the
inherent possibilities of the media. We shape the clay; and the art work points
to us who made it and, at the same time, points beyond us.
As the clay is our medium, we are the ‘medium’ of the sovereign life
utterances, so to speak. We don’t create them, Løgstrup says; rather, they
create us. Like the art work, they arrive through us, and they need to be
uttered by us – and like the art work they do not tell us how. They shape us
and our relations to each other. They constitute our urge to articulate the
tuned sensing in the work of art.
The sovereign life utterances are given to us as a gift; and this ‘lies close to
a religious interpretation’, Løgstrup states, thereby pointing to a third ‘world
interpretation’: the religious.
The sovereign life utterances are bigger than humanity. Through them we
come alive, as we one day will die. Creation and annihilation are our
foundation. We are created as we one day will be annihilated. What is given
to us as a gift lies at the root of our being alive, our creativity. And it points to
a creator.
Our creativity springs from being created.
'
In The Ethical Demand, Løgstrup begins by pointing to the fact that we are
exposed through the sovereign life utterances – hope, trust, indignation – not
by choice but by necessity: ‘Trust is not up to us. It is given. Above our heads
our lives are created in such a way that we can live only if each person exposes
himself in trust, shown or wished-for, thus giving more – or less – of himself
into the hands of the other’ (Løgstrup 1991, p.28).
This image of holding something of the life of another person in one’s
hands runs like a root metaphor through the book, and Løgstrup returns to it
many times (as pointed out by Hans Hauge, 1992). From this exposed-ness
springs an ‘… unspoken, almost anonymous, demand of us to take care of the
life placed in our hands by trust’ (Løgstrup 1991, p.28).
Trust, however, does not always come easily, just as it can be difficult to
follow the demand. We would really like to, but we are not able to. We get in
our own way as we get in others’, and somehow we become doubly exposed.
This is where social rules and norms have their place, because what is most
alive – exposed – cannot, according to Løgstrup, survive formlessness; it
needs a ‘bound expression’.
On the other hand, conventional rules such as ‘love thy neighbor’ have
little to do with the ethical demand, even though they sometimes seem to.
But since the demand asks of us something that we cannot always give, and
since we are not creative at all given times – within the arts or within our
relations – we need to adopt conventional or ritualized form. By a kind of
neutrality, resorting to no man’s land, we avoid the tough alternative: either
to take care of or to neglect, and maybe destroy, that of the life of another that
we hold in our hands.
Løgstrup arrives at the following qualities of the ethical demand: it is

silent, hidden, unspoken and one-sided: it can only be given, not ordered; it is
radical: I alone decide unselfishly what serves the other best. We will,
Løgstrup says, always fall short of it. We cannot fulfill it, it is un-fulfillable.
What are we to do with this un-fulfillable ethical demand? What does it
have to do with the arts? With expressive arts therapy? Might we not just as
well leave it alone in our too frail human-ness?
A decision to follow the ethical demand does not help us in the
confrontations and conflicts to which we have no solutions. On what
authority do I lean when I act towards you the way I do? The question of
whether my acting is unselfish or is based upon motives which have little to
do with what is best for you, may rightly be asked – but who can answer? All
authority lies in the actual experiencing of what I do – or do not do – towards
you. To use the demand as a justification or a measuring rod leads almost
unerringly to abuse of power, such as: I know what is best for you.
Philosophies and ideologies, then, with just one more moral code of ‘ways’
and built-in solutions to ‘a good life’, take over.
The ethical demand ‘almost anonymously’ tells us just this: to take care of
life. It does not tell us what or how to do it. It offers no advice, gives no
practical hints, lays down no rules or guidelines as to what in a specific case is
asked of us; the actual shaping of ‘taking care of life’ is entirely our concern.
To follow the demand, then, means that each and every act must spring
out of the requests of an ever-changing and challenging here-and-now; I
must be there for it. This calls for an unselfish presence at all times, and that
surpasses our ability.
It is a demand for love.
Yes, Løgstrup says, those are our conditions:
And where love never was, the (ethical) demand cannot bring it forth.
What is asked of us is nothing less than love being created by the mere
fact that the life of another human being is in my hands, without this
person in any way belonging to my existence … The one-sided demand
is lost on us. (Løgstrup 1991, p.164)
We are, nevertheless, left with the decision placed on us by the ethical
demand. It does not disappear because we cannot follow it. On the contrary,
it outlines a field of tension arising from the fact that our life is given to us,
while we behave as if we were its master.
The ethical demand throws a special and indispensable light on our lives.
We do everything to relativize the hold it has on us, and as a rule we succeed.
But we pay a price:
If the individual takes himself into consideration at the expense of the
next person, he lives … as if he had called himself into life and was the
sovereign of his own life. If he on the other hand cares for the life of the
other person, he lives his life in the receiving of it. Avoiding the decision
and avoiding the act can only be done by turning himself into the evil
god of the other person. (Løgstrup 1991, p.180)
As much as we want the freedom to take over our own existence and shape
our lives independently – and who does not want that? – our freedom of
action and creative power go only as far as we do not forget who we are: not
half-gods, not self-reliant beings, but beings who are inescapably dependent
on the surrounding world and ‘given life as a gift’.
'
How, then, do the ethical and the poetical realms, the two interpretations of
the world, relate? What do the ethical demand and the arts have to say to each
other?
Reading Løgstrup, one is struck by his parallel use of language and
metaphor when he talks about and describes the ethical and poetic realities:
both demand a ‘bound expression’, both ‘throw a special and indispensable
light upon our lives’.
We ‘bind’ the expression of our actions – spontaneously in the sovereign
life utterances or through the conventions of rules and norms – in order to
take care of what is alive and thus exposed. Un-bound, un-shaped, what is
alive between us and in us will perish; we shall become deformed.
The same holds true of the poetical: it ‘binds’ expression in imagery and
metaphor, in sound and rhythm – thereby becoming a work of art – in order
to take care of and capture what cannot be said differently without losing
precision; un-bound, what wanted to be said is lost, it remains hidden in the
impression. And, as Løgstrup says: ‘The greater the sensitivity and intensity,
the more precise the articulation needs to be’ (Løgstrup 1991, p.219).
Usually we keep a certain distance from the world, but not when we are in
the grip of the poetical. Then we fall into poetic openness, making the world
unforeseen and present, beautiful.
Does beauty have something to do with the longing to be spoken to by
the fullness of reality – and for a while feel at home in this world? Does it
have to do with the longing to speak of it all, also that which cannot be said,
and therefore turn to the arts, which offer ‘a sufficient description’?
Certain experiences can only be captured through poetic expression.
Everyday language and scientific language are, of course, indispensable, but
in their different ways they are reductive in so far as they do not catch the
tuned-ness.
Beauty, however, is never the aim of the poetical. If it were, we would get
stuck in aestheticizing – beauty for beauty’s sake. Nobody and nothing
would then be addressed, and again we would lose our connection to the
world, we would cut our roots.
Beauty arrives, almost as a side effect, but a totally indispensable one,
because ‘… beauty comes forth and discloses the truth that is obscured by
triviality in its lack of precision and presence’ (Løgstrup 1991, p.220).
Beauty and truth come together.
The ethical as well as the poetic realities ‘throw light upon our lives’ and
both ‘point to the contradiction we live in’ (Løgstrup 1991, p.228). The
poetic experience opens the world, brings it close to us, in a way which
everyday, trivial living is unable to. Trivial living, according to Løgstrup, is
life lived from a distance; truth is not disclosed but ‘veiled’. This is the
contradiction which the poetic experience, as well as the ethical, throws light
upon. In everyday life we are informed, but ‘… the poetical – as opposed to
“understanding” – does not inform, but calls forth a world’ (Løgstrup 1991,
p.220).
Triviality discloses our ignorance. We are disconnected, senselessly
revolving around ourselves, because ‘triviality is the number one enemy of
the sensuous’ (Løgstrup 1991, p.228).
To talk of triviality is also to talk of an ethical category, Løgstrup says.
What we experience poetically is denied by our own existence: we live
trivially confined while we open ourselves to an un-trivial presence through
the arts. This tension between the trivial confinement of everyday life and the
un-trivial presence in poetic openness is not only unavoidable but also
necessary; it belongs to life, and – this is Løgstrup’s point – it constitutes our
personality.
We are shaped through this conflict.
Thus the arts shape us, but they are not in our – or any – service. If this was
not the case, they would eventually deform us according to what, or who,
they served, no matter how benign the purpose might, at first, seem.
In poetic openness we come closer to life than we do in everyday living;

and ‘almost anonymously’ life itself bids us – through the sovereign life
utterances – to take care of the life we hold in our hands.
From this experience stems the ethical demand; the ethical gains
perspective by the poetically experienced. The ethical interpretation of the
world ‘… stems from the poetically experienced itself ’ (Løgstrup 1991,
p.221).
Through poetic experience we become aware of what we hold in our
hands, aware of its beauty.
Beauty lies at the root of our existence. We can only stay alive by staying
exposed and vulnerable. No final statements can be given; we are obliged to
live and act in uncertainty. Forgetting that means calling for a
fundamentalistic attitude that is contrary to life itself – contrary to beauty.
Beauty has no practical use: it never tells us what to do. It carries no
directives of action, but forces us to go beyond the useful, encounter the
unexpected and become aware of the unsolvable riddle of our existence. We
lose mastery in the presence of beauty because there is no mastery to hold on
to. The mastery is one of being there and acting. But how? Old notions of
‘depth’ and ‘surface’ crumble. We are thrown into helplessness – and that is a
relief. It touches us, and ‘… the person who is touched is not alone’ (Løgstrup
1991, p.222).
The blood flows again.
Beauty binds us to the world. It tells us that we really are here, finally, even
if ‘being here’ means living with pain, sorrow, insecurity, confusion and
helplessness as well. However, in Løgstrup’s words, ‘it is not something
foreign that breaks into (man’s) customary and familiar world from the
outside. But the world, nature, and the things surrounding him and with
which he is entangled by the bearings of his senses and mind … become
present in a new and different way’ (Løgstrup 1991, p.231).
Our approach to beauty, at times groping, may have to do with the fact
that it leaves us, in Løgstrup’s sense, exposed – although we know well that
the new that we long for, which sometimes seems so far away, may find its
way into our lives precisely by beauty, a beauty that is restricted neither to a
certain content nor a certain form, a beauty which emerges when experience
is interpreted in the art work with presence and precision, touching us. The
special field of tension that belongs to our profession – humanity and art in a
therapy context – challenges us to care for both.
We cannot master life. We can only live it. Sometimes we are surprised.
And sometimes it happens that what was stuck gets un-stuck.
Did it happen through a touch of beauty?
'
Why concern oneself with the writings of Løgstrup in a book about the
foundations of expressive arts therapy?
Løgstrup, a professor of ethics and a theologian, may seem far away from
the attempt to encircle the field of our profession, theoretically and
philosophically, not to mention the many questions of a concrete and
practical nature that pertain to a normal working day.
Because of his distance from the usual discourse of the field, however, his
thinking may act for us as a thought-provoking sounding board. During the
last 20 years, expressive arts therapy has expanded dramatically, and this calls
for ongoing research into its philosophical foundations and a continued
discourse concerning its essential nature.
I believe Løgstrup is of interest here. His engagement with the poetic and
ethical ‘world interpretations’ without any direct relation to therapy may, as a
foreign voice, help expressive arts therapy to hear its own in the choir of the
therapeutically schooled voices of our day.
Let me sum up Løgstrup’s basic position. The human being has a sensory,
aesthetic, basis. What comes to us through our senses, what impresses us, is
value-laden. It has a bodily-anchored emotionality. It ties us together with
everything around us. Out of this fact springs the ethical demand to take care
of what we, through this interdependence, hold in our hands of the life of the
person next to us.
What we experience through this sensory, aesthetic opening to the world
wants to be ‘articulated’, given form, in the work of art. It is not we who want.
It, the impression, wants to be ‘articulated’. The inclination to shape
artistically comes with being human. It presses itself upon us, so to speak,
with a realization that escapes us until shaped in artistic form. This realization
can never be expressed fully by everyday language, as art cannot be in the
service of a specific purpose without weakening or distorting its message.
The artistic expression cannot be replaced by something else.
Not only are our senses a door to the world, they constitute our being
alive and our ability to understand: in our nature, sensing, feeling and
understanding go hand in hand.
The artistic work is always sensory. It has ‘body’, no matter which arts
discipline we are dealing with. For example, music, so ephemeral, has
structure and shape, as has any art work, and through the performing of it
unfolds and gains ‘substance’. For us to hear it we need to mobilize our
sensing–feeling–understanding, ‘structure-sensitive’ bodies.
Thus being thrown into presence is one of the preconditions of therapy.
Whether we are in the role of the artist or the audience, the client or the
therapist, we are challenged to become present ‘in a new and different way’,
different from inconsequentiality and triviality. The sensory experience of
now, the bodily anchored emotions and thoughts, echo into the sensory
experience of then – as it does into a not yet experienced, but only dreamed
of, later.
The art work is specific and ‘singular’, as Løgstrup states, one of a kind; at
the same time it taps into universal experience and embodies a multiplicity of
possible meanings. By engaging ourselves in the singularity of the artistic
work, some of these meanings may become clear to us. It does not make sense
to talk about ‘tree’ or ‘sky’; you must look at the sky in my picture. Look at its
shape, what is next to it, its color – not blue but red–yellow–purple: is it the
sky of a winter morning or does it tell of catastrophes and terror? Bombs and
burning fires or birds and quiet, early awakening? Is it the red night sky of
the metropolis hectically teeming with activity, or the sun setting over the
barren desert? Where are we? What is going on? Who is talking?
Through its sensory qualities the art work forces us to consider our basis,
and doubly so: it demands our sensing–feeling–understanding presence to
find its form – we must be there ‘in person’ – at the same time as it gives body
and anchoring to the messages embedded in it and which, who knows how,
are grasped by us. However abstract its form and language may be, it pulls us
away from abstractions and generalizations and down into the flesh and
blood of experience.
The danger of the bodiless abstraction is exactly this, that it belongs to
nobody in particular. Often it becomes rule-like and norm-setting. The rule
or norm may even be one that has my sympathy, but in so far as it is not an
individual, personal realization it lacks the necessary anchoring in actual,
concrete experience; it stands on ‘nothing in particular’, provides thus
‘nothing in particular’ to understand from.
In the specific, singular work of art, the phenomena of our experience,
our peculiarity, stay grounded. Ideas and world views do not live a life of
their own, separated from us as ‘opinions’ or airy superstructures – but they

reside in, and spring from, an actuality in which I participate.
What Løgstrup demonstrates to us, phenomenologically, is the close,
unbreakable tie between sensing, feeling and understanding – embedded in,
Løgstrup might say, that which goes beyond our understanding. The tuned
sensing carries a realization which unfolds in the articulation of the art work.
What already is given in the sensing – but which escapes us until given a form
– may now speak to us in a way which we can understand.
The circle is complete.
'
Artist and art work are partners in an exchange. They are ‘equals’, as partners
are. Both need our care; to stay in the exchange instead of forcing the work
our way is the challenge of this partnership, and this is also where the ‘new
and different’ may become visible. New aspects of the world may appear on
the scene just by the changing of form, aspects which previously were not
clear to us. Through an artistic ‘staging’ of the senses, as Gregersen and
Køppe say, the arts bring into play universal feelings and ideas (Gregersen
and Køppe 1994, pp.242–243).
The artist Per Kirkeby, painter and poet, tells about looking at paintings:
‘One stands there, has a conversation with something in the picture. With
paintings one can converse about the real things – death and love and all the
really big things’ (Kirkeby 1994, p.7).
To be our partners in an exchange, our conversation partners, the arts
need to be separate from us, out there on stage, approached and addressed as
bodies in their own right. They need space and so do we, a space large
enough for us to be able to look away; we can only see what is in front of us if
it is possible to look at something else. We need distance, spatially and
emotionally, in order to come close and grasp it. This was, I think, what the
Swiss writer, Friedrich Dürrenmatt had in mind when he, in an essay called
‘Kunst’ (Art), wrote that, ‘Any art work needs a distance to its content’
(Dürrenmatt 1989, p.157).
In History of Ideas, by Gregersen and Køppe, we find the same thought. Art
constitutes ‘… a place where the creation of a fictive world, that is an
imaginative world, greatly contributes to throwing new light upon the “real
world” … it secures and establishes a place outside the world, from where the
world can be observed and commented on’ (Gregersen and Køppe 1994,
p.251) (emphasis added).
The raw materials of the arts – color, sound, space, matter, time, and so on
– are not created by us; as artists we subject ourselves to them. They bring
tidings from a world with which we are intertwined; we learn from that
which is not us and from that which we freely can look away from. The ‘not
us’ quality of the arts and the art media helps us to become aware of who we
are, or are not, and that we are: the art work ‘… gives us a possibility to
experience that we exist’ (Løgstrup 1983, p.49).
This tension between what is us and what is not us – but with which we
are ‘entangled by the bearings of our senses’ – creates thus a basis for staying
alive and well; if this is overlooked or disregarded we become misshapen and
deformed. Our being formed, our formation, depends on keeping intact the
separateness of the person and the art work – they ‘are’ not each other but, as
we have seen, ‘of the same stuff ’: intertwined yet separate.
The aesthetic urge, born when we were born, the potential to shape
experience in such a way that it starts to talk and tell us what cannot be told
differently, is built into our being as a gift. Like other gifts we do not always
know what to do with it. All the same, the poetic world interpretation, ‘held’
and made possible by the picture, dance, music, theater, poetry, film,
architecture, sculpture, performance and all the rest, is a way of bridging the
gap of isolation and hopelessness that we sometimes fall into. It is a way of
coming to our senses, feeling our being in the world and searching for its
possible meaning.
Artistic reality is filled with contrasts and opposites, and we have only
touched on some of them. Acknowledging this complexity, however,
provides us with a frame of reference that equals a psychological and physical
reality just as complex. The many-layered artistic awareness is part of what
‘shapes the character and constitutes the personality’ of expressive arts
therapy – to adapt a formulation of Løgstrup’s.
'
All the way through, the writings of Løgstrup are carried by the contrast of
life and death. The tension between creation and annihilation is always
present, and everything we do has this as its ground. Life is given to us for an
unknown period of time, and together with it comes a demand to take care of
what we, often unwillingly, hold in our hands of the life of the person next to
us.
This demand, as we have seen, always surpasses our abilities. To put it
aside and ignore it, however, is to play into the hands of deformation and
annihilation: taking care of, then, means to give form and body to whatever is
present in our lives. Formlessness equals neglect; the forming may be
difficult, perhaps even impossible, but to refuse its demand on us is ‘contrary
to life’.
The care-taking may occur through the artistic media in the art work or in
the therapeutic encounter with the other person; in essence the demand is the
same – ethical as well as aesthetic.
This is the necessity of form.
However uncertain we may be – and uncertainty belongs to our basic
condition – when the search for form is governed by the urge of searching for
the ever-changing ‘right’ form – between you and me, between artist and art
work – ethics and aesthetics merge. They come together into the act of
articulation.
The act of articulation becomes an act of care for the life placed in our
hands, for the unforeseeable beauty that at times shines on us, a care that is at
the core of expressive arts therapy.
References:
Dürrenmatt, F. (1989) Denkanstässe (Impulses to Thought). Zürich: Diogenes.
Gregersen, F. and Køppe, S. (eds) (1994) Idehistorie. Ideer og strømninger i det 2o. århundrede
(History of Ideas: Ideas and Trends in the 20th Century). Copenhagen: Amanda.
Hauge, H. (1992) K.E. Løgstrup. En Moderne Profet (K.E. Løgstrup. A Modern Prophet). Århus:
Spektrum.
Jensen, O. (1994) Sårbar Usårlighed. Løgstrup og Religionens Genkomst i Filosofien (Vulnerable
Invulnerability. Løgstrup and the Return of Religion in Philosophy). Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
Kirkeby, P. (1994) Interview in Agenda No. 37. Århus: Bladgruppen Ajour.
Løgstrup, K.E. (1956, 1991) Den etiske fordring (The Ethical Demand). Copenhagen:
Gyldendal.
Løgstrup, K.E. (1983) Kunst og erkendelse. Metafysik II (Art and Realisation. Metaphysics II).
Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
Further reading
Løgstrup, K.E. (1978) Skabelse og Tilintetgørelse. Religionsfilosofiske Betragtninger. Metafysik
IV (Creation and Annihilation. Reflections on religious philosophy. Metaphysics IV).
Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
CHAPTER 4
Artistic Inquiry
Research in Expressive Arts Therapy
Shaun McNiff
The emergence of a new vision of research

As the different expressive arts therapy disciplines began to focus on the need
for research two or three decades ago, there was a universal assumption that
behavioral science research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, were
the exclusive tools of inquiry. Expressive arts therapy perceived itself as an
extension of psychiatry and wanted to advance its image by demonstrating
efficacy according to ‘acceptable’ research standards.
The word ‘research’ means to study thoroughly. To ‘re-search’ is to ‘search
again’ through a process of disciplined inquiry. However, in expressive arts
therapy, we have generally accepted the idea that research and scientific
investigation are synonymous. By identifying the word ‘research’ with only
one of its aspects, we are limiting possibilities for advancement through new
and imaginative inquiries. Expressive arts therapy is, by definition, a new
integration of previously separate disciplines, yet we have been remiss in
giving serious attention to the research traditions of ‘all’ the disciplines
which constitute the new entity. By calling for a more comprehensive vision
of research, I do not want to negate the value of scientific methods. I actually
believe that scientifically oriented inquiries will be revitalized if we can
create a more diverse research environment.
Over the course of my career, I have progressively come to the realization
that it is the arts, the primary contributors to the emergence of expressive arts
therapy, which have been most conspicuously absent from the profession’s
discourse about research. When I did my doctoral research during the mid
1970s, I focused on the psychology of art and interviewed artists and
children about their motives for creation. The artistic process was examined
through the behavioral science research method of the interview. I won an
67
award for my art motivation research and published the findings in different
forums, but I cannot say the study has had a lasting impact on me or anyone
else.
In my work supervising masters thesis students, and an occasional
doctoral student intent on creative work, a new direction began to emerge in
the early 1980s. My graduate students were not interested in conducting the
kind of psychological research that I did when I reviewed the literature of the
psychology of motivation and then presented interview data and my
conclusions in a conventional written format. At first I thought that maybe
the students were lacking intellectual curiosity. They wanted to focus more
attention on the process of making art and their relationships with their
creations. When given the freedom to follow their interests, my students
chose to focus on how they could integrate their personal creative expression
with the production of a masters thesis or doctoral dissertation. I felt that if I
insisted on regular research methods, I would be making them conform to
standards that were removed from the essential practise of expressive arts
therapy.
As I relaxed my control over the process of inquiry, my students began to
research their personal creative expressions in ways that I had not
experienced myself. My scholarship up until that point had been largely
focused on the usual process of writing about my observations of other
people’s work and recording what they said about their expressions in
interviews. What I was doing felt second hand and more distant from the
creative process than the studies initiated by my students. These studies were
consistent with what I was teaching them within our training studios, where
the students were constantly involved in making art and responding to it in
imaginative ways. Time has shown me that these students were committed to
the full realization of their visions about the healing powers of the arts. They
saw no reason to make the dichotomy between practice and research that I
had accepted. They were committed to the practice of the work in the most
complete way possible, whereas I was constantly shifting my perspective
from the studio to psychologically oriented journals.
This ‘split’ identity between practice and research is still common within
the expressive arts therapies. Practitioners feel that what they are doing every
day is separate from ‘research’, which is associated with projects conducted
by ‘full time’ professional researchers. Graduate students have been my
teachers in demonstrating how research and practice are inseparable and
mutually dependent. The separation of research from practice can be
ARTISTIC INQUIRY 69
attributed to the tradition of scientific objectivity which assumes that a

participant in a process cannot truly see what is occurring. There are many
aspects of life that call for observations made by outside observers within
controlled conditions, but the practise of art and therapy, and the
combination of the two into expressive arts therapy, demands new ways of
approaching research.
One of the first art-based masters thesis projects that I supervised
involved a woman who did a series of paintings of female bodies. Rather than
write about what women told her about their body images or what she saw in
their drawings and paintings, my student chose to spend the school year
investigating the female body through paintings of large human figures. The
finished work included the presentation of the paintings in the thesis, an
exhibition of the works, and a written text reflecting on the process of
making the series of paintings and its effects upon the artist (Jenkins 1988).
I was intrigued by what my student had done, but at the time I was still
encouraging thesis writers to follow research procedures that corresponded
to my own experiences in conducting interviews, making observations,
writing case studies, designing questionnaires, sorting and counting data,
recording patterns and trends, and suggesting future outcomes. As a painter,
something in me was activated by this student’s art-based inquiry, but I did
not yet understand how her pioneering thesis project had broad implications
for expressive arts therapy research. I enjoyed working with her on the
project and I noticed how passionately committed she was to the work
through every phase of the thesis experience. As other students spoke of their
frustrations in getting started with their thesis work, she would emerge from
hours in the studio covered with paint. I began to think about how what I did
in my art studio was isolated from my psychological research about the
artistic process. I did not realize how my slight discomfort with the early
forms of art-based research was an expression of the separation between my
artistic and psychological identities.
I asked myself whether personal artistic inquiries were self-indulgent or
narcissistic. Where was the service to others and to the profession, and where
were the connections to psychology? I was working with words to produce
scholarly publications that I hoped would advance the field of expressive arts
therapy, and my thesis student was in the studio making paintings and
engaging images with words, body movement, vocal improvisations, drums
and performance art. She was much closer to the phenomena of creation with
her methods. I noticed how the most talented and committed students in the
graduate program began to work together with her in the studio. She
influenced and inspired their thesis projects, and I began to question the way
I approached research in expressive arts therapy.
As I continued to ponder the work my thesis student was doing, I realized
that it was her involvement in my art therapy studios that influenced and
actually taught her how to work in this way. I was her teacher and a primary
influence, but she made completely new applications of what I taught her. At
that point, I had not considered that making art and personal reflections on
one’s own creations could be a basis of research. The conventional
psychological thesis method required reflection on what other people did
with artistic media. The process of writing a thesis or dissertation was
supposed to be an academic exercise, designed to meet the prevailing
standards of psychological research as reflected by professional journals.
There were no institutional incentives to discover new methods of
investigation. Artistic inquiry as a basis for research involved a complete
paradigm reversal, since art was considered to be raw material for
psychological research methods which analyzed the process and objects of
creation.
The thesis focused on paintings of the female body. It had a major impact
on me and the college community in no small part because the pictures were
so big and bold and were exhibited prominently as part of the thesis process.
The images were unforgettable, and their expressive power made a
significant contribution to my paradigm shift concerning the purpose and
methods of research. The graduate student described her research
methodology as ‘empirical’ in that there was a direct involvement between
the maker of the art and the paintings produced. The goals of the thesis
included a deeper understanding of the relationship ‘between artist and art;
between artist and space; between images and space; between artists;
between images; and between art and artist–therapist’ (Jenkins 1988 p.2).
The thesis cited Paracelsus, who in 1526 declared that the purpose of
research is ‘the deepest knowledge of things themselves’. By declaring the art
studio to be a research laboratory dealing with empirical things, this study
was a key turning point in my approach to the process of investigation. I was
delighted that my students were taking something that I gave to them and
returning it to me in a more advanced form.
The methodological foundations for art-based research had been
suggested to me a year earlier when another graduate student presented the
thesis idea of making one large painting over the course of a year which
ARTISTIC INQUIRY 71
would focus on her relationship with her mother. I was intrigued and felt
that the process of making the painting would guarantee that the thesis
research would be more than a self-immersed journal about the
mother-daughter relationship. However, the very personal nature of the
proposal evoked potential challenges to the goals of the thesis program,
which focused on service to the profession and personal mastery of the
practise of expressive arts therapy.
The thesis plan was simple and straightforward. Over the course of two
semesters the student would work continuously on a single oil painting of
her mother which would go through a process of continuous transformation.
The stages of the painting would be photographed, and this would provide a
record of the different phases that would be painted over with subsequent
interpretations of the same subject matter. The painting would be perceived
as an ongoing process in which the covered and lost phases were as important
as the final form of the painting (Rice 1987). One of the most intriguing
issues raised by the thesis method was the determination as to when the
painting would be completed. The painting could be viewed as unending
and life-long, with the finishing point being the date for the completion of
the thesis; or that particular painting could be viewed as embodying a phase
of the artist’s life-long relationship with her mother. In addition to the time
frame of the thesis project, there might also be aesthetic considerations, such
as when the painting called for completion within the aesthetic context of its
structure and composition.
From a therapeutic vantage point, this project was the ultimate
embodiment of the dictum to ‘stick to the image’. Rather than jumping about
from one exercise to another, there was a sustained meditation on a complex
theme and the way it was played out within the medium of a painting. The
artist–researcher’s relationship with her mother was enacted within the
material process of making a painting. Feelings and memories inspired
expressions in paint, and the process of shaping the image in turn changed
the nature of the artist’s attachment to her mother. There was an ongoing
correspondence and mutual influence between what happened with paint
and the artist’s inner relationship to one of the most significant figures in her
life. As the picture unfolded, there were many ‘finished’ compositions which
were covered over by yet another painting. These completed pictures were
likened to episodes that come and go over the course of a long relationship.
They were covered over but still present underneath the later forms of the
painting.
What impressed me most about this thesis is the way the inquiry was
totally based in the material process of making art. It demonstrated how the
research of an artist in the studio can be likened to what a chemist does in a
lab. Can one imagine research chemists writing case studies about what other
chemists do in the lab and why they do it? The key to keeping the arts as
primary modes of psychological inquiry lies in making sure that the research
is focused on experiments with media, just as the chemist works with
physical substances. I keep returning to this project as a model of art-based
research. The painting was a palpable focal point, bridging artistic
expression and psychological contemplation. A sense of experimental data
was conveyed by the photographs, which served a vital role in the overall
design of the project, since the outcomes had as much to do with the visual
evidence as the verbal deliberations. The artistic process offered a clear
structure and a reliable method.
A third experience with a student’s thesis project further challenged my
thinking about what research in expressive arts therapy can be. When I began
my work with this student, I had become more aware of the importance of
personal and first-hand artistic inquiry as a way of doing research in the
expressive art therapies. The thesis project was pursued as a pictorial account
of a young girl’s mythological journey through the vicissitudes of everyday
life and realms of imagination. The drawings were beautifully rendered, and
the picture book spoke for itself without words. We approached it as an
archetypal story book. Since the project was to be presented as fulfilling the
requirements of a masters degree, I insisted that the student write a section
reflecting upon the process of making the visual thesis.
My rationale went something like this: ‘You need to offer psychological
reflections in order to distinguish the thesis from something you would
present for a masters degree in fine arts. Since you are a candidate for a degree
in expressive arts therapy, you must show mastery in that discipline.’
I was willing to see artistic inquiry as the major element of the thesis, but
there had to be a psychological deliberation. The student had worked very
closely with me, and we had great respect for one another. She politely
listened to me but showed little enthusiasm for my recommendations. I
sensed that she felt that a psychologically descriptive account would be an
imposition that did not resonate with the gist of the study. She had
committed a period of her life to this research and was not about to
compromise its integrity and essential message. Yet I had to uphold the
standards of the thesis program. I was keenly sympathetic to her position and
ARTISTIC INQUIRY 73
ultimately felt that I would leave it to her to find a solution that would fulfill
the two demands.
She came back to me a week later describing how she couldn’t explain the
story or reflect upon it in a traditional psychological genre. She felt that an
external voice commenting on the work would not get close enough to what
was happening within the thesis research. I had no answer and suggested that
she spend some time sitting with the problem and that a resolution would
ultimately emerge.
In our next meeting it occurred to the student that she could give a voice
to the young girl who was the protagonist in her story. The girl would
describe, ‘from her point of view’, what the thesis was all about. The
first-person voice allowed the thesis student to reflect upon the experience in
a more intimate and imaginative way that was consistent with the emotional
expressions of the drawings. Speaking as the young girl enabled the thesis
writer to get inside the thesis process and access insights that would not have
resulted from a more external analysis. She responded to the visual art work
with another artistic statement through the creative use of language. Art was
used to interpret art. As the reader of the thesis, I observed how this way of
speaking about the story gave a more engaging and readable account of the
project outcomes. The student invented a new way of integrating artistic
expression and psychological reflection within the context of a research
project. Throughout every phase of the project, she functioned as an artist
researching psychological aspects of experience (Shapiro 1989).
The primary lesson that I learned from this thesis project is that the images
and processes of artistic creation are always at least one step ahead of the
reflecting mind. If we continue to follow the standard behavioral science
methods of establishing what we plan to do before we do it, we undermine
the power of our discipline to offer something distinctly new and useful to
research.
As I worked with my thesis student, I was focused on the integrity of her
research and how we could devise methods that would fully realize the
potential of the project. After the thesis was completed, I began to see how
her work was pointing to new ways of practising expressive arts therapy. The
thesis project confirmed how we have responded to expressions of the
creative imagination with analytic and explanatory reflections that do not
continue or advance the expressive qualities presented by the works being
contemplated. I began to reconsider how I react to art works in my
therapeutic practice. Could I find more imaginative, artistic and intimate
ways of engaging the images I produce? If I respond more imaginatively and

poetically to my paintings, will I access qualities within them that were
inaccessible to the explaining mind? I recalled C.G. Jung describing how the
bird flies away when we explain an image. The generative powers of a
creative expression need to be fed with a corresponding consciousness
which appreciates and keeps their mysteries.
In my efforts to encourage innovation in expressive arts therapy research,
I have found the greatest obstacle to be stock definitions of ‘research’. In
Depth Psychology of Art (1989) and Art as Medicine (1992), I worked with my
own artistic expressions as a means of understanding therapeutic and artistic
processes. When I published those books, largely inspired by the works of my
graduate students, I feared ridicule from the profession, which had
previously displayed distinctly conservative attitudes toward research. Until
that time everything about expressive arts therapy had been focused on
researchers analyzing the works of others. Therapeutic ‘distance’ and
‘impersonal evaluation’ were among the most basic doctrines of the research
code.
To my surprise, there has yet to be any published criticism of
artist–researchers studying their personal expression. To the contrary, others
are using the method and taking it further. The publication of Rosalie
Politsky’s paper, ‘Penetrating our personal symbols: discovering our guiding
myths’ (1995), marked the arrival of personal artistic inquiry in creative arts
therapy’s international journal. Pat Allen’s Art Is a Way of Knowing (1995) has
taken artistic self-inquiry to a new level of depth. The enthusiastic response
to her book illustrates the hunger within the expressive arts therapy
profession for this type of inquiry. Bruce Moon has emerged as one of the
strongest and most persuasive voices calling for art-based research, training
and practice in expressive arts therapy. He includes personal artistic
expressions in his books as a way of describing: how work with patients
influences him; how he personally practises the principles he advocates; and
how everyone involved in the discipline of expressive arts therapy might
consider asking, ‘Why do I make art?’ (Moon 1994).
An indication of the validity of expressive arts therapy is the extent to
which we use these modalities to treat ourselves as well as our clients. In the
early years of expressive arts therapy practice, it seemed that most
practitioners sought out personal therapy with verbal therapists. There is a
dramatic change in this pattern today, as expressive arts therapy is
increasingly perceived as a primary, rather than an adjunctive, therapy.
ARTISTIC INQUIRY 75
Robert Landy’s concept of the ‘double life’ combines personal growth

with the theory and practice of expressive arts therapy (Landy 1996). The
experienced expressive arts therapy educator realizes how the most
important outcome of a graduate education is the integration of these three
factors. In my experience, the personal character of the therapist and the
ability to examine one’s own experience, together with that of the patient, are
primary indicators for future success. Therefore, it follows that there are
many advantages to art-based research within a graduate training program.
In addition to offering a first-hand understanding of the healing properties
of the creative experience, art-based research makes the future therapist
familiar with the blocks, struggles and pains that often accompany artistic
expression. The graduate student also establishes a basis for life-long
personal experimentation with the creative process.
Art-based research does not stop with graduate education. I see its
greatest potential being realized as a way of deepening and renewing
practise throughout a person’s career. Research, personal artistic expression
and the practise of therapy can be joined through the exploration of new
approaches to research which support the wide spectrum of needs being
manifested within the expressive arts therapy field.
Expressive arts therapy can promote more useful and innovative research
through a rigorous critique of the prevailing doctrines of research governing
the mental health field. We seem to have missed the intellectual expansions
offered by the post-modern era. Our discipline continues to support not only
the most conservative tenets of research, but also the use of methods that do
not use the arts as primary modes of inquiry. The reliance on behavioral
science research methods continues the adjunctive mentality that has
permeated expressive arts therapy from its inception. As we begin to envision
ourselves as the practitioners of a primary therapy, we may become more
open to the use of the arts as primary modes of inquiry in research projects.
I know that many therapists and graduate students want to involve
themselves in art-based research. People entering the profession choose this
way of working with people because of their personal experiences with the
process. Two graduate students from New Mexico recently interviewed me
for an art therapy project; I asked them why they are involved in expressive
arts therapy. They said, ‘We come from that place where art has healed our
lives and we know it can do it for others.’ One of the women went on to say, ‘I
know that art has saved my life. There is no question for me.’
There is no doubt that we can all benefit from a scientific study verifying
whether or not most graduate students select the expressive arts therapy field
because of personal experiences they have had in their lives with the arts. It
would be an interesting research project, and I might even do it myself one
day. But as I talked to these graduate students, they affirmed impressions that
I have had over the past three decades in the field. They want to become more
involved in using their experience with the creative process as a way of
understanding and researching expressive arts therapy. They are committed
to learning the methods and subtleties of practice. Why not simply let them
choose among different ways of conducting research? Right now most
graduate programs require behavioral science projects and dismiss art-based
inquiry as outside the scope of valid research.
If graduate programs let students freely choose research methods and
goals, a research project might be conducted to document and interpret the
outcomes. Since everything we do is a potentially rich source of data for
research of some kind, we should consider including our experience with art,
which is certainly a primary element of our profession.
From justification to creative inquiry

In expressive arts therapy, we have not begun to ask ourselves critically why
we do research. The conventional approach has been fueled by the assertions
that we have to use ‘accepted’ measures to prove our efficacy and that our
training programs must guarantee literacy in these methods.
I have always maintained that we do not have to legitimize ourselves
according to another group’s values and criteria. The need to use these
external measures actually reveals a lack of confidence in artistic inquiry, as
well as an acceptance of a secondary or adjunctive role within the research
community which reinforces a comparable position within the mental health
field. If we are to further practice and the imagination of the profession, we
must begin to use the languages, the ways of thinking and the modes of
creative transformation that constitute our collective being.
One of the most enduring themes in science and philosophy is the tension
between what can and cannot be known and expressed. I believe that this gap
is the most basic energy of the creative spirit, and I see no reason to resolve or
bring closure to the tension. Expressive arts therapy is engaged with both
aspects of experience, and this clearly distinguishes our practice from
disciplines which base themselves on totally predictable outcomes. As an
expressive arts therapist, I recognize the value of science and its research
ARTISTIC INQUIRY 77
methods; but they can never encapsulate the totality of what I do. Many
aspects of existence can be unraveled by science, whereas others stubbornly
resist definition. The tendency to identify research exclusively with science
has created a limiting imbalance. The application of one-sided scientism to
the creative process is an attempt to fly with only one wing, and the same
applies to a disregard for scientific understanding.
Justification is an essential element to research activities which strive to
introduce change and a new way of doing things. This approach to research
will always frame the experimental activity or the gathering of evidence with
the goal of influencing a particular mind-set which has the power or the
ability to accept a new or changed way of doing things. Examples include the
use of a new drug versus existing remedies or making a construction material
in a new way because research indicates that the product will be stronger and
longer lasting than what is currently being used.
The value of justification research was recently made apparent to me
during a conservation committee hearing in the city where I live. A group of
neighbors attended a meeting in City Hall to oppose a proposal to build a
house in a wetland area in our village, one of the first settlements in colonial
New England. The neighbors argued from the perspectives of history,
aesthetics and the ecological importance of protecting an area that naturally
filters water run-off before it passes to a cove nearby. Historical photographs
were submitted to document how over the course of the past 200 years
houses were not constructed in the area in question, even though the village
was densely settled. Neighbors implored the conservation committee to
consider the fate of the creatures and plants living in the wetland and the
shellfish in the cove that could be harmed by the increased run-off of
unfiltered water. They described how the developer was trying to profit from
increased property values. The committee had previously made a site visit,
and it was apparent that the area in question was the wettest place in the
village. The developer of the site was represented by an engineer who
produced plans and scientific data.
As the session progressed, and after observing previous hearings before us
on the docket, it became clear that the committee activity was conducted
exclusively within the context of scientific and engineering data. A friend
sitting behind me, waiting for his turn before the conservation committee on
another matter, leaned forward and said to me: ‘You’ve got to get a
professional engineer’s study and lab tests of water samples in order to
influence those guys. They’re all engineers.’
It was conclusive that if our group was going to persuade this particular
committee of engineers, we had to research the issue and justify our position
on the basis of information and data which fit into their way of viewing the
problem. If we wanted to prevail, we had to deliberate on a different playing
field.
I believe that almost all of the thinking about research within the
expressive arts therapies to date has been oriented towards justification. As
with the example I have just given, expressive arts therapists have accepted
the fact that in order to advance the profession and influence public attitudes,
they must justify the work to ‘external’ decision-makers who view reality
exclusively according to the outcomes of scientific evidence. In no way do I
oppose these research activities. I simply wish more people could understand
that this type of inquiry does not include the entire universe of research
possibilities. There are many other goals for research which I shall describe at
a later point. If expressive arts therapy research is conducted exclusively with
the objective of influencing people outside the profession, something
important will be lost. We must also rigorously explore the essential qualities
of the work within a context which understands and enhances its unique
properties. We must stick to the images and processes of creative expression
and trust that a heightened appreciation and understanding of the
phenomena being studied will carry the profession to a more advanced and
deeply respected status in the world.
As we move away from justification as an exclusive motive for research, we
shall find that scientific methods of inquiry will emerge naturally as preferred
ways of gaining a deeper understanding of certain phenomena and problems.
Without the pressure resulting from the imposition of one way of looking at
the world on to every research opportunity, science and art will be free to
interact naturally and collaboratively as they have done throughout history.
Allen (1992) has correctly assessed how the art therapy discipline
manifests a ‘clinification syndrome’, which she attributes to a sense of
inferiority in relation to the more institutionally dominant scientific mental
health professions. This prevailing need to justify oneself according to the
standards of something external to one’s being results in the closeting of the
essential artistic nature of the discipline. Allen suggests that the field might
consider the artist-in-residence model for expressive arts therapy practice as
an alternative to the scientific–clinician archetype. The artist-in-residence is
not necessarily someone who comes and goes for brief visits, as we
experience in schools and colleges. The therapeutic artist-in-residence is
ARTISTIC INQUIRY 79
someone who stays and creates a reliable and constant artistic environment
which acts upon people with its unique medicines and spirits. Allen
questions the psychotherapeutic and clinical model as a way of approaching
art’s timeless healing properties. If we shift our attention away from the
clinical model to the studio approach to artistic medicine, we have a
completely different world of research assumptions and practices.
Knill (with Barba and Fuchs 1995) reminds us that every research activity
will always be conducted according to a particular image of reality. Do we
research our work within an artistic vision of the world or do we continue to
see ourselves according to an external vision? Do we shape reality through
our own artistic questioning of nature and our beliefs, or do we investigate
our work through someone else’s questions, doubts and needs for proof ?
I recently read an article which criticized the studio-oriented approach to
healing through the arts because these methods were not backed up by
‘research’. In essence the author of the paper was saying that something
occurring outside the paradigm within which she worked and viewed reality
could only be justified according to that paradigm and its standards of
research. This is an old rhetorical trick through which you demand that the
perspective of the adversary be proven within the framework of reality that
you construct and which denies the essential premises of the other’s point of
view. If the ‘outsider’ complains that this imposition of an external measure
of reality distorts the position being presented, the weight of the
contemporary bias towards scientific truth is then used in yet another
rhetorical move, reductio ad absurdum, which likens the complaint to a
condition of absurdity, because who, after all, can question the absolute
veracity of ‘scientific evidence’?
I read with interest how recent scientific studies suggest that early
exposure to music education can augment a child’s mental capacity. The
public response to this study illustrates how our civilization, like my local
conservation committee, views truth almost exclusively through a scientific
lens. We quietly sat by as public schools across the country dropped the arts
from the curriculum in favor of other subjects considered more essential. It is
wonderful that scientific studies come along and prove the obvious. The
reliance on the supposedly objective measure of science reflects a deeper
malaise and an inability to take positions on what we innately know about
the value of human experience. Those who demand scientific evidence
typically display an absence of deeply felt convictions about what individual
people and civilizations need. Reliance on scientific proof for social and
educational policy will produce the most conservative and risk-free modes of
education and therapy. German Baroque music and the traditions of African
percussion were conceived according to deeply ingrained creative instincts
that not only furthered the intelligence of the individual musicians who
made the music, but also their respective regional civilizations and then,
ultimately, the world’s musical intelligence. Do we need a scientific study to
verify these conclusions?
Imagine if the twentieth century pioneers of the arts therapies felt that
they could only proceed on the basis of existing scientific validation for what
they sensed the world needed. I remember the constant question that I
received in starting an expressive arts therapy graduate program in the early
1970s. ‘How can you train people,’ I was asked, ‘if there are no jobs?’ I was
frustrated by this limiting question, which tried to make sure that everything
we did in the present was framed by what already existed. ‘The graduates will
go out and create jobs,’ I said. At this point, nearly a quarter of a century later,
many thousands have done as I envisioned, and hundreds more continue to
do so every year.
Research in the area of human experience has become a mode of social
justification and control. What we do or do not do collectively must be
‘backed up’ by research data. Although this conservative and careful
approach to social and professional policy has its merits, especially in terms
of responsibility to subjects and the management of scarce resources, the
one-sided preference for these methods undermines and represses creative
experimentation and discovery.
If we are able to expand our vision of research beyond the scope of
justification according to scientific standards, what goals might this enlarged
realm espouse?
There is an assumption that research is always directed towards some
form of knowing and explaining. My experience in expressive arts therapy
suggests that research can be concerned with other complementary
objectives, such as the need to experience, to inspire and collectively to build
a profession. In Tending the Fire (1995), Ellen Levine offers a poetic basis for
research activity. She describes how she hopes that her personal artistic
inquiry ‘stimulates’ others to create. As a researcher, Levine’s goal is to make
her voice ‘one flame that joins with others in our field to keep the fire alive’
(p.15).
Levine also gives an idea from the Jewish tradition, tikkun ha’olam (the
repair of the world), as an underlying purpose of her work. She practises
ARTISTIC INQUIRY 81
expressive arts therapy and researches its purpose with an over-riding

spiritual goal of repairing personal and global environments that have been
damaged by pain and misfortune. The repair is achieved through the poetic
fires of creative transformation. These alchemies are forever characterized by
uncertainty and a faith that the process of creation will carry us through
difficult situations.
Levine’s work suggests that research activity can be pursued in order to
inspire and stimulate others to perform with increased conviction and
creativity. She illustrates her personal process of creative expression with the
goal of inciting her readers to do the same for themselves and then to make
this experience available to other people. This objective resonates closely
with my experience of the creative process. My personal creativity and my
commitment to the artistic process are fueled by the expressions of others. I
am challenged by artistic images and the creative journeys of other people.
Levine’s goal of ‘repair of the world’ also stimulates my spiritual sensibility; it
arouses my compassion for others and my commitment to the transformation
of suffering. I know from my experience and history that art contributes to
these spiritual goals. Do these positions require scientific proof ? Or is it
better to approach research as documentation of their effects in the present
and as a way of tracing the constancy of these themes throughout history and
the different cultures of the world?
The examples of art-based research that I have given from my work with
graduate students illustrate how the process of inquiry can further the
effectiveness of professional practice. In my personal experience, I have
always approached research as a way of experimenting with therapeutic
methods and materials. I try out new ways of doing things, explore
connections among media, and use my personal experience in the studio or
my practice with others as an ongoing process of research. There have been
no divisions between research and practice throughout my career. I am
always striving to learn more about what I am doing, to discover more
creative and fulfilling ways of approaching the making of art, and to link
what I do with the thematic continuities of history. My respect for abiding
themes requires research that integrates the library and the studio, history as
well as immediate practice. This commitment to the broader scope of ideas
and practices has always made it necessary for me to oppose an exclusive
adoption of behavioral science research methods by the expressive arts
therapy profession. The phenomena which I study cannot be boxed within
controlled experiments which restrict creative and critical thinking.
The desire ‘to know’ will always be a driving force in any research
tradition, including one which utilizes the arts as principal modes of inquiry.
Pat Allen’s book, Art Is a Way of Knowing (1995), enlarges the epistem-
ological discourse to include distinctly artistic ways of understanding.
Artistic knowing is different from intellectual knowing; this distinction is the
basis of its creative value, therapeutic power and future significance for
research. In a foreword to Allen’s book, M.C. Richards describes artistic
knowing as intuitive, mysterious and renewable, as ‘an underground river
that gives us life and mobility’ (p.vii). Allen’s presentation of personal
experience is in keeping with the traditions of artistic expression and inquiry.
An artist, she offers her expression as testimony of how knowledge is gained
through the process of sustained artistic inquiry. As Allen records her
personal experience, she simultaneously identifies universal themes and
principles manifested through her experience. The personal is used as an
opening to the experiences of all people, and the guiding tenet of artistic
knowing is a faith that the process will carry us to deeper levels of insight and
knowledge.
In the expressive arts therapies, we all want ‘to know’ how the process of
creation affects us. We need a deeper knowledge of what works in different
therapeutic situations. I have recently been reading a doctoral dissertation
which utilizes art-based inquiry guided by the belief that the phenomena
must be allowed to speak for themselves (Paquet 1997). The dissertation
focuses on the use of mask rituals in expressive arts therapy. The researcher
presents a simple and direct goal as the basis of her inquiry, ‘determining how
the mask ritual works’, rather than measuring its efficacy (p.132). The
doctoral student uses her experience with masks and an experimental group
as the basis for comparison with psychological and anthropological literature
on the ritual use of masks. I realized when reading this dissertation how
research and training are inseparable. Both are concerned with establishing
personal familiarity with the intricacies of practice.
Even at the most advanced levels of practice we are constantly educating
ourselves through our practitioner research. Stephen Levine (1997) suggests
that the expressive arts therapy experience involves the disintegration of old
patterns in order to make way for new creations. He states that ‘It is the
therapists’ own fear of breaking down that prevents them from letting clients
go through the experience of disintegration’ (p.22). Based on this
observation, we might focus expressive arts therapy research on making
therapists personally familiar with the transformative effects of
ARTISTIC INQUIRY 83
disintegration in order to let patients go through their personal encounters

with the creative process without unnecessary intervention. We constantly
undergo personal experience with the creative process in order to know its
properties and to be ready and open to help others.
Art-based research grows from a trust in the intelligence of the creative
process and a desire for relationships with the images that emerge from it.
These two focal points are the basis for a new tradition of inquiry.
As the field of expressive arts therapy expands and matures, we will
involve ourselves in deeper and more open-ended studies into how the
process ‘works’. Liberated from having constantly to justify our practice to
others and to ourselves, we will be able to understand it more intimately and
thoroughly. I urge the expressive arts therapy profession to return to the
studio, realizing that it is the natural place for artistic inquiry and expansion.
All my research and experimentation with the expressive arts therapy
experience affirms that we must be able to ‘trust the process’ and allow it to
do its work of transformation. The more we know, the more we will trust and
open ourselves to the medicines of creative expression.
A more established and secure profession will also be able to focus more
completely on the images and expressions it generates. In keeping with the
practice of expressive arts therapy, the image we research will hold all of the
ways we approach it. The abiding presence of the image sets the parameters
of research rather than a particular discipline’s rules of engagement.
Experience in supervising student research has shown me how the use of
established approaches to inquiry, such as traditional behavioral science
methodologies, does help to generate a more consistent and concrete end
product, a less uncertain research experience for the student and supervisor,
and a relatively consistent standard for the evaluation of quality. The
methodology is laid out in advance, with the major area of choice being the
selection of the problem to be investigated. These research activities often
appear more concerned with teaching a particular scientific method than
with the creation of new knowledge. The less imaginative researcher can
produce an acceptable project by following procedures that do not demand a
depth of creative resources. As a teacher and supervisor of research, I am well
aware of the benefits of approaching the process of inquiry in this
standardized manner. But when I read the completed studies, they tend to
look the same; they bear little resemblance to the experience being
investigated.
Art-based research generally does involve more ambiguity, risk and

uneven results in terms of the end product. But the outcomes tend to be more
creative, less mediocre and more conducive to advancing the sophistication
of practice. The final studies are distinctly individuated expressions more
likely to be different from one another than similar. Most importantly,
art-based research corresponds completely to the benefits and difficulties of
the process and the phenomena being studied; for this reason it must be given
more attention within the expressive arts therapy profession.
References
Allen, P. (1992) ‘Artist-in residence: an alternative to ‘clinification’ for art therapists.’ Art
Therapy 9, 1, 22–29.
Allen, P. (1995) Art Is a Way of Knowing. Boston: Shambhala Publications.
Jenkins, K. (1988) ‘Women of the cave: nine images and an artist-therapist face each
other.’ Unpublished master’s thesis, Cambridge, MA, Lesley College Library.
Knill, P., Barba, H. N. and Fuchs, M. (1995) Minstrels of Soul: Intermodal Expressive Therapy.
Toronto: Palmerston Press.
Landy, R. (1996) Essays in Drama Therapy: The Double Life. London: Jessica Kingsley
Publishers.
Levine, E. (1995) Tending the Fire: Studies in Art, Therapy and Creativity. Toronto: Palmerston
Press.
Levine, S. (1997) Poiesis: The Language of Psychology and the Speech of the Soul. London: Jessica
Kingsley Publishers.
McNiff, S. (1989) Depth Psychology of Art. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
McNiff, S. (1992) Art as Medicine: Creating a Therapy of the Imagination. Boston: Shambhala
Publications.
Moon, B. (1994) Introduction to Art Therapy: Faith in the Product. Springfield, IL: Charles C.
Thomas.
Paquet, N. (1997) ‘The mask ritual: an ancient path of transformation for modern times.’
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto,
California.
Politsky, R. (1995) Penetrating our personal symbols: discovering our guiding myths.
Arts in Psychotherapy 22, 1, 9–20.
Rice, J.S. (1987) ‘Mother may I? The story of the painting “Last Day at State Beach”: a
portrait of a mother by her daughter, its beginning, its life as a creative process, and
how this process may never end.’ Unpublished master’s thesis, Cambridge, MA, Lesley
College Library.
Richards, M.C. (1995) Foreword. In P. Allen, Art is a Way of Knowing. Boston: Shambhala
Publications.
Shapiro, J. (1989) ‘Descent into image: an archetypal picture-story.’ Unpublished
master’s thesis, Cambridge, MA, Lesley College Library.
ARTISTIC INQUIRY 85
Further reading
Derrida, J. (1994) Roundtable discussion with Jacques Derrida. Villanova University, 3
October 1994, http://www.cas.usf.edu/journal/fobo/vill1.html.
Grenadier, S. (1995) ‘The place wherein truth lies.’ Arts in Psychotherapy, 22, 5, 393–402.
McNiff, S. (1977) ‘Motivation in art.’ Art Psychotherapy 4, 3/4, 125–136.
Moon, B. (1990) Existential Art Therapy: The Canvas Mirror. Springfield, IL: Charles C.
Thomas.
Moon, B. (1992) Essentials of Art Therapy Training and Practice. Springfield, IL: Charles C.
Thomas.
PART TWO
Clinical Perspectives
CHAPTER 5
Voicework as Therapy
The Artistic Use of Singing and Vocal
Sound to Heal Mind and Body
Paul Newham
Introduction: the expressive art of voice

It is now widely accepted that there can be a therapy which engages directly
with the psyche, just as there are therapies which engage directly with the
body. This ‘psyche therapy’ or ‘psychotherapy’, deals with emotions,
thoughts and memories and with neuroses, phobias, traumas and other
psychological problems.
Psychotherapy as we know it today originates in the work of Sigmund
Freud, who initially called his therapeutic approach the ‘talking cure’ and
whose study of the psyche is indistinguishable from his study of verbal
language (Forrester 1980). Indeed, most branches of psychotherapy
continue to focus on the spoken word as the major medium of expression.
Although the expressive arts therapist, like the psychotherapist, is offering a
therapy for the psyche, those who use the arts therapeutically provide an
opportunity for the psyche to express itself not only through speech but also
through artistic expression.
One of Freud’s most gifted pupils was C.G. Jung, who then became his
dedicated colleague and close friend before their relationship ended with a
rivalry and combat which has shaped psychotherapy as much as their
individual theories (Frey-Rohn 1990). Jung pointed out that the constituting
material of the psyche is made up of images (Jung 1953a). In fact, Jung
claimed that the psyche can only come to know itself by encountering images
(Jung 1953b). In Jung’s view of psychotherapy, the aim of the therapist is to
stimulate ‘creative work’ by which the imagination may be encouraged to
fantasize, actively imagining and amplifying the constituting images of the
psyche (Jung 1953c). Indeed, in many ways psychotherapy consists of two
89
people playing together, and the materials of this play are images (Winnicott
1991).
Jung used the term ‘active imagination’ to describe a process by which
deeply buried and often unconscious images are brought to consciousness.
Moreover, for Jung, the psyche’s images could be made manifest not only
through talking but through dancing, singing, writing, painting and any
other artistic medium (Samuels 1985). The therapeutic use of expressive arts,
such as dance, drama and music, is predicated on the belief that the nature of
the human psyche can express itself authentically through images rather than
words: images in motion, images in sound, images in dramatic action
(Naumberg 1958). This does not mean that all expressive arts therapists draw
upon Jung’s model of psychological interpretation; however, they do all
share a common belief that there are mediums of expression which are often
more expedient at revealing the psyche than talking.
One of the channels or mediums through which active imagination can
take place consists of the non-verbal sounds of the human voice, what we
may call ‘singing’ in its broadest possible sense (Newham 1993a).
Working with the sounds of the human voice, in a manner comparable to
a singing teacher but with therapeutic rather than aesthetic goals, therefore
compares to the work of a drama therapist, dance therapist or music therapist;
but here the images of the psyche take the form of vocal sound (Newham
1997a).
Voice and psyche

The voice is the primary means of communication in human beings. Our
voice is an expression of who we are and how we feel. In the tones of a
person’s voice you can hear the subtle music of feeling and thought: you can
hear the effervescent innocence of youth and the wisdom of experience and
age; you can hear the hollow yearning of need and want, and the sharp edge
of anger and retaliation. The tonal contours of the human voice weave an
acoustic tapestry which reveal the peaks of excitement, agitation and worry,
and the vales of contemplation, sorrow and heartache. The ever-shifting
collage of emotions which we all host infiltrates the voice with tones of
happiness, elation, sorrow and grief. In the voice you can hear resignation,
indignation, hope and despair. In the voice you can hear the images of the
psyche in sound.
The musical and emotional quality of a voice independent of the words it
utters reveals a great deal about a person’s nature, moods, preoccupations and
VOICEWORK AS THERAPY 91
character. A change in the tone of voice can completely alter the meaning of
the same words, imbuing them with passivity or ferocity, triumph or defeat.
When we listen to a voice, we are affected by it through the elusive power
of images which seem to stimulate many senses. For example, we frequently
hear the voice as though we are perceiving it through the sense of touch. We
feel pinched, slapped, compressed, pierced, hammered, stroked, tickled or
shaken by someone’s voice. We also often feel that we can taste a voice,
hearing the despondent bitterness, the citrus tang of jealousy or sugary sweet
sycophanticism. We also often feel that we see or hear the colour of a voice,
the deep blue of melancholia, the green of envy and the red of retaliation.
Temperature, too, is used to describe the quality of a voice, which can be
experienced as warm, cool, burning hot or ice cold. A person’s voice may also
give the listener the impression of a particular character, and we often judge a
person’s personality from the sound of their voice.
But it is not only that a particular quality of voice in another person
influences the way we perceive them. It is also true that the particular quality
of our own voice influences the way we perceive our self. The qualities that
give a voice its unique colour serve an important function in maintaining our
sense of identity, for the sound of our voice reminds us of who we are, it
affirms and reinforces our self-image. In fact, the voice may be described as
an acoustic mirror (Silverman 1988). The quality of our voice reflects back to
us an image of who we are in sound, what has been called a ‘sound image of
the self ’ (Anzieu 1979). If we sound child-like, then it is like staring in the
mirror and seeing the face of a child. We will then naturally experience our
self as being child-like. If we sound bitter and envious, then this sound is
reflected and resounded in our ears, reinforcing the sense of our self as bitter
and envious. Our voice and our psychological state therefore influence each
other.
Because of the intimate links between our voice and our psyche, by
transforming and enhancing the way we sound, we can transform and
enhance the way we perceive our self; and this, of course, influences the way
others perceive us (Newham 1997a).
As time passes, many people often become over-identified with a single
image of themselves, and this singular and unchanging self-image is revealed
in the quality of the voice (Redfearn 1985). For some people, their voice and
psyche may become saturated with a particular emotional tone, such as
bitterness, defeat, anxiety, fear or rage, and these emotional tones find their
expression in the acoustic tones of the voice. For other people, their voice
may get stuck in reflecting a single character or attitude. In such

circumstances, it is as though the voice can become a rigid mask which
cannot be removed. The word ‘personality’ originally referred to the sound
passing through the mouth hole in the mask worn by actors in ancient Greek
theatre, and this ancient origin of the word reminds us how deeply voice and
character are linked.
The mask disguises the actual face; and a vocal mask disguises the actual
voice and therefore the true self of an individual. A person with such a vocal
mask may feel enraged but sound intimidated; they may feel saddened but
sound unmoved; they seek help but their voice signals self-certainty, they
seek warmth and affection but their voice signals guarded detachment, they
seek respect but their voice attracts belittlement.
Therapeutic voicework can help to overcome this problem, enabling the
voice to shake off the factors which keep it restrained. Then, rather than
being a limited and constricted instrument, communicating only a tiny
percentage of the personality, it can instead become a celebrated medium
through which we can express the multicoloured fabric of the inner self
(Newham 1997a).
Deep within the psyche, we all play host to a reservoir of images: moods,
characters, notions, impulses, feelings and ideas which appear most vividly in
dreams, emerging as eccentric figures, animals, monsters, magical journeys
and ominous situations. All these forms represent and symbolize important
parts of the self. While the art therapist may help someone translate them into
colour, the drama therapist into dramatic action and the dance therapist into
movement, it is also possible for a professional practitioner who is trained to
work with the voice to help translate the images of the psyche into vocal
sound. For each of the inner parts of the self has a voice, and so by extending
the breadth, depth, strength, flexibility and fluidity of the vocal range, it is
possible to draw out the full imaginative spectrum of the psyche in sound. By
giving voice to the multitudinous aspects of the self, it is possible to enable
someone to grow into themselves and come to accept the entire self in all its
propensities.
One of the most vibrant and uplifting ways of accessing and expressing
the full self in sound is through the act of singing. Throughout the world, the
fundamental right to vocal expression has existed for centuries in the form of
singing. To redeem and return the singing voice to those who have lost it is
also to return to them a fundamental and essential part of their self. For we all
begin life and spend our first months expressing our emerging self through
sound and song; and, developmentally speaking, it is this ability which is lost
to the overbearing dogma of spoken language.
The early songs of infancy

For the first three months, the baby cries only as an expression of hunger and
distress, the melody of which rises and falls like a siren; and within weeks a
mother will be able to distinguish her child’s cry from that of many others
without face-to-face contact. The mother has an innate ability to detect the
idiosyncratic cadences, the unique quality of rhythm and melody which her
baby alone possesses.
At around three months, a new quality of crying emerges which also has a
rising and falling melody but which usually has a slightly higher pitch range
than the melody of distress. This is identified as the emergence of the first
pleasure cry from which the mother is able to differentiate between cries of
hunger and cries of tiredness, between cries of physical discomfort and those
of emotional irritability, between cries of distress and those of pleasure
(Ostwald 1973).
The emerging pleasure sounds contain acoustic properties which act as
the precursor for the vowels that will later be used in words; and the
differentiation between the melody of distress and that of pleasure is the
baby’s first step towards the acquisition of speech (Lewis 1936). However,
whereas the verbal infant will later organize such sounds according to the
rules of language, the baby, not yet familiar with such a scheme, arranges
them according to an intuitive, creative and innate sense of pitch, melody and
rhythm in a fashion akin to the composition of music. This instinctive
musical arrangement of spontaneous vocal sounds is known as ‘cooing’.
Between the ages of about three and six months, a new kind of sound
called ‘babbling’ occurs, which is identified as the emergence of sounds
which form the raw material for consonants. The ultimate achievement of the
babbling stage is the ability to combine these new staccato percussive sounds,
which are akin to consonants, with the earlier sustained tonal sounds, which
are like vowels. Now, the child talks in its own language in which the
attentive listener can hear, or so she thinks, words from her own language,
words from foreign languages, and words which are pure ingenious
invention.
Up to about 12 months, the acoustic utterances of the baby – the crying,
cooing and babbling – emerge purely instinctively and not as a result of any
instruction from the mother or care-giver. Deaf babies cry, coo and babble
just as hearing babies do (Greene and Mathieson 1989). The vocalization is

genetically inherited in the same way as the instinct to suckle at the breast; it
is one of the biological patterns of behaviour which the human species
universally possesses; and, despite the unique quality to each baby’s voice,
there is a ubiquitous similarity to the crying, cooing and babbling of all
babies that is recognizable world-wide (Greene and Conway 1963).
In developmental psychology, these first acoustic expressions of the
infant have been termed ‘spontaneous song’ because the preverbal ability to
cry, coo and babble emanates from the inherent neurological encoded
capacity to compose and sing melody (Gardner 1982). This instinctive,
spontaneous song-making also plays a pre-eminent role in the unfolding of
musical awareness (Hargreaves 1992). Adult musical improvised singing is
processed by the right hemisphere of the brain, the same hemisphere which
stimulates the baby’s crying, cooing and babbling. Verbal language,
meanwhile, is organized by the left hemisphere. This is why patients who
have suffered a stroke and lost the ability to formulate and articulate speech
can still often sing songs with their melody and lyrics intact.
Just as the infantile capacity for the creation of spontaneous song is an
innate genetic instinct, so, too, the mother has the potential to comprehend
the emotion or need communicated through her baby’s crying as an integral
aspect of her genetic predisposition. It is her positive response to the sounds
that affirms the communicative efficacy of the infant’s vocalization; and the
babbling eventually leads to mock conversations with the mother or
care-giver which further serve to comfort and arouse the child.
The vocal nourishment that the mother provides for her child through her
voice is just as important to the infant’s development as her milk (Tomatis
1991). Indeed, we may go so far as to say that the mother’s voice is a kind of
substitute milk which flows out of her mouth and into the baby’s ears, as the
milk flows out of her breast or from the bottle in her hand and into the baby’s
mouth.
The renowned psychologist and paediatrician, D.W. Winnicott, proposed
that the infant uses singing and vocalizing as a transitional object. In other
words, when the mother leaves the room, the baby continues to vocalize,
emulating the mother’s vocal patterns as a way of holding on to her calming
presence (Winnicott 1991).
The maternal voice also acts as a container, an acoustic equivalent to a
safe, delineated and boundaried spatial area in which to experiment with the
actions which facilitate growth (Bion 1962). In some ways, the mother’s
voice replaces the fluid of the womb, enveloping the baby three hundred and
sixty degrees; and it has been termed a ‘sonorous envelope’ (Anzieu 1976)
which ‘surrounds, sustains and cherishes the child’ (Rosolato 1974).
Moreover, the combined voice of mother and infant forms an ‘audio-phonic
skin’, which contains the emerging self of the infant in the same way as the
epidermal skin (Anzieu 1976).
The most important aspect of the sounds made during preverbal infancy
is that they are expressive rather than descriptive (Langer 1953). During the
preverbal stage, the infant creates a tonal language according only to the
music of emotion and instinct (Harris 1990). During this early period of
preverbal life, all sounds are ‘just various ways of singing to the world’
(Merleau-Ponty 1970). However, the child’s success at communication
depends upon the ability to combine sounds to formulate the words of a
particular verbal language (Hymes 1971).
The transition from a universal musical tonality to the acquisition of the
language specific to the child’s culture is achieved by a process of education.
The care-giver repeats and ‘rewards’ those sounds which have a place in the
words of her language but discourages and ‘punishes’ those which her
particular language does not utilize, so that the unusable ones become
‘extinct’ (Skinner 1957). In German, for example, many words end with
‘unf ’, a sound which is not accepted in English.
Though children are dependent on the ‘punishment’ and ‘reward’
responses of a care-giver to enter into a specific language, they also appear to
make appropriate grammatical choices which have not been taught (Pinker
1994). However, the infant’s original acoustic tapestry of spontaneous music,
the jumble-talk and gobbledegook which utilizes the entire range of
semi-articulate sounds available to a human voice, is, through the process of
training, reduced until the only remaining sounds are those which are of
linguistic use in the particular cultural context. This process, which on the
one hand represents a development, also necessitates a cessation, a loss.
In the preverbal phase, vocal sounds act as a direct expression of
experience. With the advent of language, however, the words serve to
describe this experience. The word ‘sad’ replaces the sound of sadness. The
word ‘joy’ replaces the sound of joy. As a result, the experience of sadness or
joy is no longer necessary to the communication of their meaning; and the
nature of such emotions therefore to some extent evaporates.
Ultimately, the infant is required to give up the direct spontaneous
expression of emotion in favour of an abstract code of signification (Doane
and Hodges 1992). Once the child enters the symbolic world of verbal
language, the original emotional world of experience which was expressed
through sound becomes organized and articulated, and consequently
appears to be ‘made prisoner of language’ (Smith 1996). Moreover, this
creates the sensation of a loss, an absence or a lack (Kristeva 1980).
Psychotherapeutically-oriented feminists have pointed out that verbal
language therefore separates infants from their feelings (Tong 1989). This is
why working with the sung non-verbal sounds of the voice has been
identified as so important by contemporary feminist psychotherapeutic
theory; for it provides a ‘new key for understanding the psychological,
social, and cultural order’ and ‘a means to establishing psychological health’
(Gilligan 1993).
Many adults continue to feel that verbal language does not properly or
fully represent their self and that many of their inner experiences are literally
beyond words, which can give rise to a sense of complete isolation
(Killingmo 1990). But it has been asserted that one of the roles which a
psychotherapist can assume for his or her clients is ‘a singing partner’ who
can sing with them, ‘sharing their load’, harmonizing, reverberating and
echoing their sufferings (Ayre 1988). Therapeutic voicework can uncover
the musical language of voice which lies hidden beneath the cognitive
language of words (Newham 1995/96). Working therapeutically with the
non-verbal sounds of the voice can help to re-animate and re-access such
experiences by allowing a return to a preverbal mode of expression through
spontaneous singing; such a process of exploration may be termed
‘voicework’.
Defining voicework
Voicework may perhaps best be described as a generic term which includes
any work with or on the voice. Within this definition, a singing teacher could
be said to practise voicework in developing the vocal skills of her pupils; a
bereavement counsellor could be said to practise voicework in helping a
client to feel safe and comfortable in giving voice to grief; a speech and
language therapist conducts voicework in helping a patient be relieved of
pathological conditions which threaten the health of the voice; a choir leader
may be said to practise voicework in enabling a mass of disparate voices to
synthesize into a harmonious whole; a psychotherapist may draw upon
voicework in assisting a client to give vent to rage through shouts and yells; a
répétiteur conducts voicework when she helps an anxious opera singer with
the task of sustaining the demands of the music while articulating the poetic
text; a music therapist uses voicework when she helps a young child to create
a song from a simple rhyme; a priest employs voicework when using the
tonal contours of his voice to communicate to the congregation; and a
politician uses voicework when he deliberately employs specific vocal
timbres to convince and persuade.
All of these people are using the voice as a channel through which to
express or ‘push out’ something from the inside; and the voice is indeed a
major bridge between the inner world of mood, emotion, instinct and
thought and the outer world of relationship, discourse and interaction.
However, when a practitioner is trained especially to facilitate the expression
of intimate psychological elements through the sounds of the voice and is
further able to help the client develop a clear understanding of how the deep
emotions and intense images which can emerge in the form of vocal sound
reflect the nature of the whole person, then we may say that ‘therapeutic
voicework’ is being practised. Moreover, without such a training and ability,
like all therapeutic processes, the practise of therapeutic voicework can be
health-threatening rather than health-enhancing (Newham 1997a).
In 1993, I implemented the first accredited professional training in
therapeutic voicework; the particular methodology which I teach is known
as ‘voice movement therapy’ (Newham 1993b, 1997a). In assessing the
development of voice movement therapy, it is apparent that the discipline to
which it most directly compares is that of the expressive arts therapies and,
like the other arts therapies, it draws on the rich history of the arts in healing
(Newham 1994).
A brief history of therapeutic voicework

Song-making and singing has, for thousands of years, formed part of healing
ceremonies performed by cultures all over the world, where the use of vocal
sounds to heal the sick is or was often the guarded practice of a select member
of the community – a medicine woman, a magician, a sorcerer, a
witch-doctor or a shaman (Eliade 1989; Halifax 1991). Here, the process of
healing is aimed at ridding the body and soul of the spirits which are thought
to be the cause of the illness; and central to the act of spiritual exorcism is the
process of catharsis by which the patient discharges pestilent and violating
spirits and emotions, which often emerge in the form of terrifying vocal
noises and which the patient emits while in a state of semi-consciousness
(Rasmussen 1958). Such vocal sounds often have no articulate words but are
a string of syllables, cries, screeches and improvised sonic forms which

sustain the trance experience (Frank 1961). The culture of the American
Indians has a long history of using voice and song as an integral part of the
healing rituals, where part of the cure for sickness involves finding a healer
who knows the ‘medicine song’ appropriate to a particular illness. By
remembering and guarding the life-long existence of the song, the healer
protects the tribe from impending destruction; these songs are therefore
preserved by being passed down orally through the generations (Densmore
1948).
In Western Europe, the healing power of song can be traced to
Pythagoras, the ancient Greek philosopher for whom the fundamental
principles of music – such as rhythm, melody and proportion of high and
low, soft and loud – had their equivalent in the human soul, or psyche. The
right music could therefore bring the soul into order and integration, while
the wrong sounds could throw the whole person into confusion, madness
and disarray. During Roman times, Cicero, in the tradition of Pythagoras,
proclaimed that every emotion had a corresponding vocal sound; and he
compared the tones of the voice to the strings of the lyre, both of which he
believed could be tuned to represent perfectly changes in human mood and
temperament. Later still, during the Renaissance, the notion of a soul-map for
the voice was further developed into principles for the composition of vocal
music. Renaissance composers took the four elements of earth, water, air and
fire, originally depicted by the Greek philosopher, Hippocrates, and equated
them with different classical vocal ranges. Earth was bass, water was tenor,
alto was air and soprano was fire. Each of the Hippocratic elements was
thought to correspond respectively to four humours in the body: blood,
phlegm, yellow bile and black bile, the balance between which was thought
to be crucial for the healthy functioning of the body and soul. Vocal music
was composed in such a way as to create a harmonious and proportionate
combination of the four vocal timbres and thereby induce an analogous
equilibrium in the corresponding humours of the body.
It was the ancient Greek concept of catharsis that inspired Sigmund
Freud, who found that when a patient was able to get in touch with long-lost
memories of previous trauma and then put these forgotten tragedies into
words, the symptoms caused by the event disappeared. However, Freud’s
most apposite discovery was that the cure only worked if the patient’s speech
expressed the intensity of emotion befitting the trauma; and so patients were
encouraged to scream, sob, whimper, howl and groan as they told the tragic
tales of their past (Freud 1953–74).
Wilhelm Reich, one of Freud’s most gifted students, radically redirected
the techniques of the talking cure, combining massage and respiratory
exercises, and encouraged patients to exaggerate the sounds of their
breathing, assisting them in a cathartic release of repressed emotion in order
to liberate body and mind from neuroses (Reich 1948). These techniques
were further developed by Reich’s student, Alexander Lowen, who listened
not only to the gasps, cries and sighs which were emitted during the physical
manipulation of his patients’ bodies, but also to the qualities inherent in the
patients’ speaking voices: the patterns of inflection, tone and rhythm which
he believed mirrored the nature of underlying emotional dynamics (Lowen
1976). Lowen believed that freeing the voice resulted in psychological
liberation.
Lowen had been inspired by Paul Moses, a laryngologist specializing in
the psychology of speech and voice disorders. By correctly analysing the
personality of psychiatric patients based only on hearing phonograph
recordings of their voices, Moses verified that it is possible to detect in the
voice alone underlying emotional or psychological disturbance (Moses
1942).
Moses believed that the instinctive musical activities of crying, cooing
and babbling are extremely pleasurable and releasing but that the acquisition
of speech is, by comparison, a traumatic experience whereby the child is
required to bring his feelings under the jurisdiction of words. According to
Moses, the process of singing offers adults a second chance once again to
give free rein to their feelings and instincts via the spontaneous emission of
inarticulate vocal sounds (Moses 1954).
While those such as Reich, Lowen and Moses worked within the
theoretical paradigm established by Freud, a parallel line of inquiry was
initiated by Jung. For his medical thesis, Jung studied the extraordinary case
of a fifteen and a half year old girl who acted as a medium for the voices of the
dead. Jung attended her regular seances, where he witnessed these dead
people express themselves through the girl’s voice. Each time the girl
expressed a different character, the quality or timbre of her voice would
completely change. On occasions this involved major transformations of
dialect and accent from German to French or Italian. Furthermore, though
the girl displayed only a faint knowledge of High German in her normal life,
in her trance she spoke the language faultlessly. Jung understood that these
characters were different aspects of the girl’s own personality (Jung 1953d).
Later, Jung noticed how those who in his day were diagnosed as
schizophrenics often talked to themselves in voices with very different
qualities; one was aggressive, spiteful and provocative; the other luring, sly
and seductive; another Italian, confident and full of bravado; the other
English, polite and reserved (Jung 1953e).
In the schizophrenia of his day, Jung believed he observed merely an
exaggerated form of a dialogue essential to the health of the psyche. Jung
proposed that each person is composed of many ‘little people’ or
‘sub-personalities’, and he encouraged any process by which a conversation
between the various selves which constitute the self could converse with each
other (Jung 1953a). Jung was therefore keen to observe many processes
which gave outward manifestation to the inner voices, including painting,
poetry, drama, opera and, above all, dreaming.
The first pioneer to focus specifically on using the singing voice as a
medium for the expression of the many selves was the Jewish German, Alfred
Wolfsohn, who was inspired by Jung and whom Moses considered to be the
world expert on the psychology of the human voice. At the outbreak of
World War I, Wolfsohn was called to serve as a medic in the front-line
trenches, during which time he became both horrified and fascinated by the
incredible sounds which the adverse conditions and suffering elicited from
the voices of dying and wounded soldiers. Following the war, he became
plagued by aural hallucinations of the extreme vocal sounds which he had
heard in the trenches and which psychiatric treatment could not cure.
Wolfsohn became convinced that if he could actually sing the sounds that
haunted his mind, he would be able to bring about a cathartic release of the
stored up emotions associated with the voices and by so doing silence them.
As a result of this vocal catharsis, not only did he cure his illness, but he
embarked upon the process of passing on to others the results of his own
investigations by offering singing lessons with a psychotherapeutic
orientation to a variety of students, first in Germany and later in London
(Newham 1992a).
Wolfsohn’s intention was to utilize the potential range of the human voice
as a probe and a mirror, investigating and reflecting the many aspects of the
human psyche. Therefore, those who took lessons with him committed
themselves not only to a thorough psycho-archeology of their self, but to the
process of acquiring the courage and ability to express the many aspects of
themselves through the voice. This meant that the voice had to be permitted
to yell, scream, sob and give voice to the animalistic, primal, preverbal
utterances which are part of the rightful expression of the self, as well as the
sublime and the beautiful. Wolfsohn found that by liberating the voice from
restriction, he could also help his clients to loosen the psychological factors
which inhibited the development of their true self (Newham 1997b).
When Wolfsohn died, the direction of his work was taken over by an actor
called Roy Hart, who had worked with Wolfsohn for over 15 years and who
began to steer the work towards presentations of experimental vocal
performances. In addition to the work of Roy Hart, many other avant-garde
theatre practitioners have contributed to the therapeutic application of
voicework (Martin 1991).
The range of vocal styles used in the theatre groups of the 1960s, which
used sounds rather than words, screams and cries rather than speech, owed
much to the original impetus provided by the French visionary, Antonin
Artaud, who sought to liberate Western theatre from what he described as the
exclusive dictatorship of words. Reacting against the great wave of realistic
plays that had swept Europe, Artaud believed that theatre should approach
those subjects for which speech is inadequate or is unable to express by
utilizing a language based on vocal sounds which would, he believed, return
the minds of audience and actors to the origins of its inner struggles (Artaud
1981).
It was Artaud’s focus on voice that influenced a chain of theatre
practitioners who had studied and admired Artaud, including Peter Brook,
who set up experimental theatre workshops at the Royal Shakespeare
Company in which he required of his actors that they communicate to an
audience without the use of words (Innes 1981). Brook became so intrigued
by these experiments into the nature of vocal sound that he founded the
International Theatre Research Centre in Paris, a company of actors of
different nationalities who sought to discover vocal utterances which could
communicate the power which sits beneath the surface of everyday
discourse, exposing the fabric of the collective unconscious (Brook 1988).
Another theatre director, Jerzy Grotowski, was meanwhile researching a
similar area in Poland, where a group of actors came together to explore the
way in which the images of the collective unconscious could be expressed
through the body and the voice, without recourse to the spoken word.
Grotowski’s group of devout actors became known for their revolutionary
work on vocal expression, and their voices possessed a resonance and power
which many said had not been heard from actors before. The use of
non-verbal voice in these productions was part of Grotowski’s investigation

into the use of the actor’s own psychological material as the substance of
performance, and his work was intricately and overtly bound up with a belief
in the ability of a human being to express aspects of the psyche physically
and vocally, including those aspects which are buried in the collective
unconscious, without using words. But, for Grotowski, there was a series of
inhibitions, resistances and blocks which prevented the transformation of
the psyche’s images into vocal sound, and it was these obstacles that his
system of acting exercises set out to remove (Kumiega 1987).
Neither Wolfsohn, Artaud, Brook or Grotowski were clinically trained or
qualified as therapists, yet their work on the human voice was deeply rooted
in a respect for the intimate connection between vocal sound and psyche.
Their designated field of inquiry was not therapy but theatre; yet their work
reminds us that as much therapeutic inquiry has been conducted in the artist’s
studio as has been pursued in the clinician’s consulting room.
There have been some important contributions to the theory and practice
of voicework by other pioneers who were neither artists nor therapists, but
educators. Among them was F.M. Alexander who, while working as an actor,
found that on many occasions he would begin to lose his voice half way
through a recital. In searching for a cause he erected mirrors in which he
watched himself recite, noticing the physical movements which accomp-
anied the use of his voice, and he observed particularly that he pulled his
head backwards and downwards whenever he came to speak. Eventually,
Alexander realized that these movements had a direct influence and effect on
all the other muscles of his body; he developed a technique for resisting these
and other negative habitual movements, which resulted in a liberation of the
voice (Alexander 1987).
Another significant pioneer who has contributed important insights to
the relationship between movement and vocalization is the Swiss educator,
Emile Dalcroze, for whom vocal music is rooted in the rhythm of bodily
movement and whose aim was to transform the whole organism into what he
called an ‘inner ear’ which would enable people to feel the emotions
provoked by music throughout the entire musculature (Dalcroze 1965).
Comparable to the work of Dalcroze is that of Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian
visionary mystic who developed a field of investigation known as
‘Eurythmy’ which is speech made visible through movement. Eurythmy
consists of a network of exercises which can allegedly help with a variety of
dysfunctions, diseases and disorders (Steiner 1983).
This review of the aforementioned practitioners provides just a small

sample of the rich investigations into the healing potential of the human
voice and serves to establish the fact that there is a great resource of diverse
theory and technique from which to draw when seeking to utilize voicework
as a therapy.
Art and science in voicework

Like the other expressive arts therapies then, a modality which we may name
‘therapeutic voicework’ can draw upon a rich history of artistic and
therapeutic practice. However, therapeutic use of the voice necessarily differs
in some ways from its therapeutic use in some of the other expressive arts.
The human voice is as equally affected by the state of the body as it is by
the state of the mind. Physical illness or debilitation, negative postural habits,
or movement patterns and muscular tension all restrain the voice. The voice
box, or larynx, is suspended like a trapeze, held up by the tensile filaments of
muscles which form a labyrinth, a terrain stretching across and throughout
the entire body. Because psychological states influence neuromuscular
activity, the muscles which operate the voice are predisposed to tension,
fatigue, rigidity and constriction. Enabling the voice to reconnect with the
self in order that the full range of the psyche’s images may be expressed
therefore involves releasing the vocal muscles and the entire bodily
musculature to which they connect from the conditioning which they have
received.
An expressive arts therapy with voice as its primary focus therefore, by
necessity, must incorporate physical intervention. This can be achieved
through a combination of creative movement, massage and manipulation.
However, often the transformation of muscular patterns provokes the release
of heightened emotions, expressed through intense sounds. On most
occasions, this is not simply because a part of the body is physically tender or
injured, but because in some way a particular emotional experience has been
stored or localized there. The practitioner utilizing vocal expression as a
therapy is therefore also required to deal proficiently, accurately and
compassionately with the often highly charged emotional vocalizations
which can occur during a process of therapeutic voicework.
In addition to the predominance of muscle tissue throughout the voice
apparatus, the larynx connects to the thyroid cartilage, a dominant station on
the endocrine circuit which distributes hormones throughout the body.
Because hormonal release is such an integral component to emotional
experience, the voice is again highly susceptible to both psychological and

physical influences. The healthy development of a boy’s larynx at puberty is
dependent on the release of these hormones by the endocrine glands, which
cause physical changes to the voice box, resulting in the deepening of the
pitch. The hormonal secretions of the thyroid also affect a woman’s voice,
not specifically at puberty but throughout life, particularly during
menstruation, pregnancy and menopause, all of which can be accompanied
by changes in the sound of the voice. Because the quality of the voice
depends in part upon the chemical processes of the endocrine system, any
hormonal change can potentially cause a change in the sound of the voice
and therefore the sense of self. Also, because hormonal changes can occur as
a result of emotional reactions to events and circumstances, anything which
affects the psyche can influence hormonal release which in turn will affect
the voice. A practitioner of any kind of therapeutic voicework must therefore
be familiar with the way that the voice is influenced by hormonal and
neurochemical activity.
Because therapeutic voicework involves expression through a broad
range of sounds, many of which are unfamiliar to most people in their
everyday discourse, the vocal instrument must be protected from misuse.
Unlike the client of an art therapist, for example, whose instrument is the
canvas or paper and brush or pen, the client of therapeutic voicework is using
a very delicate part of the body to express an extremity of images. Indeed,
very often a client of any kind of deep therapeutic voicework will give vocal
form to the shadow, the darkest and most primitive aspects of the self
(Newham 1990); and this delicate part of the body, which is capable of
expressing the shadow in sound is also highly susceptible to damage.
Damaged voices fall into two categories: organic and functional. Organic
voice disorders are those where the actual tissue and flesh of the vocal
apparatus become deformed or diseased. Organic disorders include
laryngitis, scars or growths on the vocal cords, and benign or malignant
tumours in the larynx. Functional voice disorders are conditions which
inhibit and restrict the healthy and optimal use of the voice without actually
causing any physical damage. Functional problems usually occur as a result of
misuse of the voice and are extremely common. Because these functional
problems do not show up on a medical examination, people with a functional
problem often live feeling dissatisfied with their voice. In fact, two of North
America’s leading speech and language therapists estimate that 25 per cent of
the North American population experience difficulties with their voice

which affect their psychological well-being (Boone and McFarlane 1988).
Statistics show that an enormous proportion of voice problems, organic
and functional, originate in an emotional or psychological issue (Butcher,
Elias and Raven 1993). Yet alleviating such difficulties demands that a
practitioner call upon the science of voice production as much as the art of
artistic expression through sound. In addition, because psychological factors
influence the functioning of the voice, many clients may present to the
therapeutic voicework practitioner an issue which has been translated into a
somatic difficulty which therefore requires a ‘physiotherapy’ as much as a
‘psychotherapy’. In implementing the discipline known as ‘voice movement
therapy’ and in designing a qualifying training for practitioners of
therapeutic voicework, it has therefore been necessary to integrate the results
of research in the expressive arts, the psychotherapies and the physical
science of voice (Newham 1992b).
Voice movement therapy in practice

Voice movement therapy takes the form of a singing lesson where clients
begin by making their most effortless natural sound, while the practitioner
provides coaching, suggests images, choreographs movements, provides
massage and physical manipulation, and helps to interpret the psychological
experiences which arise as a result of this process.
This therapeutic vocal work can be beneficial for many different kinds of
client. First, there are those who feel that their voice is confined to a particular
quality which does not reflect their true self. Some people feel their voice is
too childish, too frail, too domineering or too hard. Therapeutic voicework
can help such people to find an elasticity to their voice, so that it can move
through different sonorities, expressing a broader range of their personality.
For example, I worked with one client who had been extremely cushioned by
a mother who treated her like a child even in her adult years. Whenever this
client attempted to assume her adult self, she would lose the mother’s
affection and so had maintained a child-like identity in order to sustain a
positive relationship with the mother. This was manifested in a voice which
was very high in pitch with a very breathy quality that prevented her from
asserting an adult authority. Through the therapeutic voicework, it was
possible to enable the client to lower the pitch and decrease the breathiness,
providing access to a deeper, fuller voice. However, this new voice brought
feelings of rage and anger to the surface, many of them directed against the
mother. Further therapeutic voicework therefore consisted of giving form to

these feelings through a variety of sounds, providing a release and
expression of hitherto dormant and unconscious feelings.
Other clients are more troubled by physical restrictions which negatively
influence the voice. For example, I worked with one client who was severely
disabled and confined to a wheelchair. The demands of continually turning
the wheels of the chair had led to a concave implosion of the torso, which in
turn was compressing his larynx and restricting the expansion of the lungs.
Consequently, his voice was very weak and soft and he could only vocalize
short phrases of speech. By physically massaging his neck and torso while
retraining him to operate the wheelchair, he was able to strengthen his voice,
which became loud and clear as his breathing capacity increased, enabling
him to speak for longer without getting out of breath. However, with the
new respiratory capacity and vocal malleability came a flood of emotion in
the form of tears and sobs. The further work therefore consisted of giving
vocal shape to these emotions through sounds and songs which expressed
deep loss and longing.
One of the aspects of voice movement therapy which align it with the
precepts of other expressive arts therapies is the use of a creative presentation
– in this case songs – to give artistic form to a personal trauma. For example, I
once worked with a man who was one of the few survivors of an aeroplane
crash and whose voice had subsequently been reduced to a faint, weak tone.
Though he had few optical memories of the traumatic event, he did recall
many acoustic impressions. From his description of the accident he created a
set of lyrics, each line beginning with the words ‘I heard’: I heard the engines
rumble; I heard the women behind me praying; I heard the pilot speaking; I
heard the sirens whistling. Using the voices of each member of the
therapeutic group, the client’s lyrics were musicalized, allowing an
opportunity to step away from a verbal analysis of the trauma into a creative
expression through song which combined catharsis with creativity (Newham
1997a).
This client, like many of those attracted to the expressive arts therapies,
experienced disappointment in the ability of verbal therapy to offer a
genuine transformation of a trauma. In my experience of therapeutic
voicework, one particular area where clients seek a creative expression of
their experience rather than a verbal analysis is in the field of sexual abuse.
For example, I worked with a client who suffered pain and discomfort
around her jaw and felt a ‘sticky’ sensation in her throat which made her
voice feel ‘stuck’ whenever she came to sing or express herself through
prolonged vocalization such as shouting. This client had been orally
sexually abused as a child and had pursued a considerable amount of verbal
counselling and psychotherapy. During the first stage of our work, we
combined movement exercises with physical manipulation and massage of
her physiognomical musculature to stimulate sensations of fluidity. The
client then explored making sounds which expressed an expulsion of the
sticky sensation in the throat, ranging from long, gentle ‘melting’ and
‘trickling’ sounds to rhythmic ‘spitting’ sounds. During the work, the client’s
hands opened and closed making fists and her torso went into spasm. It was
as though her body was remembering the experience of being held down or
confined, unable to find the strength to fight off an overbearing oppressor.
During our work, we turned these movements into a dance and evolved the
sounds into a protest song. The singing of the song and the dancing of the
movements was healing both somatically and psychologically, as it gave
direct expression to a trauma rather than a translated description of it
(Newham 1997a).
The use of voice movement therapy to contribute healing to physical as
well as psychological problems has been researched with specific focus on
women with eating disorders by Kessler (Kessler 1997). Using vocal sound
to ritualize primal activities such as eating again removes the condition from
the realm of pathology and re-places it in the arena of art, offering a fresh
artistic perspective on a hitherto clinical dysfunction.
Conclusion: the future of therapeutic voicework

At the time of writing, therapeutic voicework is an absent, rare or minor
component in the training of expressive arts therapists. Despite this, there are
some individual practitioners utilizing vocal expression as part of their
modality, drawing inspiration from some key figures in the history of this
field. Arthur Robbins used singing as a means to psychotherapeutic
exploration with adult clients (Robbins 1986). Nordoff and Robbins,
meanwhile, used what they termed ‘therapeutically instigated singing’ with
young developmentally delayed children. Through their use of music,
Nordoff and Robbins actually highlighted cases of misdiagnosis and
consequently provided for a more positive prognosis. For example, children
labelled as autistic were subsequently revealed to be aphasic due to brain
injury with additional emotional disturbance. Because music and
sound-making provided an alternative to speech, by which the client could
express previously dammed-up thoughts and feelings, the emotional

disturbance often lessened and the symptoms which had attracted the
diagnosis of autism receded (Nordoff and Robbins 1992).
Music therapist Julie Sutton used non-verbal singing with a young boy
with Lexical Syntactic Deficit Syndrome – which causes a patient to
experience problems with the rules governing sentence-building and
retention of vocabulary – and found that this resulted in increased
confidence to communicate through words (Sutton 1993). Yet therapeutic
voicework is rare within music therapy. Gianluigi di Franco, a representative
of the European Music Therapy Committee, points out that there are many
music therapists who have a great fluency when communicating through the
playing of instruments but who have a great difficulty in expressing
themselves through the use of their voices (di Franco 1993).
A number of dance movement therapists have accommodated the
intrinsic relationship between dance and song by nurturing collective
singing (Meekums 1992; Steiner 1992). Others, meanwhile, have sought to
find a coherent model for analysing the sound and movement patterns made
by clients of the expressive arts therapy process (Brownell and Lewis 1990;
Canner 1972). However, the use of the voice has remained peripheral to the
therapeutic procedures employed by most practitioners.
Within the field of drama therapy, again, only a small number of drama
therapists have facilitated extended use of the voice as part of their approach
(Mitchell 1992). In fact, the British Association of Drama Therapists has
acknowledged the lack of a serious coherent model of voicework within its
field (Passalacqua 1995/96).
One of the most proliferate advocates for an integrated expressive arts
therapy is Shaun McNiff, who, in his early work, used what he called ‘sound
enactments and therapeutic opera’ with infant clients, acknowledging that
the use of voice ‘allows for a primal and very direct expression of the
emotions’ (McNiff 1981). McNiff continues to assert the essential role which
therapeutic voicework has to play in the expressive arts therapy process,
while simultaneously acknowledging the sparsity of activity in this field
when compared with the other artistic mediums of expression (McNiff
1997).
However, as more practitioners become interested in the voice as a
distinct channel of human expression, and as more clients verify the benefit
of using singing and vocal sound to heal, it is likely that various approaches
to therapeutic voicework will be appropriated by professional expressive

arts therapists and by training programmes in the expressive arts therapies.
References
Alexander, F.M. (1987) The Use of the Self. London: Victor Gollancz.
Anzieu, D. (1976)’ L’enveloppe sonore du soi.’ Nouvelle Revue de Psychanalyse 13,
170–173.
Anzieu, D. (1979) ‘The sound image of the self.’ International Review of Psychoanalysis 6,
23–36.
Artaud, A. (1981) The Theatre and Its Double. London: John Calder.
Ayre, L. (1988) ‘Music the messenger.’ Unpublished master’s thesis for Antioch
University, Zurich, Switzerland.
Bion, W. (1962) ‘A theory of thinking.’ International Journal of Psychoanalysis 43, 306–310.
Boone, D. and McFarlane, S. (1988) The Voice and Voice Therapy. New York: Simon &
Schuster.
Brook, P. (1988) The Shifting Point: Forty Years of Theatrical Exploration. London: Methuen.
Brownell, A. and Lewis, P. (1990) ‘The Kestenberg Movement Profile in assessment of
vocalization.’ In P. Lewis and S. Loman (eds) The Kestenberg Movement Profile: Its Past,
Present Applications and Future Directions. Keene: Antioch New England Graduate
School.
Butcher, P., Elias, A. and Raven, R. (1993) Psychogenic Voice Disorders and
Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy. London: Whurr.
Canner, N. (1972) ‘Stimulating sounds and vocalization through body movement and
rhythm with hospitalized children.’ In Writings on Body Movement and Communication.
Columbia, MD: American Dance Therapy Association.
Dalcroze, E.J. (1965) Le Rythme, la Musique et l’Education. Lausanne: Foetische.
Densmore, F. (1948) ‘The use of music in the treatment of the sick by American Indians.’
In D. Schullian and M. Schoen (eds) Music and Medicine. New York: Henry Schuman.
Doane, J. and Hodges, D. (1992) From Klein to Kristeva: Psychoanalytic Feminism and the
Search for the ‘Good Enough’ Mother. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Eliade, M. (1989) Shamanism: Archaic Technique of Ecstasy. London: Penguin.
Forrester, J. (1980) Language and the Origins of Psychoanalysis. London: Macmillan.
di Franco, G. (1993) ‘Music therapy: a methodological approach in the mental health
field.’ In M. Heal and T. Wigram (eds) Music Therapy in Health and Education. London:
Frank, J. (1961) Persuasion and Healing. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Freud, S. (1953–74) Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud.
Vol. 2. Edited by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud, assisted by Alix
Strachey and Alan Tyson. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Frey-Rohn, L. (1990) From Freud to Jung: A Comparative Psychology of the Unconscious.
Boston: Shambhala.
Gardner, H. (1982) Art, Mind and Brain: A Cognitive Approach to Creativity. New York: Basic
Books.
Gilligan, C. (1993) In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Greene, M. and Conway, J. (1963) Learning to Talk: A Study in Sound of Infant Speech
Development. New York: Folkways Records, FX 6271.
Greene, M. and Mathieson, L. (1989) The Voice and its Disorders. London: Whurr.
Halifax, J. (1991) Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives. London: Penguin.
Hargreaves, D. (1992) The Developmental Psychology of Music. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Harris, J. (1990) Early Language Development: Implications for Clinical and Educational Practice.
London: Routledge.
Hymes, D. (1971) ‘Competence and performance in linguistic theory.’ In R. Huxley and
E. Ingram (eds) Language Acquisition: Models and Methods. London: Academic Press.
Innes, C. (1981) Holy Theatre: Ritual and the Avant Garde. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1953a) The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 8. Bollingen Series XX, edited by
H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler and W. McGuire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press and London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Jung, C.G. (1953b) The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 11. Bollingen Series XX, edited
by H. Read, M.Fordham, G. Adler and W. McGuire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press and London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Jung, C. G. (1953c) The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 6. Bollingen Series XX, edited by
by H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler and W. McGuire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press and London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Jung, C.G. (1953d) The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 1. Bollingen Series XX, edited by
Jung, C.G. (1953e) The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 3. Bollingen Series XX, editd by
Kessler, I. (1997) ‘Sounding our way to wholeness: linking the metaphorical and physical
voice in a pilot study with women using breath, voice and movement.’ Unpublished
doctoral thesis, Union College of Graduate Studies, Florida.
Killingmo, B. (1990) ‘Beyoantics: a clinical study of isolation.’ International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, 113–126.
Kristeva, J. (1980) Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Kumiega, J. (1987) The Theatre of Grotowski. London: Methuen.
Langer, S. (1953) Feeling and Form. London: Routledge.
Lewis, M. (1936) Early Response to Speech and Babbling in Infant Speech. London: Kegan Paul.
Lowen, A. (1976) Bioenergetics. London: Penguin.
Martin, J. (1991) Voice in Modern Theatre. London: Routledge.
McNiff, S. (1981) The Arts in Psychotherapy. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.

McNiff, S. (1997) Interview with P. Newham. Cited in P. Newham Therapeutic Voicework.
London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Meekums, B. (1992) ‘Dance movement therapy in a family service unit.’ In H. Payne (ed)
Dance Movement Therapy: Theory and Practice. London: Tavistock/Routledge.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1970), cited in P. Lewis ‘Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenology of
Language’. In J. Ehrmann (ed) Structuralism. New York: Anchor Books.
Mitchell, S. (1992) ‘Therapeutic theatre: a para-theatrical model of dramatherapy.’ In S.
Jennings (ed) Dramatherapy: Theory and Practice 2. London: Routledge.
Moses, P. (1942) ‘The study of voice records.’ Journal of Consulting Psychology 6, 257–261.
Moses, P. (1954) The Voice of Neurosis. New York: Grune & Stratton.
Naumberg, M. (1958) ‘Art therapy: its scope and function.’ In E.F. Hammer (ed) Clinical
Applications of Projective Drawings. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Newham, P. (1990) ‘The voice and the shadow.’ Performance 60, 37–47.
Newham, P. (1992a) ‘Jung and Alfred Wolfsohn: analytical psychology and the singing
voice.’ Journal of Analytical Psychology 37, 323–336.
Newham, P. (1992b) ‘Singing and psyche: towards voice movement therapy.’ Voice: The
Journal of the British Voice Association 1, 75–102.
Newham, P. (1993a) The Singing Cure: An Introduction to Voice Movement Therapy. Boston:
Shambhala.
Newham, P. (1993b) ‘The singing cure: how voice movement therapy has evolved.’
Human Communication 2, 2, 6–8.
Newham, P. (1994) ‘Voice movement therapy: towards an arts therapy for voice.’
Dramatherapy 16, 23, 28–33.
Newham, P. (1995/96) ‘Making a song and dance: the musical voice of language.’
Journal of the Imagination in Learning III, 66–74.
Newham, P. (1997a) Therapeutic Voicework: Principles and Practice for the use of Singing as a
Therapy. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Newham, P. (1997b) The Prophet of Song: The Life and Work of Alfred Wolfsohn. London:
Tigers Eye.
Nordoff, P. and Robbins, C. (1992) Therapy in Music for Handicapped Children. London:
Victor Gollancz.
Ostwald, P. (1973) ‘Musical behaviour in early childhood.’ Developmental Medicine and
Child Neurology 15, 367–375.
Passalacqua, L. (1995/96) ‘Voice work in dramatherapy.’ Dramatherapy 17, 3, 17–24.
Pinker, S. (1994) The Language Instinct. London: Penguin.
Rasmussen, K . (1958) ‘An Eskimo shaman purifies a sick person.’ In Lessa and Vogt (eds)
Reader in Comparative Religion.Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.
Redfearn, J. (1985) ‘My self, my many selves.’ In Library of Analytical Psychology, Vol. 6.
London: Academic Press.
Reich, W. (1948) Character Analysis. London: Vision Press.
Robbins, A. (1986) Expressive Therapy: A Creative Arts Approach to Depth-Oriented Treatment.
New York: Human Sciences Press.
Rosolato, G. (1974) ‘La voix: entre corps et langage.’ Revue Francaise de Psychanalyse 37, 1,
80–81.
Samuels, A. (1985) Jung and the Post-Jungians. London: Routledge.
Silverman, K. (1988) The Acoustic Mirror: The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema.
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Skinner, B. (1957) Verbal Behaviour. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Smith, W. (1996) ‘Voice, psychotherapy and feminism.’ Paper presented to the
International Association for Voice Movement Therapy, London.
Steiner, M. (1992) ‘Alternatives in psychiatry: dance movement therapy in the
community.’ In H. Payne (ed) Dance Movement Therapy: Theory and Practice. London:
Tavistock/Routledge.
Steiner, R. (1983) Curative Eurythmy. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.
Sutton, J. (1993) ‘The guitar doesn’t know this song: an investigation into parallel
development in speech/language and music therapy.’ In M. Heal and T. Wigram (eds)
Music Therapy in Health and Education. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Tomatis, A. (1991) The Conscious Ear: My Life of Transformation Through Listening. New
York: Station Hill Press.
Tong, R. (1989) Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction. London: Routledge.
Winnicott, D.W. (1991) Playing and Reality. London: Routledge.
Further reading
American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) (1972) Writings on Body Movement and
Communication. Columbia, MD: ADTA.
Ehrmann, J. (ed) (1970) Structuralism. New York: Anchor Books.
Heal, M. and Wigram, T. (eds) (1993) Music Therapy in Health and Education. London:
Huxley, R. and Ingram, E. (eds) (1971) Language Acquisition: Models and Methods. London:
Academic Press.
Lessa and Vogt (eds) (1958) Reader in Comparative Religion. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.
Lewis, P. (1970) ‘Merleau-Ponty and the phenomenology of language.’ In J. Ehrmann
(ed) Structuralism. New York: Anchor Books.
Lewis, P. & Loman, S. (eds) (1990) The Kestenberg Movement Profile: Its Past, Present
Applications and Future Directions. Keene: Antioch New England Graduate School.
Payne, H. (ed) (1992) Dance Movement Therapy: Theory and Practice. London: Tavistock/
Routledge.
Schullian, D. and Schoen, N. (1948) Music and Medicine. New York: Henry Schuman.
CHAPTER 6
The Creative Connection

A Holistic Expressive Arts Process
Natalie Rogers
Introduction
It is one of those astonishingly bright California days. In the large studio
room, 30 group members are engaged in highly focused movement and art,
reaching into their emotional histories through creative activities. A
gray-haired, barefoot woman steps into a shallow pan of red paint then
carefully places each foot on the image she has just drawn. She smiles. A
young man sits reflecting on the large clay figure, a panther-like animal, he
has just created. He picks up his writing journal, takes out his pen and writes
furiously for ten minutes without stopping. A woman is huddled in a corner
surrounding herself with huge pillows. She sobs for a while, then picks up
some pastel chalk and swoops broad strokes of color across the art paper. Her
face relaxes.
These people are in their third day of intensive expressive art training at
the Person-Centered Expressive Therapy Institute (PCETI). Tanya, from
Estonia, has made her first trip outside of the then Soviet Union to join us as a
participant. At lunch time she pulls me aside and asks, ‘Please tell me, do all
Americans have so much tears and pain in their lives? I don’t understand.’
Tanya’s question strikes me, almost as a blow. Not because I am offended,
but because I have taken for granted the notion that we, the group members,
all come from the same understanding of humanistic psychological theory.
So I take time to think more carefully about her background and her
question.
Here is a woman who has suffered under a totalitarian regime. She comes
from a country where creativity and personal self-expression through art,
movement, writing and drama have been outlawed or relegated to use for
political purposes only. The suffering that is familiar to her is the fear that
113
there will not be enough food to last through the winter for her children, or
feeling the heavy-handed dominance of the then Russian occupation. As a
psychologist she has been more concerned with helping people to cope with
their emotional response to stern oppression than helping people become
self-empowered and actualized.
After my initial startled reaction to her question, I spend time with her,
and eventually others, explaining the concepts of personal growth through
person-centered expressive arts therapy. As we talk, it is evident that her
question has many layers. Indeed, she is puzzled that so many professional
people in America, where the supermarket has miles of food choices and
where 43 television channels spew out every possible lifestyle, have so much
emotional pain, grief and anger. Also, she does not understand why people
would reveal so much of their private inner world in a group setting. ‘What is
the purpose?’ she asks.
As I discussed these questions with Tanya and the other group members,
who had come from Japan, Canada, Germany, Argentina and Mexico as well
as the United States, we listened to our differing opinions and experiences. It
became clear that not all participants (psychotherapists as well as others)
understood or necessarily believed in what I and other humanistic
psychologists have found to be a healing, growthful process. In the following
pages, the concepts and principles of this process will be brought forth
through examples and summarized.
Most of the participants could agree that one must know oneself
profoundly in order to move beyond the ordinary sense of self into a higher
state of awareness. Further dialogue made it evident that enlightenment,
however each culture defines it, comes about not through denial of self, but
through deep self-knowledge and self-acceptance.
Much discussion revolved around whether it is necessary to peel away
one’s defenses and to experience one’s grief or anger in order to release and
transform it. In answer to these questions, some people shared their
experiences of personal growth and transformation by having delved into
these emotional depths through the creative arts process. They told how they
had discovered a vitality, a sense of meaning in life and an inner strength to
face the future.
While there were questions about the necessity of delving into one’s
feelings, we all agreed that a truly safe, accepting, non-judgmental
environment is necessary to go on that inner journey. Letting down our
THE CREATIVE CONNECTION 115
defenses in an atmosphere of blame, shame and judgment can be damaging

rather than healing.
In the pages that follow I shall discuss the questions that have been raised
above and expand on the theories and principles of my work. Of particular
importance is the holistic approach of the creative connection process and
the person-centered, humanistic philosophy and practice developed by my
father, Dr Carl Rogers, upon which my expressive arts therapy work is based.
I shall be addressing the question: How, as psychotherapists and mental
health workers, do we create the safe environment and the expressive arts
methods for individuals to delve into the dark corners and the elusive bright
light of their psyches to become integrated, whole people?
The creative connection ®

Expressive arts therapy uses various arts – movement, drawing, painting,
sculpting, music, writing, sound and improvisation – in a supportive setting
to experience and express feelings. Any art form that comes from an
emotional depth provides a process of self-discovery. We express inner
feelings by creating outer forms.
In my perspective, when we use the arts for self-healing or therapeutic
purposes, it is most beneficial if we are not concerned about the beauty of the
visual art, the grammar and style of the writing, or the harmonic flow of the
song. We use the arts to let go, to express and to release. Also, we can gain
insight by studying the symbolic and metaphoric messages. Our art speaks
back to us if we take the time to listen to those messages. Verbalizing or
sharing these feelings furthers the process of self-insight and self-analysis.
I have coined the words ‘creative connection’ to describe a process in
which one art form stimulates and fosters creativity in another art form and
links all of the arts to our essential nature. I discovered this for myself at age
45, when I enrolled in a dance/movement training program. At lunch time I
used my art journal to create quick mood pictures or to write in a free-form,
non-censored style. When I reviewed this journal at the end of the year, I
noticed that the colors, shapes and forms held an unusual intensity and that
the free-form writing was often poetic. In previous years my art had been
controlled and my writing very stiff. Now my art and writing had qualities of
spontaneity, passion, freedom and strength. I realized that my art and writing
had changed in style and depth in ways that spoke to me. I could see that all
of this was connected to my own inner experience; and I was surprised to
discover that one modality, such as movement, enhanced another modality. I
realized that through the interweaving of the arts in this way, a person can
reclaim vital parts of herself and experience insight, personal strength and
power. I experienced it as a ‘creative connection’ to my soul. Having
experienced such a rich reawakening of my creativity, I first pondered the
process and then practised and taught what I had learned. As I explored
further, I found books and other expressive arts programs to support my
theories and practice.
To involve people deeply in this creative connection process, we
designed a program where participants spend many hours each day in a
sequence of art experiences that lead them into their inner realms. Each step
of the way, the feelings are given artistic expression. We might start with
some authentic movement, moving with eyes closed and letting the body
speak: ‘this is what I am feeling at the moment’. We invite participants to put
sound to those movements.
After 20 minutes of turning inward yet expressing outwardly through
movement, people silently express themselves in paint, pastels, clay or
collage. By now the sacred space for creativity has been created through the
collective, side-by-side inner experiencing. The visual art comes out of a felt,
body experience. It might be abstract colors splashed on the page with
abandon or carefully constructed collages; it doesn’t matter. Each person
feels safe to be free in his/her style and expression.
Next, participants write for ten minutes without stopping, censoring or
being concerned about the logic of what emerges. The idea is to let anything
come; free associations, stories, descriptions or just nonsense. The writing
does not have to pertain specifically to the movement or visual art. This is a
time to use a free-floating form of writing to let the subconscious emerge.
Following this sequence, there is time to share verbally. Talking about the
process helps one understand the experience. Having an empathic witness to
one’s personal explorations is stimulating and supportive. This can be a time
to explore the meaning of the image by giving it a voice, or to experience the
colors or the flow of the lines by letting them suggest movement and sound.
Perhaps the writing suggests a dramatization. The spiral of activities
continually peels off the layers of inhibition, dropping us into the core of our
being. Finding one’s center makes it possible to be open to the universal
energy source, bringing vitality and a sense of oneness.
Let us look at an example of the two major healing elements of the
expressive arts process: first, the changes that happen in the creative act itself;
and second, the growth and insight that occurs when we study the image or
the process for its meaning. Here I present the written words of someone
who has participated in the healing process directly. Marcia is a woman in
mid-life, a professional person who left the corporate world to become a
counselor and consultant. She reports part of her journey:1
I was in no way prepared for the transforming power of art. I am not
‘fluent’ in art. I can barely speak the language and yet I was able to
express myself most satisfactorily. The act of non-verbal expression
created a dynamic shift in my perceptions. It moved me into my body.
And that was the shift which started the healing process. It took five years
of wearing my resistance down, but I finally listened. I finally heard the
voice of my own body …
There was so much damage to overcome, so many scars that needed to
fade. The safe environment created the space, the encouragement, the
permission and above all, the safety to venture forth into the depth of my
own experiences. It simply took time to experience each creative
connection and then more time to assimilate it … I really don’t think that
this healing would have occurred spontaneously. I believe that the
conscious prodding of the unconscious was essential for me in this
process.
After experiencing guided imagery… something wonderful started
happening with my art … As I held the clay with both hands and worked
it, I experienced the figures emerging without plan or thought. First the
man was revealed, holding the woman in an embrace with his larger
body and long arms protectively wrapped around her. He looks at her
with both passion and love … You see how he desires her as a woman.
After the embrace was completed and the female was warmly and safely
held, I discovered that she could look forward and down to where she
too had opened her arms and heart. It was then the milk of human
kindness could pour from her … Compassion flows, an endless river,
from them both.
I saw a little piece of my soul. It told me, ‘That’s what it looks like to hold
love and be held by it’. What I understand from my art is that I need love
and support and that receiving it makes it possible for me to give it … I
had been missing an awareness that forms part of my foundation. No
1 The following material is presented with the permission of Marcia Martin.

wonder I was so easily shaken and rattled. Now that I know what’s been
missing, I have opened myself to loving and being loved again.
It is evident that for Marcia being aware of the messages of her body and
letting her fingers find form for that inner feeling was healing in and of itself.
The statement, ‘I experienced the figures emerging without plan or thought’
is typical of the expressive arts experience. People make such comments as, ‘I
started to paint a tree, but somehow it became an angel.’ Or, ‘I was looking
for some specific images in the magazine for a collage, but somehow these
other pictures jumped out at me and asked to be used.’ These spontaneous
events can also happen kinesthetically. One rather conservative businessman
said, ‘I didn’t dance, it danced me!’
Guided imagery, movement and art led Marcia into her unconscious and
gave her the ability to express previously unknown aspects of herself, thus
bringing her some new information and insights. Her description also
highlights that all people are able to be creative. People are often surprised at
their capacity to paint, draw, dance or write when they are in a
non-judgmental environment. Creating the environment which allows
creativity to flourish will be discussed in more detail later. Here it is important
to note that with a minimal amount of structure as a stimulus, a few minutes
of guided imagery and a truly non-judgmental environment, the creative
juices were flowing.
In Marcia’s further writing we find an answer to the question posed by
Tanya: ‘Is it necessary to delve into our feelings of loneliness, or anger, or
grief, to become whole?’
I had an image of myself that was not consistent with reality … I still
wore the mask that I had worn in the corporate world, and really had no
intention of letting anyone behind it. It took more time and trust than I
would ever have imagined to ‘get behind the mask’. This program creates
the opportunity for ‘the experience of feelings’. Just remembering the
power of the experience gives me pause. The healing came when I was
able to experience the depth of feelings and associate them with my
current relatively adult state. Over and over, creative connections
provided the link between feelings, body, and mind, and sometimes even
spirit. The journey is one of recovering lost parts and connecting them
again to make a whole new being … I am beginning to feel fully alive
again.
For Marcia and many others, finding the self and one’s aliveness and spirit
comes about by taking the plunge into the pool of hidden feelings. She also
alludes to the fact that it took a long time and a great deal of trust to take that
plunge. It is important that each person be allowed to drop his/her mask
only when ready. The person-centered expressive arts experience helps us
take the plunge as well as giving us methods for swimming, floating and
diving in again.
Marcia’s use of the words ‘alive’ and ‘spirit’ are also typical of comments
often made by those who have ventured into the dark night of the soul
through the expressive arts. In recovering our creative juices we come to life
again. Our spirit, our soul, is nourished.
Figure 6.1
‘Holding Love’ by Marcia Martin
The person-centered expressive arts philosophy

How do we create the safe environment for individual or group
psychotherapeutic work and a sense of freedom to explore the inner terrain?
The person-centered approach, as developed by Carl Rogers, is both a
philosophy and methodology for such safety. One basic principle is that the
human being, if given the proper environment, has potential for positive
growth. Carl Rogers put it this way: ‘A person-centered approach is based on
the premise that the human being is basically a trustworthy organism,
capable of evaluating the outer and inner situation, understanding herself in
its context, making constructive choices as to the next steps in life, and acting
on those choices’ (Rogers 1977, pp.14–15).
My experience as a therapist corroborates this premise. Many clients or
group participants have told me, ‘You seem to have more faith in me than I
have in myself !’ It is that faith, my belief in each client’s or group member’s
inherent capacity for self-direction, which affords them the opportunity to
empower themselves. In creating the climate for self-direction, I may offer
educational information that might aid individuals in making decisions, but
that merely prepares the ground for their self-empowerment. Sometimes it is
difficult to let go of the notion that we, as therapists, must fix things for the
client or give advice that solves their problems. But if those individuals are to
have lasting behavior changes, those changes must come from an inner
conviction, not an outer authority.
In a world where old political forms are crumbling, those of us who
believe in democratic principles now face the challenge of continuing to
develop and maintain a therapeutic process based on those principles. In Carl
Rogers On Personal Power, it is stated this way:
The politics of the client-centered approach is a conscious renunciation
and avoidance by the therapist of all control over, or decision-making for,
the client. It is the facilitation of self-ownership by the client and the
strategies by which this can be achieved; placing of the locus of
decision-making and the responsibility for the effects of these decisions
on the client. (Rogers 1977, pp.14–15)
The facilitative relationship

The basic conditions for a therapeutic relationship were tested and
researched by Carl Rogers and colleagues for more than 30 years. Three
conditions, when present, create the safety and space for the individual or
group member to drop the facade or mask and go on an inward search. These
are congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathy. These concepts

are often misunderstood or oversimplified in the literature. In my teaching, I
have found that people need to experience unconditional positive regard,
congruence and empathy before truly understanding them. After an
experiential understanding of the person-centered approach, its theory and
concepts are more readily learned through books, discussion and lectures.
The goal of the therapist/facilitator is to be a companion on the path of
the client’s journey inward. To do that, we need to be able to view the world
as she views it, without taking on her problems, her suffering or struggle. We
can show her that we understand her confusion, pain and anger through
empathic verbal response, through our companionship in her expressive
movement, or by being a witness to her art. This sensitive understanding is a
crucial part of the healing process. As companions helping to light the way,
we may suggest dancing down the path; we may use guided imagery to move
us along, or use visual art or sound. Whatever the method, we are on her path
and she can use or refuse any of the modes we offer.
CONGRUENCE
Being congruent in a relationship is being genuine, or real. The more the
facilitator is him- or herself, dropping any mask or facade, the greater the
likelihood that the client or group member will change and grow in a
constructive manner. In this case, it is necessary for the facilitator/therapist to
be aware of his/her feelings and thoughts of the moment and share any
themes that are persistent.
I may notice, for example, that I feel sleepy each time the client begins to
talk about her brother. If this feeling persists, I need to share it with her to see
what light it sheds on the situation. I need to know enough about my own
internal life to recognize whether this has to do with my relationship to my
own brother or whether it is pertinent to the client. In any case, I need to be
willing to explore which issues are mine and which are the client’s.
As a facilitator, being congruent about a person’s art, movement or
writing has value but must be shared with discretion. Looking at another
person’s art affects us. What we see is our view of that person’s inner world. It
is not necessarily, and usually is not, her view. The important questions for the
facilitator are: ‘How does this person experience her art, her life? How can I
be fully present for this individual while she examines her inner world?’ In
viewing art, movement or writing, the goal is to understand better the world of
that individual. I am not trying to ‘figure out’, analyze or diagnose the person.
I am trying to get into her frame of reference to see what that art looks and
feels like to her.
Traditionally, psychotherapy is a verbal form of therapy, and the verbal
process will always be important. However, color, form and symbols are
languages that speak from the unconscious and have particular meanings for
each individual. As I listen to a client’s explanation of her imagery, I
poignantly see the world as she views it. As I witness her movement, I can
understand her world by empathizing kinesthetically.
When people create art, whether it is a doodle, a dance or writing, it
always reveals an aspect of the self, often the unconscious self. If the
facilitator intends to lead an individual in an exercise to stimulate art or
movement expression and self-awareness, then he or she has the task of
helping that individual talk about it. Knowing that the artist takes a risk in
sharing that previously unknown aspect of the self, the facilitator needs to
treat the product with great respect.
Here, I have strict guidelines for myself and others. It is important to me
that we truly hear and respect the artist’s personal experience. Therefore, I
always ask the artist or mover to speak first, giving her feelings, meanings
and interpretations of the piece. To offer feedback before hearing what it
represents to the artist or dancer is to rob that person of their fresh,
spontaneous reaction to their own work. If we wish to create an environment
for the client’s self-direction and self-insight, it is necessary to honor her
experience.
After inviting the individual to share thoughts and feelings about her art
or dance, I ask, ‘Do you honestly want my reactions?’ If so, I offer my
congruent feelings in statements that make it clear that these are my
projections on to her art. I do not interpret a person’s art. There is a fine line,
an important nuance, between making congruent personal responses and
interpreting another’s work. I am owning my reactions when I preface my
feedback with, ‘When I look at your art, I feel …’ Or, ‘In witnessing your
dance, I felt …’ Giving feedback in this manner is very different from saying,
‘This art shows how depressed you are, or how chaotic your life is.’ Such
statements make it seem that I know better than she what her art means; but I
am not capable of knowing, better than she, what her art means. Telling a
person in a declarative way what her art means takes away the artist’s sense of
self-knowledge.
In teaching person-centered expressive arts therapy, I am strict about
adhering to this difference. I feel very protective of the delicate bud of
creativity that begins to bloom with the warm, accepting atmosphere we

create. I do not want to see it crushed by a heavy-handed analysis or
thoughtless way of giving feedback.
There are verbal and non-verbal ways to be congruent to let the client or
the group know what the facilitator is feeling. Body language, including
facial expression, carries many messages.
UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD

Creating a relationship where the client can trust enough to reveal herself at
the deepest level is not simple. As Carl Rogers said, ‘It involves the therapist’s
willingness for the client to be whatever immediate feeling is going on –
confusion, resentment, fear, anger, courage, love, or pride. It is a
non-possessive caring. When the therapist prizes the client in a total rather
than a conditional way, forward movement is likely’ (Rogers 1995a, p.116).
I understand this as acceptance without judgment. I may disapprove of
the behavior of that person but I accept who he or she is at a much deeper
level. I often describe this caring attitude as ‘coming from the heart’. For the
expressive arts therapist, this positive regard or prizing is also necessary as we
view the client’s art, or witness her movement and sound, or hear her poetry
or drama. It comes out of the respect we have for the worth of that client.
For example, one of the biggest challenges any therapist might encounter
is material from the client that could be a potential threat to society or to the
therapist herself. Perhaps the client is tuning into her feelings through some
aggressive movement and sound and then paints a scene of violence. The
therapist, knowing that art can be a language from the unconscious, listens to
the client with positive regard and honors the image as well. It is possible that
the client may reveal an urge to perform a violent act. The person-centered
expressive arts therapist, in this instance, does her best to maintain a positive
and caring attitude towards the client, helping her to accept those rageful
feelings, particularly inviting her to continue with many more pictures,
sounds and movements. At the same time, the therapist states very clearly that
aggressive or violent behavior is not acceptable in the office or outside.
The therapist can prize or care about the person and her images while
setting limits on behavior. The therapist needs to stay fully present with the
client, assisting her in exploring the full meaning that the art work has for
her. The image, no matter how grotesque, can be valued as the necessary
outpouring of repressed emotions. As the volcano erupts on paper or in
dance, it is much less likely to be acted out in life. However, if through her art
the client is revealing some violence she has already perpetrated, it is still
possible, although sometimes difficult, to have compassion or positive
regard for her as a person.
For the expressive arts group facilitator, this prizing or caring attitude
towards each individual in the group is a real challenge, yet it can happen.
Being able to care for people of diverse backgrounds, with highly
controversial opinions or attitudes, takes skill and practice. Yet one of the
most profound learnings for group participants is that of experiencing a
facilitator responding to and honoring people with opposing views. As a
group member hears the facilitator respond with empathy and caring to a
person who may be furious with the world, another member of the group or
even the facilitator herself, a lesson for all is learned: ‘I can care about you,
even if you are exhibiting fury or anger at me, even if I disagree with you.’
EMPATHY
Carl Rogers’ research into the psychotherapeutic process2 revealed that when
a client felt accepted and understood, healing occurred. It is a rare experience
to feel accepted and understood when you are feeling fear, rage, grief or
jealousy. Yet it is this very acceptance and understanding that heals. As friends
and therapists, we frequently think that we must have an answer or give
advice. However, this overlooks a very basic truth. By genuinely hearing the
depth of the emotional pain and respecting the individual’s ability to find
his/her own answer, we are giving him/her the greatest gift.
I define empathy as ‘perceiving the world through the other person’s eyes,
ears and heart’. This understanding needs to be conveyed through words and
body language. An empathic verbal response lets the individual know she
was truly heard and understood. It also gives the client or group member the
opportunity to correct what she has said to convey more accurately what she
means. Empathic body language, although usually unconsciously given and
received, also offers a sense of safety and comfort.
I find that the expressive arts give the therapist a magnificent opportunity
to be highly empathic. The arts stir deep emotional responses in both the
client and the therapist, thus allowing the therapist to see, hear, feel the
client’s situation with great empathy. To witness a client’s dance/movement
2 For further information on the decades of research on the conditions and outcomes of
the psychotherapeutic process, see the summary descriptions provided in Rogers
(1995b), Chapters 11 (pp.225–242) and 12 (pp.243–270).
of extreme frustration or to see an art image depicting her feelings of being

trapped in a difficult situation allows the therapist a multi-sensory
understanding of the client’s world. The color and forms which the client
chooses to express strong feelings become a direct non-verbal comm-
unication to the therapist. The feelings thus displayed allow the therapist to
be her most empathic self.
Transcending inner polarities

It seems to be part of the human condition to be pulled in two directions at
once or to have opposite feelings within the same day. Using the expressive
arts creates the opportunity for us to discover, integrate and transcend those
inner polarities.
When I work with groups we often spend time brainstorming our ‘inner
polarities’, and come up with long lists: love/hate, strength/weakness,
close/distant, introvert/extrovert, happy/sad, violent/peaceful, and so on.
Although the opposites listed may appear to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ character-
istics, it is not that simple. Some people have denied their grief and sadness in
order to keep a happy face. Their task may be to acknowledge and accept
their grief. Others may live a life which says they can only show their pain or
pessimism. To feel joy or ecstasy or hope has not been acceptable for them.
Their task may be to allow themselves to feel delight or to be able to view the
world with some optimism.
Accepting the shadow and embracing the light is the task for each of us if
we wish to become whole persons and come into individual and world
balance. We act on our feelings and beliefs, so if we hold the belief that evil is
‘out there’, we project our own dark parts on to ‘those others’. We tend to put
those unwanted parts of self on someone else or some other group, making
them the carriers of our own unfinished work. If we, as individuals, could
face our dark side and learn to transform that energy into constructive action,
we would be taking a monumental step towards changing the world. Instead
of a ‘we/they’ attitude of blame, each of us would take responsibility for all
that happens in the world.
In Jungian terms, the ‘shadow’ is that aspect of the self that is unknown or
that lives in the realm of the unconscious. It is that part of the self that we have
rejected, denied or repressed. Repressed thoughts, feelings and behaviors
have a lot of power as they rumble around in our unconscious with their
potential for volcanic eruption. As with a pressure cooker, the repressed
aspects build force by tight containment. Keeping those rumblings in check
takes a lot of personal energy. Tension in our muscles, pain in our joints and
constriction of the heart result from keeping such thoughts and feelings
under cover. Most of us fear looking into the unconscious, but seldom realize
how much physical and emotional energy we spend keeping the lid on.
Denied or rejected aspects of self are frequently thought of as destructive
or evil impulses: the urge to kill or plunder or to dish out revenge. But often,
we also relegate to the realm of the unconscious our creativity, strength,
rebelliousness, sensuality, sexuality and our willingness to love. So when we
risk exploring the depths of the unconscious, we also find many lost
treasures.
It is easy to discuss the theory of our inner shadow and light. It is another
thing to find ways to help ourselves and our clients to discover those hidden
aspects. To know, accept, express and release the dark side in non-hurtful
ways is essential to prevent these powerful forces from being acted out in
violent forms.
If we agree that embracing disowned aspects of ourselves enables us to
become more whole, energized, compassionate people, we need methods to
unveil our shadow. The expressive arts are natural media to bring forth
images, movement, sound and writing that illuminate those unknown
aspects. If we give ourselves permission, the expressive arts can plunge us into
the mythical, metaphoric and kinesthetic aspects of the unknown. We may
find many useful messages for our lives. Discovering our unknown parts
allows them to become allies: long-lost sub-personalities that we need in
order to be complete.
Anger is certainly not the only emotion of the shadow, but it is a potent
one and can be an important motivator for constructive action. As a feminist
in the 1980s, I became outraged at the injustice in America and the world.
Being in touch with that anger and allowing it to surface gave me energy to
do something about it rather than staying at home feeling depressed. I
learned that when I was aware of my rage, I could use it as rocket fuel to
initiate projects. I channeled my outrage into constructive action, using art
journals, psychodrama, authentic movement, encounter groups, training
programs, writing articles and my book, Emerging Woman (Rogers 1980).
These methods also stirred me to political activism. I don’t believe the notion
that personal growth is self-indulgent. On the contrary, it leads to a broader
consciousness to empower all members of society.
The expressive arts are also powerful tools to help us uncover fear, shame,
loneliness, apathy and the deep well of depression. I have been present while
many clients or group participants have used movement and art to express
their fears of death, of going insane or of staying forever in the deep, dark pit
of depression. When given a voice, an image, a sound, a dance, these fears
can become forces for change. When accepted for exactly what they are, they
can help us on our road to recovery.
As an example, we have the words of Gerd, German by birth and a
Professor of German Studies in the United States:3
Living in a society that heavily values the cognitive, but teaches distrust
towards the intuitive, the journey from a seemingly borderless childhood
wisdom to a renewed relationship with my knowing belly has been a
long and painful one. I still catch myself trying to ignore the butterflies in
my stomach that tell me about excitement and hopeful involvement, or
cat-growling in the belly area that teaches me to stay away from
something or somebody. When I sometimes feel scattered all over the
place, my inner voice tells me to focus on my feelings, but instead, I focus
in my head.
Writing … and authentic movement have helped me over the years to
create paths between my head and belly in order to profit from cognitive
and intuitive learnings’ creative potential. The most important
experience in my work with the PCETI program, the body-wisdom day,
has brought those two ways of knowing together and created a powerful
intermingling of emotion and mind connections.
… I had successfully avoided [my anxieties] by constantly overworking
myself … I had registered my anger, anxiety, and aggressivity, combined
with physical reactions such as breathlessness, cold sweats, and a
compulsion to run away. So, I had already intuitively discovered the
burning questions long before the workshop began. I had even started to
express what I physically experienced by writing, but by an efficient
avoidance mechanism had turned the logbook of my inner journey into
literary products, and within this process the need for change
disappeared.
Gerd then describes movement, followed by a painting of his right and left
side’s body experience:
3 The following material is presented with the permission of Gerd Bauer.

By following the physical leads of my right and left sides, I felt thrown
into roles I wanted to act out: the body-builder, the fighter, the successor,
for the right side; the cripple, the sensitive, the loser, for the left side. I
wrote the following texts about these two characters:
The right-side man: He arrives in his office at seven o’clock in the morning.
Some people are still not at their desks. He starts walking impatiently up
and down the hall and checking the little working places … staring at
the big golden clock … When a woman, who is late, tries to sneak into
her room without being noticed, the man is right there … she starts
explaining and apologizing. At that very moment, the man begins to
smile. ‘Never mind,’ he says, sending the woman off to her desk. He
returns to his office and starts working.
The left-side man: He arrives at the top of a mountain … Then he lays
down on the ground and enjoys the warmth of the sun. He is naked, and
so he can feel the sun beams dancing up and down his body … The man
smiles as though he is having a pleasant dream. After a while he opens his
eyes. … and imagines himself as a cloud, sailing with the wind and with
no specific destination.
Gerd writes that he left the workshop feeling blocked, frustrated, empty. He
knew there was something these two characters (parts of himself ) needed to
do. Later, he followed up with this imagery:
The embrace: Two men, one athletic, the other skinny, met in the middle of
a desert. They knew that this would happen one day, somewhere,
somehow. They also knew that they had seen each other before, but
neither of the two could remember anything about it. The skinny man
was about to speak, when the athlete punched him in the face. He
repeated this five times. Then the skinny man declared himself loser. His
voice was clear and loud. The athlete, after he had briefly raised his fists
to the sky as a sign of victory, collapsed to the ground. The skinny man
stared at the big man lying in the sand quietly. Then he helped him up
and supported him as they disappeared into the horizon.
Gerd said he felt the need to have these two characters ‘embrace, and walk
away together within a light in which they seemed to merge into one person’.
This is an example of opposites first at war with each other, then joined or
integrated. Movement was the key that unlocked the door. Gerd had brushed
aside clues until his felt body sense and imagination helped him see and
experience these polarities. Gerd says:
By simply accepting the existence of these feelings and emotions, I had

found a door in the wall … This door … needed a final push, like all
doors which haven’t been opened for a long time. All of a sudden, I felt a
new balance between my body’s signals and my emotional response … it
is not a force from outside but an energy inside of me which can be a
powerful creative force … an interplay between both the intuitive and
cognitive level. This knowledge strikes me as being of a more vital
quality than that developed primarily by either intuition or cognition …
because it connects us both emotionally and intellectually with our inner
way of being.
The push–pull of these two characters must be familiar to most of us in
today’s society. When acknowledged and accepted, something more than
acceptance of two sides can occur; we gain a new perspective.
I have witnessed people painting picture after picture of revenge, hate,
anger or violence, finally coming to accept that these feelings are an
instinctive part of each of us. It is not the existence of these emotions that is so
threatening. It is the fear, and the possibility, that we will act them out that is
threatening. In drawing or painting the rage or violence, the energy seems
actually to drain from the body through one’s arms and fingers on to the
paper. And then, somehow, the self-understanding and the energy shift. Or in
dancing the fear, it often relinquishes its stalking quality to become an ally. It
is necessary to learn how to express these feelings in ways that will not be
hurtful to the self, others, the environment or society.
Accepting our shadow may be less difficult than embracing the light.
When we talk about embracing the light, we are talking about opening to our
spirituality, our ability to experience love, compassion and all-encompassing
states of consciousness. In my years as a therapist and group facilitator, I have
found that people are uncomfortable acknowledging and feeling love. They
readily accept negative thoughts about themselves and others but find
themselves fending off compliments, caring and love. We tend to armor
ourselves against receiving it. Being able to give and receive affection and
love, whether from another person, animals or a universal energy source, may
be the prerequisite for being able to offer unconditional love.
People are often reluctant to claim their inner light, feeling that it is too
‘special’. The sensation is so dramatic that we tend to ascribe this capacity to
only Christ-like or Buddha-like people. We may be embarrassed or ashamed
to admit we have this ecstatic sensation of powerful beauty. If as individuals
we begin to acknowledge and accept this inner light, we pave the way for
others to come forth with their ecstatic experiences. In a world that rumbles
with heavy storm clouds, we certainly need this light to shine through.
Person-centered expressive arts principles

To bring my presentation back to our original questions and discussion with
Tanya and others, I summarize the humanistic principles that have been
covered in this chapter:
• Personal growth, higher states of consciousness and a sense of
wholeness are achieved through self-awareness, self-understanding
and insight.
• Self-awareness, self-understanding and insight are attained by
delving into our emotions. The feelings of grief, anger, pain, fear,
joy and ecstasy are the tunnel through which we must pass to get
to self-awareness, understanding and wholeness.
• Our feelings and emotions (the grief, anger, pain, fear, joy and
ecstasy) are a source of energy which can be channeled into the
expressive arts to be released and transformed.
• All people have an innate ability to be creative.
• The creative process is healing in itself. Although the product of
creative expression supplies important messages to the individual
for useful insights, the process of creation itself is profoundly
transformative.
• The expressive arts – including movement, art, writing, sound,
music and imagery – lead us into the unconscious and allow us to
express previously unknown facets of ourselves, thus bringing to
light new information and awareness.
• Art modes interrelate in what I call the ‘creative connection’. When
we move, it affects how we write or paint. When we write or
paint, it affects how we feel and think. During the creative
connection process, one art form stimulates and nurtures the other,
bringing us closer to our innermost core or essence, which is our
life-force energy.
• This expressive arts process offers us the opportunity to be aware
of, face and accept our shadow aspect – that part of the self which
we have repressed or denied – which in turn can bring us to a
deeper self-acceptance. Self-acceptance and self-esteem are basic to

becoming whole persons capable of caring for others and receiving
love.
• A connection exists between 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, we discover our relatedness to the outer world. The
inner and outer become one.
There are many discoveries to be made with this work. Finding spirit, soul,
the ability to laugh at oneself, new wisdom or the knowledge that with each
struggle in life there are major lessons to be learned: the expressive arts are
particularly appropriate and useful for these discoveries.
In our goal to become whole people, more fully actualized and
empowered, awareness is always the first step. Without awareness we have no
choices. Personal integration is part of the natural flow of events when we use
symbolic and expressive media. Once we uncover unknown aspects of self,
the process includes letting these parts find their rightful places in our
psyches, and we are more able to experience the ecstatic universal oneness, a
connectedness to all life forms.
References
Rogers, C.R. (1977) Carl Rogers On Personal Power: Inner Strength and Its Revolutionary
Impact. New York: Delacorte.
Rogers, C.R.(1995a) A Way of Being. Revised edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Rogers, C.R. (1995b) On Becoming a Person. Revised edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Rogers, N. (1980) Emerging Woman: A Decade of Midlife Transitions. Santa Rosa, CA:
Personal Press.
Further reading
Rogers, C.R. (1951) Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practices, Implications, and Theory.
New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Rogers, N. (1993) The Creative Connection: Expressive Arts as Healing. Palo Alto, CA: Science
and Behavior Books.
CHAPTER 7
Living Artfully
Movement as an Integrative Process
Daria Halprin
Nietzsche once made an analogy to art as a saving sorceress, expert at

healing. He pointed to the power of the arts to turn the suffering of our
existence into material with which we can live.
What kind of art can be a saving sorceress? We must search for a process to
live by which affirms rather than destroys, and we must find this process by
facing and working with the real tensions of our lives today.
There is an upsurge of global concern for the quality of life and a quest for
recovering meaning on both the personal and collective levels. To live in our
bodies, in our families and communities on this planet with greater awareness
and sensitivity to the sanctity of life is the goal of expressive arts therapy. In
order to bring this vision to life, we must begin by developing a more creative
relationship with ourselves and with the issues that separate us. We can use
the language of the movement arts to bring our separated parts together into
conscious and creative relationship.
Movement is the very basis of life.This simple reality is reflected in the
natural world, in the internal world of our physical bodies and in our
everyday social world. At the deepest levels, our lives depend on movement,
from the constant and complex ‘dance’ of cells, to the beating of our hearts,
to each inhale and exhale of breath. We literally move throughout our lives,
yet rarely do we pay attention to how we are moving and what we are
expressing in how we move. Stored in our muscles, bones and organs, in each
body part and body posture, are the imprints of our life experiences. The
body is full of information about who we are, how we feel and what we think
– a living body anthology.
When we hold all these stories on an unconscious level, when we have no
opportunity to creatively explore and express our stories, the body starts
screaming out in one form or another, emerging as physical, emotional or
133
mental distress. Usually, we act and live as if our bodies, feelings and minds
are separate. We live in a house divided. Jimake Highwater writes: ‘The main
reason we lose our aesthetic capacity is because we attempt to hide our
feelings, so we lose our body language and that makes the creative response
impossible’ (Highwater 1987, p.1). 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 between the separated parts.
In the following sections of this chapter, I shall describe and discuss some
aspects of my work with movement-based expressive arts therapy. Included is
an example of an exercise which I use in my work as a teacher and therapist so
that the reader may have a more concrete understanding of this process. I am
a believer in putting words and theory into practice, as that is the way we can
find the form of an experience and thereby understand its meaning. The
theories which inform the field of expressive arts therapy are based on
embodied, or felt, experience and what is encountered and learned from that
experience. Most importantly, we look to the process of art-making, the
saving sorceress, to hold our separated parts as we engage in our search for
meaningful, creative lives.
Roots
We can trace the roots of movement-based expressive arts therapy through
time to the European, Asian and African cultures when dance was a defining
element in terms of tribal, national, religious and racial identity. Dance was a
form of enjoyment and entertainment, but also became a means to hold
communities of people together in the face of dire threat. European Jews,
African-Americans and Native Americans, for instance, danced to assert the
indestructible nature of their souls and their inalienable right to freedom in
the face of brutality and slavery. Merloo stated: ‘The dance of the medicine
man, priest or shaman belongs to the oldest form of medicine and
psychotherapy in which the common expectation and release of tensions was
able to change man’s physical and mental suffering into a new option on
health’ (Merloo 1968, p.69). Indigenous peoples have preserved and passed
on an invaluable cultural wisdom and world view of the unity of all beings
and nature, exemplified in dance, painting, story-telling, costume and ritual.
The roots of my work as a movement-artist, expressive arts teacher and
therapist developed out of my own personal history. I was trained as a dancer
LIVING ARTFULLY 135
by my mother, Anna Halprin, who was one of the modern-day pioneers in

post-modern dance and in movement as a healing art. This was the time of
the Beat Generation; the milieu was ripe with innovation and experiment-
ation. Conventional boundaries separating dance, theater and psychology
were being broken by many artists and humanistic psychologists.
In the 1960s, this breaking down of old boundaries was reflected in the
sociopolitical climate of the Hippie movement and in the political
revolutions of young people in university campuses around the USA. In
California, where I grew up, artists specializing in many different art forms
were creating new multi-modal (or multimedia) theater. It was like another
Renaissance, with artists literally and metaphorically stripping themselves
and their art forms of old constrictions, taking art out of separate studios into
collaboration with each other, off the stage and out of the museums to the
people in the streets. I remember this as the modern birthplace of what much
later was named expressive arts therapy.
Although I had literally grown up in an expressive arts therapy
atmosphere, at that time there was very little structure and theory to give
stability to the innovative experiments we were making. The principles,
theories and methods which help to ensure the transformative nature of
art-making were not articulated until the open experimentation of the 1960s
led us, during the 1970s, into a careful evaluation and understanding when
the field of expressive arts therapy began to be defined. For me, theory
emerged out of direct experience.Those who start from the background of
the theoretician or academic may need to drop what they think they know
and immerse themselves in the direct experience of the expressive arts in
order to come to a new and deeper understanding.
A movement-based approach
Working with movement to bring awareness and expression to the interplay
between body, mind, feeling and spirit can reveal unknown parts of the self.
The physical body is full of messages about who we are, how we feel and
what we think. Mabel Todd, a movement teacher in the 1930s, said: ‘For
every thought supported by feeling there is a muscle change. Primary muscle
patterns being our biological heritage, our whole body records our
emotional thinking’ (Todd 1937, p.19). Our bodies hold our entire life story
and also carry an organic ability to heal themselves. The body is a
powerhouse which contains destructive and creative life experiences and
impulses. Through the use of body imagery and movement metaphors, we
are able to unlock the doors and windows of this powerhouse to work
consciously and creatively with our personal and collective potential.
Movement as a metaphoric tool can bring us into a more embodied and
integrated way of living.
In order to work with movement as metaphor, we need to use a process
which allows us to have an ‘embodied’ experience. ‘Embodied’ means to feel
one’s self through bodily felt responses in the moment. The embodied
experience, then, allows for the possibility of constant change in response to
connections made between the physical, emotional and thinking processes.
Ultimately, the embodied life would be one in which the physical body,
feelings and mind are being expressed creatively in congruence with each
other and with the changing nature of reality.
The following key principles identify some of the essential ways in which
movement serves this process:
Movement is an integrating process

Movement is a complex language which contains all the sensations, feelings,
emotional states, thoughts and memories we have experienced in our lives.
By using this language consciously, we are able somatically (through the
physical body), emotionally and symbolically to re-access a range of
life-responses and reactivate feelings and images associated with certain life
experiences. For instance, kicking and stomping movements initiated with
the legs are likely to evoke aggressive feelings. Reaching out or up with the
arms is likely to evoke feelings associated with longing. Movements such as
rotating and rocking the pelvis may trigger sensual or sexual feelings. A
gentle, consistent shaking of the whole body often gives the feeling of
release, especially when the breath is let out with the movement. Pulling the
shoulders and arms back and extending the rib cage forward may bring up
the image and feeling of opening up to … If the reader were to take a
moment to try some of these movements and to connect with the physical
sensation of each movement, she would get a sense of her own emotional
response, an image and perhaps even an association or memory to a particular
event or situation in her life.
Movement experienced and explored with awareness, where the creative
process and self-discovery are the intention, allows the three levels through
which we experience and form our lives (physical, emotional and mental) to
become consciously reconnected with each other.
LIVING ARTFULLY 137
Movement evokes feelings and images and can also be used consciously to
express feelings and images
All emotional and mental responses to external events and to stimulation
from the external environment are stored in the nervous system, muscles and
organs. Therefore, we can say that all our reactions to life are held in the
physical body and then released through the way in which we express
ourselves in movement, body posture or gesture. I have just described a
circular cycle: take in stimuli, hold and express in a response through
movement. Our responses are based on the physical sensations, feelings and
images which external stimuli trigger according to our internal
interpretation: is it threatening or non-threatening; does it feel pleasurable or
uncomfortable; does it remind me of something I’ve experienced before; do I
like it or dislike it?
Movement, feeling and image consciously and creatively expressed in relation

to each other can lead to insight and change
Movement can be used as a tool (or a medium) to repattern the imprints in the
musculo-skeletal system. Through intentional movement, we bring
awareness to habitual forms and responses, we release old charged or static
structures, and we send new messages to the nervous system about how we
can respond to stimulation from a wider range of possibilities. Once we have
identified disabling life-patterns by moving them into our awareness and
then ‘moving them out’, we can create and learn new patterns which foster
increasing degrees of creative expression, learning and health. Movement is
an agent of change in the physical body which also has the ability to change
moods, to channel emotional responses and to shape our ways of thinking
about ourselves, others and the world in which we live.
Movement can deepen and expand an individual’s sense of aliveness and

creative connection to self, to others and to the world
When the individual learns how to use the expressive arts as a transformative
process, she begins to think of herself as a creative participant in life. The
fulfillment of experiencing one’s own creativity through art-making lends
courage and motivation to the task of confronting and releasing destructive
life experiences. Tapping into our creative abilities restores a sense of
appreciation for life. When brought into the larger community, this sort of
art-making can serve to bridge differences between people and turn the
material of conflict into the means for creating things of beauty together.
The method
For our imagery, movement and feeling to be embodied in an integrating
atmosphere, we need to be supported by a process which generates awareness
through the bodily felt sense, leads us to express ourselves creatively in ways
which reconnect our physical, emotional and mental responses. This process
is followed by conscious understanding whereby we discover the meaning of
our experience so that we can bridge our art expression with our lived
experiences.
In a movement-based expressive arts therapy approach, I have developed
a method for exploring what I call our ‘body stories’ through the use of
movement metaphors. The method is articulated through a series of steps,
each one connected with the intention to integrate the physical, emotional
and mental levels of the individual, to channel life experiences through the
language of multimedia art expression, and to create reflections between art
expression and life issues in ways which are illuminating and transformative.
The steps
1. Identification of a personal or collective life theme through the use
of a movement metaphor.
2. Focusing on a somatic experience which heightens awareness of
sensation, feeling and imagery.
3. Development of a predominant somatic sensation, feeling or image
into expressive movement explorations (or a dance).
4. Creating a drawn image which is a response to the body/
movement experience.
5. Creating the ‘script’: writing a poem, story or dialogue which
concretizes the meaning which the individual gives to her
experience. This step helps the individual make connections
between the expressive arts experience and how she perceives her
life experiences.
I refer to these steps as an ‘expressive arts chorus’: identify/sense/move/
draw/dialogue. Although here I present the steps in a linear fashion, in
practice they may form a circle which allows one to begin with any
combination and order depending on needs, interests or on what actually
happens in the moment.
LIVING ARTFULLY 139
We can change the order of the steps and start with a drawing, which we
then embody through sensory awareness and movement, create a dance in
response to and finally write about. Alternatively, the drawing might be the
starting point which is danced and vocalized. By including all of the above
steps, we can set the stage for relationships between body, mind and feelings
to arise in an integrating and creative atmosphere. Each level or aspect of the
self gets to respond in its favorite art medium; the body loves to move; the
mind loves to imagine, draw and dialogue; feelings come up and get more
fully expressed in direct response to the interplay between movement and
imagery. Our feelings get ‘seen’, ‘heard’ and ‘played out’, as well as more
deeply experienced in the interplay of all the media: the dance, the poem and
the painting.
The following model exercise will give the reader an applied multi-modal
example of what I mean by an ‘embodied and integrating’ process.
An exercise
I usually begin an expressive arts process by awakening and developing
awareness of the bodily felt experience through sensory focusing. Then I
give a structured movement metaphor which will relate to a theme. When the
physical experience is enlivened in this way, imagery and feelings are
automatically evoked. This heightens awareness of the interplay between
body/mind/feelings. The life experiences stored in the body are accessed
through psycho-motor memory and expressively channeled into movement,
drawing and dialogue.
The following exercise incorporates the principle which I have discussed
so far: the idea that we are made up of different parts which are often at odds
with each other or which have different and valuable aspects of our life story
to tell. Using movement as a metaphoric process allows us to become more
aware and responsive on the physical, emotional and mental levels and to
work creatively with the messages of our embodied selves. We recognize
separateness as well as that which disturbs as valuable resources in the process
of creating a real integration or healing.
Step 1: Identify and sense

Make three drawings on three different sheets of paper from your pad. Spend
5 to 15 minutes on each drawing. This will allow you to create a spontaneous
and intuitive response without too much thinking or ‘pressure’ to create an
exact or highly articulated image. There are no right or wrong ways to
respond in this exercise. Whatever unfolds in your three drawings is ‘right’ in

that those are the images that most want to be ‘drawn’ to your attention.
1. The identified theme: parts of self
2. Drawing:
Each image is your response to the following questions, a series of three
self-portraits on three separate pieces of paper:
• Drawing no. 1: Who am I now on the physical level (my sense of
my body or body image)?
• Drawing no. 2: Who am I now on the emotional level (the feeling
or emotional state I am in)?
• Drawing no. 3: Who am I now on the mental level (my thinking
experience,what’s on my mind, how do I experience my mental
state)?
When you have completed all three drawings go back to each one and write a
‘title’ (a word or sentence) for each. These titles may serve as departure points
for creating dialogues later.
Step 2: Move
Focusing on one drawing at a time, take a few minutes to ‘become’ your
drawn image in movement. This process is not pantomime or dancing about
the drawing. That is why I have intentionally chosen the phrase ‘become the
drawing’. Of course, you don’t literally become the drawing; rather the
drawn image holds something for you that you don’t necessarily know or
recognize until you experience it directly. The movement takes you into this
direct experience. How do you ‘become’ the drawing through movement?
Focus on the colors. How does your red want to move, how does your
blue want to move, how does your black want to move? Focus on shapes:
round, jagged lines, circles. Move the shapes in your drawing. Is there a
particular body posture, body part or symbol in your drawing? How does
that body posture, body part or symbol want to express itself in movement?
Now, sound: what is the voice of your drawing? Use your own voice as an
instrument to make sound with. Give your voice to the drawing, so to speak.
Go through each of the three drawings in this way, moving and sounding.
Give yourself permission for the unfamiliar and unexpected to arise, as
well as for re-experiencing old, familiar images, associations and feelings.
You may find movements that you want to repeat.
LIVING ARTFULLY 141
Step 3: Dialogue
The following are resource ideas for creative writing:
• Use the titles from your three drawings to create a poem.
• Create dialogues between the drawings.
• Let the drawings dialogue with someone in your life, or a life
situation.
• Use journal writing as a means for reflecting on any life
circumstances that the drawings and movement connect with.
Step 4: Draw
Create one self-portrait, incorporating elements from the three separate
drawings, your movement exploration and dialogue experience. Give this
final self-portrait more time.You might consider spending an hour or several
hours on it. This fourth self-portrait could lead you back into further or new
movement and dialogue. This step allows for the emergence of an integrating
or clarifying image which might include whatever insight or change was
catalyzed.
This exercise may form a kind of ‘Gestalt’, or whole experience involving
all three levels of self (physical, emotional and mental) in an integrated way.
Images and feelings arise from the body experience and are ‘drawn out’, then
‘taken back in’ again with more awareness and creative intention through
movement, drawing and dialogue. In the exercise, we begin with drawings
on the theme ‘parts of self ’, embody through movement and dialogue, and
continue developing the cycle back into drawing, movement and
dialogue/script. These enactments create higher degrees of awareness and
creative encounter which may generate new images and feelings as well as
insight. Separating the parts allows each part to become more felt and
known. This allows new ways of understanding as well as different
relationships between separate parts to form.
142
FOUNDATIONS OF EXPRESSIVE ARTS THERAPY
Figure 7.1 Figure 7.2

Photograph by Adrianna Marcione, Tamalpa Institute Photograph by Adrianna Marcione, Tamalpa Institute
LIVING ARTFULLY 143
An expressive arts model in therapy sessions

The following case study is an example of how I use movement-based
expressive arts in one-to-one work. I shall refer to the client as ‘C’ and to
myself, the therapist, as ‘T’. I have chosen to use for this case study an
individual with a relatively high degree of self-awareness and facility in the
use of expressive arts for therapeutic purposes as a way to illustrate an optimal
application of this work. With clients who are challenged by high degrees of
body/mind fragmentation, as in schizophrenia, the work would proceed at a
much slower pace. In severe cases, the use of active imagination and
provocative movement situations should be monitored carefully. Highly
disturbed or traumatized individuals need to be guided slowly and gently
into and out of imaginative work and deep body experiences which may
disrupt a delicate balance between imagination and illusion. Working with
strong bodily felt experiences often reactivates trauma and so must be
introduced slowly, over time, in specific relation to each individual
circumstance.
Both a student in training and in private therapy with me, ‘C’ arrived at
our work with a great passion for dance, a broad range of movement abilities
and an inclination towards drawing. Her previous experience in the arts had
been primarily for recreational purposes. In addition to her interest in
developing her personal passions and talent into a profession as an expressive
arts therapist, she was also confronting a number of unresolved life
experiences and issues which were causing her an ongoing sense of
fragmentation in her present life circumstances. One of her outstanding
concerns was the challenge of recurring alopecia, a condition which causes
the sufferer to lose their hair. To date there is no known cause or cure for this
disease. As we proceeded in our work together, we addressed her alopecia
from the point of view of the separation between parts of herself, her
conflicting and unexpressed feelings, especially in relation to her mother, but
also in the context of her own self-image and self-expression.
‘C’s mother and father divorced when she was a small child. She had very
little contact with her father. Growing up with a single mother who put
herself through college, they lived in a poor neighborhood populated by
prostitutes, drug dealers and gangs.
In her early childhood ‘C’ and her mother lived with an abusive man who
assaulted her mother and threatened to kill her mother and herself on several
occasions. Although ‘C’ had quite a difficult childhood and adolescence,
during which she faced very real threats to her safety and well-being, she had
been consistently understanding and forgiving of her mother. She stated,

‘My mother already had so much trouble in her life, I didn’t want to add to it.’
During two years of intensive therapy and training, ‘C’ confronted the
events of her life which had been deeply disturbing. We began to discover
and work with the connections and separations between the part of her
which wanted to hold things together and keep it all (and herself ) looking
good, the part which was terrified to let it all fall apart and had kept the
painful parts hidden; and the part which was furious and wanted to let it all
out. I think of her work as a process of rebuilding a new self out of the
fragmented parts of her life story. She did so with honesty, commitment and
courage. She was supported by the beauty she found in her own creative
art-making.
In a group setting
During the first two weeks of training, ‘C’ wore an array of brightly colored
scarves and hats which completely covered her head during all classes. No
matter what kind of movement activity we were engaged in, she always wore
a hat or scarf. Her movement expression was very carefully crafted. Even
when strong emotions were evoked, anger or sadness, for instance, she
expressed herself in carefully performed and complete movement phrases.
Her drawings also had a well-organized, decorative and pretty quality.
Strong emotions and images were drawn out in minute and literal detail.
One week during the training the body part being explored was the head.
We worked with the head anatomically, in movement, drawing and dialogue.
An associated theme explored was ‘mask and unmask’. At the end of the
session, ‘C’ asked if she could take some group time. As the group gathered
around her, she laid out a series of drawings she had made of her head and
began to tell us her story through the ‘voices’ of her drawings. As she spoke,
she removed her scarf to reveal her own head which was covered in bald
spots. The group remained quiet and attentive as she wept and told us the
story of the pretty girl who kept losing her hair. She had tried everything,
going from one doctor to another, eating the right foods, taking the right
vitamins and minerals, working on herself diligently. She told us how
terrified she felt, never knowing when her hair would fall out or how much
of it she would lose. She talked about her frustration at not being able to fix
this disease no matter how hard she worked on it. ‘C’ told us what a relief it
was to show us this hidden part of her. The revelation needed the group in
order to occur. The presence of the group provided ‘C’ with a powerful
LIVING ARTFULLY 145
experience of being seen and supported. The group and group leader
became a metaphor for the protective, nurturing environment in which ‘C’
was able to begin the process of letting go of control in a safe way, to face her
fears, express her anger and recover herself. For the following year in
training, ‘C’ danced out, drew out and spoke out the story of the terrified
little girl who is losing her hair while she sits on a ‘volcano of rage’.
During the second year of training, ‘C’ imagined a ritual in which she
shaved her head surrounded by her training community. She said, ‘Part of me
just wants to let go and not worry about how it looks.’ I suggested that she
begin to explore letting go as she drew, letting the images get messy,
becoming unformed shapes and colors. She felt very excited by this. In her
drawings, she imagined and felt something very frightening and dark
beginning to emerge. She called it ‘the monster’. She did not know who or
what it was. In private therapy, we began to work directly with the terror, the
monster and the angry volcano. ‘C’ repeatedly stated her desire to express her
anger more directly. In sessions I led her in a practice of aggressive
movements: kicking, stomping, punching and swinging the arms in large
circles. We worked on developing vocal sounds and sentences to ‘match’ the
movements and feelings coming up. She yelled and growled, screamed ‘NO!’,
‘I won’t stand for that!’, ‘Get out!’ After large explosive movement and sound,
she often switched into small, collapsed postures and spoke in a whisper, a
high voice that sounded like a small child. She reported that often at night
she became paralyzed with fear.
Excerpts from a therapy session

T: What do you imagine will happen to you when it’s dark?
C: I don’t know crying. I think there is a horrible monster that’s going to
get me.
T: Be the monster in movement.
C: I can’t. It’s too big and scary. (She curls up in a contracted position with her
head drawn down between her knees.)
T: Speak to the monster from that position.
C: I can’t. I have a real gummy feeling in my head. I can’t think or see or
speak. I always feel this way.
T: Stay in contact with the gummy feeling. Move this gummy quality.
(She begins to move her arms slowly, and her body begins to shift out of the highly
contracted and withdrawn position. She uses her arms as if pulling things out of
her mouth, eyes and head.)
T: Stay with the gummy, pulling movements you’re doing. (Slowly the arm
movements become more forceful. Her arms begin to swing and extend.)
T: Give your movement words when you’re ready.
C: I’m dark. I keep you from seeing, I keep you from saying anything.
T: Stay with your movement. Develop it, where does it want to go in
space? (Her arm and hand movements switch from pulling at her own head to
swinging, pushing and punching, and pushing away from her head.)
C: Get out! Get away! Get out! Get away!
T: Who are you speaking to?
C: The monster.
T: What do you imagine the monster looks like?
C: I don’t know, oh I hate this feeling of not knowing …
T: ‘OK. Switch and be the monster with your movement. Play it out, play
with the movement of the monster.
C: OK. I want to see you! Come on! (Her movements become more aggressive
and wild.) I’m going to kill you, I hate you. I am absolutely going to kill
you! Oh my god, the monster is my anger. I’m so furious. I want to kill
my mother’s boyfriend. I hate you! I’m so angry that you didn’t stand
up for us, Mom, I’m tired of being so understanding. I’m tired of it.
You are both assholes!
T: (She exhausts the aggressive movements and sounds. It is as if the volcano
erupted. After a few minutes of quiet …) How do you want to move your
arms now?
C: I want to make a safe home for myself.
T: Make it in this room, now. (She repeats a series of circling movements with
her arms around her entire body. She strokes her head. She walks around the room
in large circles and then steps inside an imaginary space she has just circled with
her movement. She sits down, her spine is straight and her arms are relaxed on top
of her folded legs. She makes eye contact with me.)
C: This feels good. Now I see it. No more pretty pictures.
LIVING ARTFULLY 147
At the conclusion of this session, we decide that she will write a letter to her
mother expressing her anger and a letter to her father describing the kind of
support she would like him to give in her life now. She may send these letters
and she may not. The writing is for her own experience of uncensored
release, not about doing something to fix the outer situation. Although ‘C’s
hair loss is also not ‘fixed’, she comes to understand that this condition is
connected to the story of the pretty girl and angry woman. Rather than
focusing on trying to figure it out or make it go away, our focus is on the
building of a relationship between previously conflicting parts. Our work is
towards an integration of her self-image and self-expression which is a
creative and honest reflection of her real feelings, and which expresses the
full range of her story from the well put together, light beauty to the wild,
dark beauty, with scarves and hats, and without them.
The saving sorceress

Let us consider that the self is not one fixed entity, any more than a family or
community has one identity or one experience of reality. It seems essential
that we create a new understanding of ourselves which includes a creative
interplay between many different parts, voices, feelings, perceptions and life
experiences. As a cultural, environmental and global model, this inclusive
view is essential to our survival and growth. Such a view, then, would accept
the fact of separation not as an evil to overcome or to get rid of, but rather as a
creative resource which might lead us into a more honest and healthy coming
together. Rollo May states that: ‘…the creative process is the expression of
the passion for form. It is the struggle against disintegration, the struggle to
bring into existence new kinds of being’ (May 1976, p.22). In order to accept
this view, which acknowledges and values the separate parts, we must find
ways to live artfully with the tensions of our life stories and the suffering of
humankind.
Consider the traditional Western approach in medicine and therapeutic
practice based on the concept that suffering,or disease, manifests in
symptoms which should be fixed. ‘Healed’ or ‘made whole’ in this context
means to get rid of the disturbing symptoms or the painful parts of self. Once
the pain is gotten rid of, the person is considered fixed until the next
disturbance arises.
In Eastern or shamanic practices, diseases of the body are understood as
the suffering of the mind and spirit or soul in the act of expressing itself. In
this view, disease is approached as a kind of messenger who carries an
important code to be deciphered. There is a saying, ‘Don’t kill the

messenger’. In our attempts to rid ourselves of disturbances, to fix our
imperfect selves so that we can get on with life in a better, faster or more
productive way, we often shoot the messenger who brings with her some
valuable code from our interior which may serve to benefit the health of the
whole self; body, mind and spirit. When we attempt to fix a part that isn’t
working on an obvious level, we are in danger of distracting ourselves from
the movements of the deeper undercurrents.
Fixing implies doing away with the painful parts of self, whereas healing
means accepting, embodying them and bringing them into new
relationships with the more creative aspects of self. We need to give
expression to the separated parts, to the fragments of our life stories, and to
express the shadow through the metaphors of our art.
Let us say that healing depends on our ability to listen and respond to the
messages our souls send us, in the voices of our physical, emotional and
mental selves. The soul loves to speak in the language of the arts. In times of
crisis and in the face of human suffering, the expressive arts, like a saving
sorceress, can serve us well. That art which arises from our inner landscape,
which reflects the real issues and tensions in our lives, illuminates the
darkness and heals the soul.
Although new and experimental movements often start with small groups
of pioneers, it is no longer enough that select groups of people find their way
into therapy workshops or spiritual groups where creativity and
transformation are fostered. Those of us who have the means to develop this
vision – students, educators, artists, therapists, medical practitioners and
community activists – all share a responsibility to carry what we have
discovered and are learning into our cultural mainstream. I would challenge
the reader who finds her interest kindled or her commitment strengthened to
take this work into the larger community. The vision of expressive arts
therapy, the vision of a creative and embodied life, has much to offer the
healing of our broken world.
References
Highwater, J. (1987) ‘The primal mind: vision and reality in Indian America.’ In Creation
Magazine 3, 5. November–December.
May, R. (1976) The Courage to Create. New York: Bantam Books.
Merloo, J. (1968) Creativity and Externalization. New York: Humanities Press.
Todd, M.E. (1937) The Thinking Body. New York: Dance Horizons.
LIVING ARTFULLY 149
Further reading
Assagioli, R. (1965) Psychosynthesis. California: Penguin Books.
Bottom, D. and Peat, D. (1987) Science, Order and Creativity. New York: Bantam Books.
Feinstein, D. and Kripners (1988) Personal Mythology. California: Tarcher/St. Martin’s
Press.
Feldendrais, M. (1985) The Potent Self. California: Harper and Row.
Halprin, D. (1989) Coming Alive. California: Tamalpa Institute.
Lowen, A. (1975) Bioenergetics. New York: Coward, McCann and Geognegan.
Perls, F. (1971) Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. New York: Bantam Books.
Pesso, A. (1969) Movement in Psychotherapy. New York: University Press.
Rogers, C. (1961) On Becoming a Person. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
CHAPTER 8
Layer Upon Layer

A Healing Experience in the Art Studio
Annette Brederode
Introduction
Since my childhood I have loved the Fine Arts. As a result, studying at the
Royal Academy for Fine Arts in The Hague was a natural choice for me.
There, I discovered that I wanted to learn to apply my knowledge of visual art
in a therapeutic context. After earning my diploma there, I began my
professional life as an art therapist at a psychiatric hospital. I now realize how
little I knew back then about art therapy.
My work with psychiatric patients made me aware of how important it is
to express and make visible with the help of images that which cannot, or not
yet, be verbalized. By means of training and additional courses, I learned
how to help patients initiate a healing process and to further develop these
processes.
For more than 20 years I worked in various psychiatric and psycho-
therapeutic settings. At the same time I began establishing my own practice.
In 1985, I started practising independently and founded the Center for
Expressive and Creative Arts Therapy in Amsterdam. This is a center
dedicated to educating and training expressive arts therapists. Time and
again I have realized how necessary it is for me to continue working
expressively myself. The basis of my work as a therapist is continually shaped
by my own expressive work; that is the source of my inspiration and
motivation. I also came to notice that many of my colleagues seldom or never
worked expressively any longer, and that they had therefore lost much of
their sense of pleasure in their work. For various reasons, they had lost touch
with their media and were alienated from their own art. There is obviously a
great need for expressive arts therapists consistently to work expressively
themselves. Initially, I developed and used the Art Studio to meet the
151
dormant needs of many art therapists. Currently, I use the Art Studio for
patients as well as students and professional therapists.
In this piece I shall describe as carefully as possible what it is that I do in
the Art Studio. I shall describe a particular way of working that I have
developed over the course of years, which is still developing. I call it a
working model, and what is attractive about it is that it is not rigid. Variations
can be incorporated. The number of days involved, as well as the length of
time devoted to the various parts, can be adjusted to meet the goals of the
participants. This description is based on two days of work in the Art Studio.
The Art Studio is composed of various layers. In describing these layers, I
use a two-pronged approach in the various sections. In the first part of each
section, I indicate what I say, what the instructions are and what I do. In the
second part of each section, I describe what happens and what I have to say
about it. In the second part, of course, I have to make a choice from the many
things that take place.
The expressive process is of central importance to the Art Studio. I use an
art-centered approach to working. In this art-centered approach to working,
expressive art is used as a therapeutic medium. My understanding of
expressive art as a therapeutic medium entails acting and shaping in such a
manner that an artistic and healing process can emerge. Art and therapy
become connected by the process of becoming aware of, dealing with, and
understanding psychic and physical suffering. The symbolization of
experience and the restoring of the relationship to imagination form the basis
of expressive arts therapy. Acting and shaping imaginatively consists of
working with all kinds of materials and techniques, and is directed towards
immediate emotional expression. Thereby, the images themselves, as well as
the imaginative process, are of central importance. By images, I mean all
kinds of shapes, colors, lines and movements that can be made and seen, and
therefore not only so-called ‘figurative images’. The images manifest
themselves not only in materials, but they also show themselves by means of
inner, mental images.
I accompany the participants in the Art Studio in such a way that the
following goals can be realized:
• to resolve unfinished situations
• to support change
• to open new ways for creativity and expression.
LAYER UPON LAYER 153
The Art Studio is used for:

• patients (those who seek therapy)
• students and professional therapists
• others who are interested in art and personal growth.
In the case of therapies that extend over longer periods of time, participation
in one or more Art Studios may constitute part of the therapy.
Beginning
What I do and what I say
Making good use of the Art Studio requires that from beginning to end, care
is taken with regard to the work space and the materials. Preparing the work
space and becoming acquainted with the materials, as well as cleaning up and
leaving the space in an orderly condition, are parts of the learning process. I
always start with a short introduction, during which I explain how the Art
Studio works and what the rules are. I also provide information about work
times, breaks and the use of materials. From the beginning, the intention is to
create a safe atmosphere, in which participants can allow themselves to show
vulnerability and to express themselves: healing is done only in a sacred
space.
The instructions are as follows (work-time one hour):
• Walk through the room and briefly become acquainted with the
other group members in a way that feels comfortable to you.
• Now choose a place where you will be working, standing at a
high table or in front of a sheet which is inclined in front of the
wall, where you will be working at body height. Allow for
sufficient space to move without getting in your neighbor’s way.
• Fasten a base made of strong paper, tape it well all around, and
add at least one more layer of paper fastened in the same way.
• Spread newspapers on the floor to catch splatters.
• Set out the following at your work space: charcoal, crayon, pastels,
ink, paint, fingerpaint, brushes, clay, old rags, a bucket with water,
turpentine, a sponge, glue, tape, rope and colored paper.
• Set out also a diary and a pen.
• Wear old, loose-fitting clothes. I warn you, you will get dirty.
• Now begin by using the charcoal to cover the entire surface of the
sheet, using both your hands.
• Do not just move your hands, make sure you move your arms,
your shoulders, your neck and your head, your entire torso, your
hips, your legs and feet, shake your whole body loose as much as
possible.
• At the same time, make as many different types of lines as possible
on the paper: hard, soft, slow, fast, round, angular, long, short, and
so on.
• When the charcoal is used up, take the crayon and continue
moving while pressing down firmly on the paper, but make it
ugly, as ugly as possible. Use ugly colors and make ugly shapes
and lines.
• Watch your breathing and make sounds when you breathe out. Let
your voice be heard and let the sounds that you make play with
the lines on the paper.
• Keep working vigorously and do not stop. Do not allow yourself
the time to contemplate.
• Exaggerate your movements, dare to play and dance over the
surface of the paper with the crayons.
• Do not think about what you are doing and do not try to be
creative.
• Keep moving and find a rhythm that feels comfortable, close your
eyes and relax your neck by letting your chin rest on your chest.
Breathe deeply and let your hands lead you over the surface of the
paper.
In this manner the foundation has been laid for layer-upon-layer work. The
Art Studio has been initiated.
What happens and what I have to say about it

In my experience, each participant in the Art Studio constitutes his or her
own story. I am not out to influence the uniqueness and essence of an
individual’s story. I do, however, want to create the conditions needed to
create each story. Among other things, I do that by getting the participants to
move. Through movement they become aware of their bodies, and they
establish contact with the places where tension is felt with their breathing
and with all sorts of emotions. I put the participants to work with the help of
undirected physical exercises, which aim towards letting loose. I emphasize
that these are not attempts to draw or express anything specific. Almost every
participant starts out with a certain anxiety about this process. There are high
expectations about what the process and the final product will yield.
Actually, by means of the tasks that I give to participants, I challenge them to
forget thinking that a final product is necessary and that this product has to
mean something.
I teach the participants to get their hands dirty, to change their work and
to mess up continuously. The task that I give, which is often seen as
permission to make a mess and to make something ugly, has a liberating
effect, and often touches on a past in which none of this was allowed.
Furthermore, making something ugly often calls up feelings of anger, and
because these can be channeled in a directed manner (by using the voice and
hard scratching on paper), a release of tension takes place. The entire group
does this simultaneously; consequently, this often leads to an excited and
giggly atmosphere. My intention is to make the participants stop
concentrating on drawing a problem, a theme or a particular subject. I
systematically frustrate attempts by participants to do this, by giving various
instructions in rapid order and by having them use different materials. I
concentrate on the activity of drawing in such a way that creativity and
expression can be activated and developed. I have found that beginning in
this way is surprising, and strikingly simple and novel for most participants,
and that, almost without being noticed, an expressive process is stimulated.
This is a warm-up for the following layer; a warm-up whereby the
participants are brought to a state of creative confusion, to prevent them from
being blind to the unseen and deaf to the unheard.
Layer upon layer

The warm-up, as it has been described in the preceding section, forms the
foundation for working through, layer upon layer. A great deal of the time
spent in the Art Studio is reserved for this phase.
The instructions are as follows (work-time five hours):
• Take fingerpaint, feel its substance in your hands, then move both
hands over the base that you made earlier. Apply layers of paint
and let your body move along with your hands, take a breath and
close your eyes now and then.
• In the course of this process, use, as needed, several sheets of paper
and combine different materials: pastels over crayon, ink over
charcoal, clay over paint, layers of colored paper.
• When working with clay, think of kneading, pushing, pulling
apart, jumbling, moistening and painting.
• Also think about stacking, rolling, binding, sticking together,
folding, washing off, tearing and repairing materials.
• If you get tired, keep working, even if this means sitting or lying
on the floor.
• There is no break for the group as a whole, but you can opt to
take one or more pitstops.
A half hour before the end of this phase, I announce how much time is left
and also give the following instructions:
• Take some space from your work, stroll around a bit.
• Then take the time to finish your work and consider what you
wish to change, add or remove.
• Think about what your work still needs, maybe a frame or some
other finishing touch.
• When you are finished, clean up your work space and get rid of
what you do not need or what is in the way.

The bodily movements, the expressive actions and the direct contact with the
materials stimulate the sense organs of the participants: they feel the paint
between their fingers, the weight of the clay in their hands, they smell the
turpentine, they see the colors, they hear the scratching on paper, and they
become fulfilled by, and adept at, this way of working. There is a certain
eagerness; they are hungry for more.
All sorts of memories are called up by the sense organs, such as memories
of mostly forgotten events that have been covered up layer upon layer and are
now becoming accessible and reachable. Applying the layers of material is
agitating and risky. It takes courage to get rid of, or to paint over, something
that has just been created. But it is essential that this happens, because the
very act of covering up initiates a process of disclosure and exposure. Layers

of experiences become tangible and visible, and begin to reveal the secrets of
their meaning.
This manner of working, in which one continues working without
interruption for long periods of time, enables the expressive and artistic
processes to unfold steadily. One image follows another, one calls up another,
and this results in a stream that seems to stem from an internal reservoir of
images. A source has been tapped and its abundance becomes visible and
available. The images can become visible through the aid of the shapes that
they seem to choose themselves, as soon as they are given attention. The
emotions which are set free are diversified. They can manifest themselves as
anger, grief or shame, but also as happiness, pleasure or pleasant excitement.
These images are the carriers of memory. They transport experiences from
the past to the here and now. Conflicts are made visible and transformed in
such a way that a healing process can ensue. The imaginative process
becomes a healing process: art as therapy.
By taking plenty of time for this layer-upon-layer work, a process of
change emerges, a cycle with a distinct beginning phase, a middle phase and
an end phase. The beginning phase is characterized by working with the
materials in a physical way, without set ideas and seemingly without a goal. It
can be compared with fumbling in the dark, with searching for the
unknown. The middle phase consists of working through and going deeper,
descending and digging vertically, through all kinds of layers. Most of the
time one works non-stop, but there are also moments of rest and of waiting to
see what happens. The end phase is meant for emerging again, for returning
from a long journey and for beginning to complete the expressive work.
During this last phase, there is time to arrange the work and to find the right
spot for the various parts. What is striking is that this process of putting
things in order often leads to a certain integration within the person of
previously unconnected events and emotions. Imperceptibly, loose pieces of
the puzzle are put in their proper places. As a result of a careful process of
finishing up, a feeling of liberation emerges: ‘Yes, this is good.’
In cases where this feeling of liberation has not, or has not yet, taken
place, certain parts of the process have not been completed. The therapeutic
process is incomplete in such cases, and additional attention and working
through will be required at another time. In such situations I arrange special
appointments.
During the entire period of time that participants are working, I am

involved with accompanying their individual processes and helping to keep
them going. I give directions regarding materials and techniques, the
approach to working and the content. I ask questions and give suggestions
such as: ‘What does this picture need? What color is missing? What do your
hands want to do? Make it smaller or larger’, and so on.
Working expressively in this manner is an intensely introspective activity.
The group as a whole determines the atmosphere in the work space and the
course of events. There is hardly any speaking, but the presence of others is
perceptible and has a stimulating and inspirational effect.
In dialogue with the images

After the intensive period of working layer upon layer, a transition is made to
engaging in a dialogue with the images. This is a dialogue that begins with
silence, and which gradually makes a transition to writing down and
verbalizing words and sentences.
The instructions are as follows (work-time 30 minutes):
• Take a few minutes’ time to walk around the room.
• Take out your diary and pen and sit down by your work.
• Look at your work and take a breath.
• Allow words to come to you, search for a title for your work or
give it more than one name; write them down.
• Take a moment to speak to your images: what do you have to say
to them or what do you want to know about them?
• Listen to what they answer, let the images speak.
• Continue with this dialogue and write it down.
• Create unconnected sentences and do not try to make sense of
them; you do not need to understand what you say or write: no
speculating and no psychology!
• Write a short text, a letter, a poem or whatever you choose,
referring to your images.
• Censor as little as possible, and imagine that the pen is carrying
you with it across the paper.
• Take a few minutes to complete your text.

• Now choose two other people from the group to form a small
group, and take these two people over to your expressive work.
• Read aloud what you have written, without further explanation.
• The others will listen, without asking or saying anything.
• Repeat this procedure until everyone has had a turn.
• You may not comment on your fellow group members’ works
unless you have first asked for permission.
• If you wish to know something or say something, then ask if you
can borrow the picture for a moment, and then turn directly
towards the picture. Over and over again, you will initiate a
dialogue with the images, and you will notice that the images will
do the same with you. Do not say anything off the top of your
head, or analyze or interpret.
• After you have shared the texts, take some more time to exchange
experiences about this phase with this same small group.

By consciously distancing themselves physically, the participants gain an
initial overview. It becomes a renewed acquaintance from a different
perspective. What is striking is that the participants are neither able nor
willing to speak immediately after having worked expressively. They do not
yet have the language that is appropriate to the work and the experience. It
seems as if the spoken language has been covered over by various layers. This
is also true of the just-born images themselves; they are also incapable of
speaking immediately. It takes time for the images to get used to the world
outside. Getting used to what has just revealed itself occurs in silence.
Afterwards, by slowly and carefully beginning a conversation with the
images, a new connection can take place. The just-born images become
inspired. The idea is to let the images speak for themselves without
immediately wanting to know what it is all about. This is made possible by
consistently speaking with and through the images rather than about the
images. In this way the immediate emotional involvement can have a chance
to manifest itself completely.
The next step is the transition to the written language. Initially this
involves a searching for the first words, which are often disconnected and
incomprehensible, luckily. After all, it is not about a kind of writing that has
to meet all sorts of linguistic requirements, but rather about the possibility of
continuing the process in another art form, which will make it possible to
communicate its content in a different manner. Through writing, an
effortless transition to another form of expression is made. The value of this
transition is that by means of immediate uncensored writing, one remains
true to the nature and essence of the images. The image, the expressive
language and the written language merge and form a whole. They are all part
of the same artistic process.
By sharing their various texts in small groups, the participants make the
step from their private interior worlds into the world outside, where they
meet the other group members. The first step outside makes them feel very
vulnerable, and speaking their texts aloud makes it a profound experience.
The intensity of the moment is increased by the fact that they are not allowed
to explain anything or ask questions or make comments, even if it is well
intentioned. The intention is to keep the work alive, and not to talk it to
death.
Individual work
Individual work offers the participants the opportunity to work through
certain issues with myself as the therapist and the group as a witness.
Participants can indicate themselves that they want to do this and whether or
not they are ready for this. I invite the participant to take a seat with his/her
expressive work in the middle of the group, or he/she can take me and the
others over to the spot where he/she has worked expressively. This
individual work cannot be explained here in general terms because
individual therapeutic processes can differ significantly. There are, however,
a number of distinguishing features and possibilities that I would like to
illustrate and explain before I begin. The length of the sessions varies from
person to person. The total amount of time devoted to this phase is two
hours.
I usually start by going over to look at the expressive work together with
the participant, in order to determine with him or her what he/she wants to
do or what he/she needs. I accompany someone in a dialogue with the work
and with the internal images, or by interacting with the work, whereby more
emphasis is placed on involving the whole body, and the work space as a
whole can be used. It is possible, for instance, to change the clay or move it,
to work on the piece, or to use a roleplay by inviting other group members to
take part. All of these activities constitute parts of a working model in which
the participant, the expressive work and the therapist continually and
actively determine the form.
The instructions given to the group, in case someone is going to work
with me individually, are as follows:
• Take a modest amount of material, such as a piece of clay,
something to write with, or draw with or paint with, and position
yourself in such a way that you are able to follow the individual
process well. At the same time, make sure that the person working
in the middle is not disturbed by your activities.
• You are present to offer support and to witness; you are not just
here to sit and observe.
• Let your hands work with the material, without any preconceived
goal, or consciously make something that you can later give to the
person working in the middle.

Individual work is intended to further more intense contemplation and to
delve more deeply into the emotional significance of the images and of the
process as a whole. I do this by actively and continually keeping the
imaginative process going. I move back and forth between the images that
have emerged from the material and what they call up in terms of internal
mental images. I attempt to make connections between earlier and
present-day, here and now experiences. Earlier experiences can stem from the
more recent past, as well as from the more distant past, from childhood
experiences. What is essential here is the reliving of past experiences: first, as
they actually or possibly occurred, and then as a longing for how things
should have been.
In this way old wounds are healed. The images are indispensable for this
transformational process.
It is not uncommon for the imaginative work, or parts of it, to be rejected
in the beginning: the images look different than intended, they are not
understood, not recognized or found to be lacking. Strangely enough, the
internal images, as well as the images on the paper or in the clay, are usually so
primary and swift that they are far ahead of their meaning. The images can
always be trusted; it usually just takes time to realize and accept this.
By exploring images, I help the participants to uncover situations that
lead to conflicts or problems. This involves becoming aware of how these
conflicts work and expressing the emotions that they evoke. Some of the
means I use to do this exploring are the following interventions: ‘How do
you feel?’, ‘What do you need?’, ‘What do you long for?’, ‘What are you
missing?’, ‘What are you waiting for?’, ‘Who can help you with this?’, ‘How
are you going to deal with this?’, and so on. Becoming aware is once again
achieved via the sense organs, and it is always related to ‘how’ something
takes place and ‘how’ that feels.
The following is an example of individual work with me.
One of the participants (P) painted layer upon layer, and the result was a
painting with dark colors, mostly black and brown. The paper was full and
thick with paint.
Together with me (A) she wanted to explore the image and maybe find out
its meaning. We sat together and looked at it:
A: What do you experience when you look at your painting?
P: I feel pain and I think that it has to do with my mother …
A: Where do you feel the pain?
P: Here, inside (puts her hand on her chest) …
A: What does that place inside you look like?
P: It is dark …
A: Can you see a shape?
P: Yes, it is a hard, dark shape that looks like a rock …
A: Can you describe that rock?
P: Let me see … the rock is hollow, like a cave …
A: Keep looking.
P: It looks like a hollow tooth … the upper part fills my chest, and the
root goes down and reaches almost to my knees …
A: How does this tooth feel inside you?
P: Hard as a rock and painful … I want to take it out …
A: How can you do that?

P: Maybe I can lift it out with a tow truck … oh no, that is not a good
idea, because then I would be totally empty inside … a big hole no, no
… Well maybe I can leave the root inside, I need to have a root …
A: Do you want to lift the upper part now?
P: Yes, no, I am so sick and tired of the whole thing, I want to get rid of
the pain …
A: Can you imagine that you lift out the whole tooth?
P: Yes, I want to try … wait, I am now lifting it with that tow truck … it
hurts … ouch … wait, yes it comes out, it is huge … ouch …
A: When it is out, look inside you.
P: Yes, I see a huge hole, like a big empty space … The walls are made of
flesh and blood …
A: Does it hurt?
P: Yes, but not really a lot … I have a wound in my chest and I need to
close it, it needs to heal … Gee, I am tired … what hard work … how
is this possible? I am tired, I want to rest now.
A: Where did you leave the tooth?
P: It is on the floor, in front of me …
A: What are you going to do with it?
P: Well, I guess I cannot leave it here … That tooth, I want to bury it …
A: Where?
P: Yes, by the tree in my grandmother’s garden … (P starts to cry). Yes, that
is the right place … I am in the garden now and I am going to dig … It
is deep enough now … I put the tooth in and close the grave … and sit
by its side, on a little bench … I am looking at the house of my
grandmother and feel peaceful … The sun is shining. Gee, what an
operation … I am tired, but this is exactly what I needed … I just
needed to get rid of that hard rock inside me … I have always felt it,
since I was a little kid, and it has to do with my mother, that hardness
inside, she also has that. But now, I succeeded to get rid of it … I feel
so relieved and satisfied. I thought that I could not survive without it,
that I would be too empty … But now I feel a lot of space inside me
instead … I have a very special feeling.
A: Do you need anything else now?
P: No, thanks a lot.
A: Now, look at your painting for a moment.
P: Yes, the layers and the darkness, that was the tooth inside of me.
I do not analyze these images, and try to avoid interpretations and value
judgments as much as possible. Images do not want to be interpreted, but
they do want to be seen and be respected. From personal experience, I know
that I have never learned or experienced anything of substance on those
occasions when someone else felt they had to interpret my images. It was
information from the outside and not something that I had gone through
myself. The essence and specialness of the image became lost to me.
Every image is precisely what it should be, otherwise it would have
become something else. This can be reassuring for the person who has
created it as well as for the therapist. I try to take the images literally and I do
not compare them with anything else, because then they lose their value: an
image cannot be objectified. By objectifying images we pin them down and
rob them of their vitality. Images are a living part of ourselves, and individual
images do not have a predetermined meaning. Thankfully not, because there
is nothing more exciting than continually rediscovering what this specific
image has to tell me at any given moment. The value and meaning of images
are best done justice by means of dialogue and interaction. In a dialogue,
only language is used, and, in an interaction, the entire body is more
involved. The relationship to personal images becomes dynamic in both
approaches. This dynamic gives the images room to breathe and to move, and
this gives them the inspiration that they need in order to have a healing
effect.
During the course of this individual therapeutic work with me, the other
participants continue working expressively. Their images reflect an
interaction with the process that is unfolding in the middle of the group. The
emotional involvement that emerges from person to person develops a
completely unique form and content. When the work is completed, these
products are actually, or figuratively, given to, or used to support the process
of, the person who has been working in the middle. The support that the
group is able to create in this way creates a pleasant and secure feeling.
Nobody is being scrutinized, and yet everyone can follow what is

happening.
The presentation
Every participant gets exactly the same amount of time to present his/her
expressive work. Each person chooses and determines his/her own form of
presentation. I give a short explanation of the procedure and the rules.
The instructions are as follows (every participant gets five minutes for the
presentation, and subsequently there is a minute for feedback):
• You will not get any time to prepare for the presentation. The
expressive work has already been finished and set up. The
presentation is meant for you to react very directly and
improvisationally to your own piece of work.
• You can choose any type of interaction with your own work: a
dialogue with the images, reading a text aloud, a combination of
other forms of expression, such as using your body and your voice.
• One of you will receive a set of Tibetan copper bells, to be used to
signal the start of the five minutes and also to indicate when the
time is up. At the end of each presentation, the bells are passed to
someone else.
• The person who is presenting chooses two other people from the
group in advance. This means you are invited to respond to the
presentation for no longer than one minute. The bells will again be
used to keep time.
• The type of feedback you choose is up to you, feel free to
improvise. Do not think about it in advance, just see what
happens. Surprise yourself!
• During this entire process, no questions may be asked and no
explanations are allowed.
• Following the response, the person who has presented announces
the next person to present, until everyone has had his/her turn.
• Following the completion of the presentations, you have 15
minutes to talk among yourselves.
The following is an example of a presentation of one of the participants,

whose painting depicts an image of herself and her deceased relatives.
She explains: ‘This painting deals with the ruins of my life and with those
people who have died, but still live in my ruins. My son, my sister and all of
the other relatives. While I painted this image I could clearly feel that most of
my “ruin-family” was like a distant loving chorus and that my son kept being
much more near to me, like a brother. I wrote a poem about this painting.’
The invisible
There are days when I hear them singing,
the chorus of my family,
quietly, softly,
not in tune
but happily absent-minded.
There are days when one of them carries out
a monologue,
arguing, demanding
in a voice like water running through my body.
Sometimes I answer them

as a humming bee,
as a wooden bowl.
In all I do
I keep listening for the sudden breathing
of the one walking beside me.

By viewing and coming into contact with each other’s work, by allowing
others to witness the final product of an intensive process, each individual
and the expressive work he/she has created is honored. The group supports
and contains the individual presentations in such a way that the group, as a
whole, becomes a participant in this process. A group ritual, a sort of dance
with a unique rhythm, emerges, from the design of the successive
presentations. The participants are urged to present quickly, spontaneously
and intuitively and to react to each other. The form is tight and demands
discipline. The passing on of the Tibetan bells keeping time, and the
possibility of being chosen to give a response, ensure that everyone is actively
involved and that they each have a part in shaping the process. The
presentations are exciting, intense, dramatic, funny, simple, light-hearted
and moving. It is a phase that at first glance seems to limit participants in
their presentations, due to the tight time frame. It is, however, this very
limitation that leads to exciting and surprising moments.
In this manner the work carried out in the Art Studio is rounded off.
Cleaning up and saying goodbye

Rounding off the content of the process has taken place during the
presentations. Now there is time for reflection. This reflection takes place by
means of the following questions, suggestions and stimulations.
The instructions are as follows (work-time ten minutes):
• Think about how you have experienced the work you have done
in the Art Studio, and think about how you can continue your
process on your own. Who or what do you need in order to do
this?
• Reach an agreement with yourself about this, and look at it as a
promise that you make to yourself. This promise is not an
obligation; it is a present you give yourself.
• Find a nice spot for your expressive work at home, frame it and
follow up on it.
Then it is time to clean up and say goodbye.
The instructions are as follows (work-time 30 minutes):
• Pack up your work so you can take it home.
• Clean up your work space and make sure it is neat when you
leave.
• Say goodbye to the other participants in your own way.
• Say goodbye to the Art Studio.

Reflection facilitates making a transition in the participant’s thoughts from
the time he/she has spent in the Art Studio to his/her own surroundings. It is
time to face the reality of leaving and traveling back home. The process is
interrupted, but it can be continued elsewhere. This transition is given form

by the practical tasks of cleaning and straightening up, and then by saying
goodbye to one another.
Conclusion
During the period of time that I worked as a visual art therapist in various
psychiatric settings, I soon came to realize the limitations that are connected
with choosing one type of therapeutic medium. I began to feel the need to
open myself up to other forms of art and expression that I had previously
excluded, to learn to embrace these very forms and to learn to use them in
order to broaden my options. However, this seemed to be an impermissible
violation of boundaries within the multi-disciplinary work setting.
Each discipline (visual art therapy, music therapy, dramatherapy, etc.) was
meant to make its own contribution, and the team leader, usually a
psychiatrist or psychotherapist, had the responsibility of coordinating these
various contributions for the benefit of the treatment as a whole. There was
really no mention of an integrated approach to therapy, but this was exactly
what I wanted to achieve.
The decision to employ just one type of art or expression in a therapeutic
process often proves to be insufficient, just as only one picture would be
insufficient in the process of expressive arts therapy. After all, creating an
image and then subsequently limiting oneself to this image (regardless of
what medium is used) means stagnation. Movement, however, is an essential
component of therapy.
Working expressively in the Art Studio entails creating and forming
various images successively. This series, this succession of images, permits an
expressive process to emerge. The artistic, expressive process is intensified
and enriched by an almost natural implementation of other forms of
expression. A painting is followed by shaping a piece in clay, and this in turn
is followed by a movement, a sound, a story or some other type of poetic
form. All these steps taken together facilitate the creation of a process: an
artistic, aesthetic and healing process. In the Art Studio at least, the image
remains central to this process.
Personally, I do not believe that working with various artistic and
expressive forms requires that I be equally capable of mastering all of these
media. Nevertheless, it does mean that based on my great love for visual art, I
involve myself with integrating other media into the therapeutic process. To
be honest, it is actually difficult not to do just that. After all, it is impossible to
paint without moving, to have a dialogue with the images without using
words or sounds, or to write without using language. The voice, language,
movement, sounds and images: they are all necessary, and they make an
artistic process complete.
Over the years it has become evident that the significance of working
expressively, and the experiences that have been gone through in the Art
Studio, continue to have a lasting effect on the participants. Taking part in the
Art Studio once or several times is not only a goal in and of itself. It is also a
beginning and a means for allowing the expressive process to become a part
of one’s daily life. Patients as well as therapists evidently go on to work
expressively more frequently in their own homes as a result of their
experiences in the Art Studio.
For me, describing the Art Studio has been a process of writing and
rewriting, layer upon layer. I have tried to develop the same feeling of
naturalness and to achieve the same feeling of familiarity with the written
word that I have with the language of expression through art. Ultimately, my
use of the written word is meant to conjure up an image: the image of the Art
Studio. I hope that this image will become a starting point for the reader’s
own expressive work.
CHAPTER 9
Music as Mother
The Mothering Function of Music through
Expressive and Receptive Avenues
Margareta Wärja
Music you are the queen of time

You take me to the never-ending now (Margo N. Fuchs)
Without physical touch the human infant dies. We need the touching
closeness and warmth of another person to survive, grow and develop. Touch
can be experienced in many ways: caring, sensitive, warm, sensuous, sexual,
harsh, punishing, cold. In whatever way we are touched there is an imprint in
the body. The way we feel towards our body, and how we experience it, is
shaped during our childhood years. The mother is likely to be the first
significant person that handles and touches the infant. First come the
physical experiences of life in the womb, then the early care-taking of the
small baby, followed by the formative years of the young child. The way the
mother relates to the body of her child is of the utmost importance for the
development of that child.
During the last seven or eight years, I have been interested in how the
presence, or absence, of adequate mothering influences the developing child.
In the concept of ‘mothering’ I am including both the care-taking given by
the biological mother and that given by other significant persons who
function as mother. It is from our mothers that we learn about mothering, and
our mothers are role models for femininity for better or for worse. To the
daughter, the mother becomes an object of identification and, for the son, an
experience of the opposite sex which will influence his relationships to all
other women. Over the years, I have met many individuals, both in my
therapy practice and as a teacher of students in the fields of expressive arts
171
and music therapy, who suffer from lack of mothering. I have witnessed how
the process of expressive arts therapy provides a path of healing for them.
I view myself as a music-centered expressive arts therapist. My particular
competence is in the area of music and sound-making. In this chapter the
focus is on addressing the ability of music to hold, shape and structure inner
experiences that can be referred to as qualities of the mother. I term this
function ‘music as mother’ and I shall point to some characteristics of music
which relate to ‘mothering’. I hope to be able to address what might be some
of the unique qualities that music, as one of the modalities of expressive arts
therapy, brings to the field. There are two main areas that overlap in the text:
the developmental and psychodynamic theories that focus on the early
mother–child dyad, and the theories and practice of expressive arts therapy
and music therapy that constitute the founding principles of my work. I shall
attempt to weave these areas together as I go along, presenting theoretical
concepts with client vignettes.
Creating the musical space

Each instant or moment is the moment of creation. To touch that instant,
to bring consciousness into that moment, is to strike home to the very
core of Being and to know simultaneously in a gesture that is Being itself.
(Woodman 1982, pp.111–112)
In this chapter I shall present two avenues in working with music that I find
work well together. One is an expressive approach, where instruments and the
voice are used to express feelings and explore relationships. The other is a
receptive approach, where pre-recorded or improvised music is used to evoke
images in the listener that are worked with in various ways.
Expressive music therapy

Expressive music therapy refers to the use of instruments and the human
voice to express oneself, to give shape and form to conscious and
unconscious material. This is an active approach that can be carried out in
many different ways. One can, for example, sing a song or play a piece of
music that has personal meaning, or play within a clear musical structure,
such as blues, ABA form or rondo, or one can just start to play.
A focused and direct way of working expressively is through music
psychodrama (Moreno 1980), where the individual would use the
instruments and/or voice ‘to become’ a significant person, improvise on a
MUSIC AS MOTHER 173
figure from a dream or deal with an event from daily life; for example,
express a difficult encounter with a co-worker that might have happened the
same day. Taking the role of another person or internal figure opens up to
identification and interpersonal learning. A polarized relationship can
become more empathic. This way of working gives opportunities to replay
and relive important events, as well as understanding the dynamics from a
different, and often new, perspective.
Another way to make music is to improvise freely. I call this ‘spontaneous
music-making’. The musical expression becomes a sounding image of
conscious and/or unconscious processes. Practically speaking, spontaneous
music-making involves using sounds, rhythms, the body or various
instruments. One does not need a formalized idea or a focus as a starting
point; one can just start to play and let the sounds create a dialogue. As the
sounds are born and shaped, they will begin to give form to internal states.
What is uttered is part of the therapeutic journey and needs to be stated,
formed and heard. Spontaneous music may sound like a haphazard
concoction of sound. What comes forth, nevertheless, expresses where the
client is in the moment. The therapist might feel moved to support the
music-making, for example by providing a steady beat or a clear harmonic
structure, or might choose to bring in a totally different musical element,
such as a new motif, theme or key which can provide the client with a new
perspective on an old situation.
At times, the experience is one of chaos and fear and of wanting to stop
the flow of feelings in the music. As the individual slowly lets go and
surrenders to the process, trusting the music and the therapist, and opens up
to the musical space, the first steps towards healing are taken. When this
happens, the character of the music shifts and the sounds rise from the depths
of the person. I call this ‘authentic music’ (Wärja 1994). The experience is
one of being moved. Music that touches the core of the person is an
expression of the ‘true self ’, as Winnicott (1971) uses the term – that essence
which is innate and unique in each person.
As an illustration, the process of expressive music therapy is described in
the following vignette:
Maria, a 40-year-old woman in treatment for depression, came to the
session with the following dream:
I dreamt that I was a tree standing stuck in a barren landscape. The wind
carried some birds that teased and laughed at me and said that I was
doomed to stand there, and that I was not as free as they were.
I suggested that Maria pick up some instruments to represent the tree and
begin to dialogue with it. She chose a wood block and a soft bass drum. She
played the wood block without resonance, which made the sound dead and
hollow. A steady and solid beat from the bass drum was audible underneath
the arid and empty sound of the wood block. It made me think of a heart
pulsating with life. It was striking how steady and grounded the bass drum
was; this pointed towards a strength that Maria had repressed. Next, she
composed the ‘bird teasing tune’, an improvisational piece of cutting, searing
and squeaking bells and a synthesizer that seemed to scold and ridicule her.
The music was recorded and, as we listened to it over several sessions and
talked about it, Maria began to hear the soul of her music. New images were
formed which she drew and shaped in three-dimensional art work. We
continued the music-making process by playing together and exploring the
various images through sound. Slowly, Maria came to understand how both
the tree and the birds were parts of herself that were fighting inside her. For
quite a long time, she had seen the birds as her co-workers, who were
complaining that she didn’t work hard enough, and her mother, who was
never satisfied with Maria’s way of life. She realized that she herself had
internalized these voices and allowed them to continue to pester her. This
had kept her in a victim role and prevented her from becoming responsible
for her own life. After continued work in therapy, Maria was able to accept
and begin to use her strengths that the ‘tree drum’ had showed her.
Receptive music therapy

Receptive music therapy is a term used to describe a process of listening to
music, prerecorded or live, and allowing the music to bring up feelings,
sensations, memories and various associations. Receptive music therapy can
have many different forms, functions and aims, such as listening to a song or
an instrumental piece of music that has deep personal meaning; or, in a
therapy group, letting one member tell a story through a piece of music to
which the group listens. Yet another way is a guided fantasy experience,
where music is used to bring about a setting, a structure and a sonic
background for the internal journey. A less structured way is allowing the
music to bring about an experience without having a pre-constructed story.
The therapist prepares the client through an easy induction, may present a
focus (such as a dream image or a memory) and then puts on a short piece of
music (three to five minutes) which will provide holding, direction and
structure for the imagery experience.
MUSIC AS MOTHER 175
The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) (Bonny 1978a
and b) is a related field to expressive arts therapy where pre-recorded classical
music is used to elicit images. As a practitioner of this approach, I have found
the philosophy of GIM congruent with expressive arts therapy. Both
recognize the aesthetic field as a healer; that images, that is, dreams,
day-dreaming and art-making belong to mankind; and that change and
transformation occur with direct experience. Both approaches focus on the
process of the work and view the images as phenomena in their own right.
Vignettes using GIM and expressive arts therapy will be presented below.
Music and image formation

Both expressive and receptive music therapy deal with images. When we
listen to music or make music we engage in an imagery process. Music evokes
images. Since the dawn of man, imagery has been used in healing. The use of
imagination has been practised by shamans and medicine men for centuries.
Images create a weave in which we live our lives. Our nightly dreams bring
images, as do fantasies and day-dreaming. We think in images. ‘Imagery is the
thought process that invokes and uses the senses: vision, audition, smell,
taste, the sense of movement, position and touch’ (Achterberg 1985, p.3).
Images always carry affect (Stewart 1987). The affect brought forth
under the influence of music may be felt and experienced on a conscious level
or it may stay unconscious. Goldberg presents a theory of music and image
formation based on psychoneurophysiological research and clinical
observations (Goldberg 1989, 1992). She states: ‘Music evokes emotion
through direct stimulation of the autonomic nervous system and this
emotion, in turn, evokes mental imagery’ (Goldberg 1989, p.24). The image
is there to convey a message, and the issue will keep reappearing until the
client has dealt with the material.
My perspective is that images emerge from the symbolic level of
processing information as well as memories, or fragments thereof, prior to
symbol formation. In other words, the term ‘image’ refers to any possible
inner experience. The imagery process is holistic and engages the individual
on many levels simultaneously. Thus it is possible to experience diverse and
ambiguous states concurrently.
Music as an aesthetic field

The field of aesthetics deals with the experience of beauty. As a field of study,
it has its own history and philosophy which address relationships between
shape, object, rhythm, energy, intensity, and so on. The lack of literature and
research of the aesthetic function in the field of music therapy is pointed out
by Aigen (1995). He suggests that it has not been acceptable within the
medical community to speak about beauty and aesthetics; and to gain
recognition and credibility as health-care professionals, music therapists
have avoided this subject. Aigen believes that it is critical to study the
function of aesthetics in therapy.
In the field of expressive arts therapies, the concept of aesthetics, of
beauty, is of utmost importance; it is its vital energy. Beauty speaks of flow, of
grace and of soul. When we honor beauty in our work, we also care for the
soul. With aesthetics and beauty I refer to the total field of the human person,
which involves pain, suffering and even that which might be called ‘ugly’ in
conventional terms. ‘As one moves towards beauty, one moves towards
wholeness, or the fullest potential of what one can be in the world’ (Kenny
1989, p.77). If we lose sight of beauty in our work, then we run the risk of
disconnecting from the vital source of creation. Knill, Barba and Fuchs write:
‘Nurturing a strong commitment to beauty, the expressive therapist is a
servant to the emerging imagination. Passion, Eros and transformative
aggression will be needed and used in the humble service of the meaning that
arrives’ (Knill, Barba and Fuchs 1995, p.86).
The point I want to make here is that beauty is an essential nurturing and
mothering quality of music. Beauty has the ability to move us, open our hearts
and connect us to that in each of us which strives for wholeness. Beauty is a
highly individual experience which connects us with a subjective experience
of meaning. The ability to create meaning often stems from moments which
hold a sense of wonder, wholeness and holiness. In essence, beauty shows us
ways to live our lives from the source of compassion. Or, as the Native
Americans say: to live fully is to ‘walk in beauty’.
With the above concepts in mind, let us now discuss the possibility of
music as mother by beginning to look at the early mother–child interaction.
The mother–child dyad

The one experience that all humans share is that of having been inside our
mother’s body. We have all moved around in the amniotic fluid, and we have
all been born and separated from her body. This early existence is a sensuous
one. The maternal matrix is filled with rhythms, light sensations and various
sounds from within the mother’s body, as well as sounds coming from the
outside world. There is the pulsating rhythm of the heart beat, the gushing
MUSIC AS MOTHER 177
sound of the aorta and the rumble of the intestines. Hearing is developed by
the twentieth week in utero, and it has been found that fetuses of four to five
months old react differently to music by Mozart and Beethoven and to rock
music (Chamberlain 1988). The emotional state of the mother is probably
also registered by the fetus (Graves 1980).
From the time of conception the fetus develops in a sounding
environment. As the baby is born the interaction with the sounding world
increases. The infant hears the voice of the mother and moves in a
synchronous way. In a healthy mother–infant relationship, the baby is met
and responded to through rhythm and the melody of the voice. The whole
period of infancy and early childhood is an interaction through rhythm,
sound and movement.
The first significant person in the life of the infant is the mother, and the
first archaic experiences are inside her body. The newborn baby is totally
dependent and needs a warm, nurturing and caring environment to survive
and develop optimally. This involves much more than food and sleep. The
baby needs care-takers who are present emotionally, are ready to listen and
interpret signs of communication, and are able to stimulate interaction.
The one who has the ability to listen to the child’s needs, be comforting
and yet supportive of new adventures, has been called by Winnicott a ‘good
enough mother’. He describes three functions of the good-enough mother:
holding, handling and object-presenting. Holding refers to the capacity of
the mother to identify herself with the child and care for and protect the
child to the best of her ability. Handling is the way the mother stimulates the
joys of bodily functions and supports the ‘beingness’ of the baby.
Object-presenting involves the mother as the primary person who initially
presents the surrounding world of objects and people in such a way that the
child can internalize and thus deal with them (Winnicott 1965).
The story of Susanna speaks of how music can contain feelings of terror
and fear of annihilation from an early age that are so strong that they could
easily fragment the person. It also shows how music can facilitate the
development of basic trust with clients, like Susanna, who have not
experienced adequate mothering while growing up.
Susanna was a 47-year-old mother of five children when she sought
therapy with a desire to heal her crippled body and work through her
relationship with her mother. She was wounded in the core of her being, as
she carried the stigma of not being a welcomed child. Later in life, she
learned that her mother had tried to abort her by acting in such ways that she
could have a miscarriage. Susanna suffered from abuse and major losses as a
child; she presented multiple somatic problems and showed difficulties in the
areas of attachment, separation and differentiation. Her attempt to heal
herself was to have many children. In mothering her children she was also
trying to mother herself. But as the children were growing up and beginning
to separate, Susanna’s somatic symptoms worsened. She thought this was
due to her poor relationship with her own mother, who had died one year
before Susanna started therapy. During the two and a half years of weekly
treatment, Susanna worked primarily through a receptive music approach,
along with an occasional expressive music and movement session where she
would put significant images into a musical form and then let the sounds
move her body. At times she would use oil pastel drawings to give shape to
her inner states. She would, for example, sit down at the beginning of a
session and make a ‘check in’ drawing, which she would use as a starting
point for continuing the work in music. She would also bring in poems and
creative writings that captured her current mood and longings.
One early music experience presented the image of an evil queen who
wanted to destroy her. In subsequent sessions this theme, which related to her
negative self-image and her biological mother, was explored further. Susanna
had difficulties in tolerating strong affect, yet in her sessions her affect was
able to be expressed and held safely, contained within the images themselves.
One breakthrough occurred about a year into treatment when the music
evoked the image of a depressed mother who was unable to care for her
newborn infant. Susanna was stuck and experienced a sense of numbness. I
suggested a musical improvisation. After some warm-up music, she moved
into a realm which I call the ‘arena of authentic music’. This is a space of
timelessness and profound creativity where the music coming forth is an
expression of the true self (Wärja 1994). The sound has its own form; like a
fetus traveling through the birth canal, it demands to be born. The self seeks
expression; its sound demands to be shaped into an audible form. Susanna
moved between small bells, drums and larger gongs. As she played, tears were
streaming down her face; the music was created by caressing the instruments,
hitting them, shouting at them, holding them close and thrusting them away.
In the months that followed, Susanna could connect with her feelings more
fully and began to differentiate among a larger range of feeling states. She
faced images holding intense affect, such as hate, rage, terror, shame and
longing. In her daily life she was able to do her job without somatizing
(Wärja 1996).
MUSIC AS MOTHER 179
About one year later in our work, we entered the scene of one of the major
traumas which had shaped Susanna’s life. For some weeks she had been
drawing images using red, purple and blue with a small, shapeless figure
embedded in the colors. Suddenly she realized that this was an image of
herself as an unborn baby stuck inside a toxic womb. Her face was white, and
she said that she felt like screaming but there was no sound inside her, only
black emptiness. I suggested going to the instruments, as my sense was that
the sound was no longer frozen but held just under the surface and that she
needed sounding material to express and shape her feelings:
Susanna begins with a small bell and plays aimlessly with her head bent
over a snare drum in front of her. I am playing along on the big
contrabass xylophone and a matching bell to support her sound. Slowly
the music grows in intensity. Susanna lets go of the bell, grabs the drum
stick and plays a steady forceful beat that lasts a few minutes. My sense is
that she is gaining power. Now she moves over to play the big gong,
using a soft mallet; and now and then she plays a jerky tune on a
xylophone, and then she moves back to the gong. It is like something
inside her has cracked open and her feelings are pouring out. I associate
to the act of cleaning out an old, infected wound. The sound is strong,
clear and demands attention. She begins to use her voice. The sound is
whimpering and whining, and at times she cries out as if experiencing
intense pain. Words begin to be shaped and, half crying, half screaming
she sings, ‘Mother, mother, why, why … mother why didn’t you want me
… what was wrong with me … why did you try to kill me … mother …
mummy, mummy, mummy …’
This was a deeply moving experience. In the weeks that followed, Susanna
would simply lie down on the bed and cry and just be held in music. Not
much was said in words during this time. As Susanna was lying there, I often
played slow baroque music; most frequently I chose Bach. My sense was that
the supportive holding weave of these baroque pieces, together with the
immense beauty of that music, could serve as a good and loving mother.
True and false selves

An important contribution by Winnicott (1971) to the understanding of the
mother–child dyad is the concept of the true and false self. The unique
essence that exists within each infant he calls the ‘true self ’. The term refers to
that which is sincere, unaffected, authentic and original within each person.
The true self is expressed in the spontaneous gesture: the sincere, impulsive
and genuine expression of a child’s feelings. This core part needs positive
and good relationships to grow and develop. If the child does not get
enough good responses to her true self, it will be pushed away and replaced,
as a protection, by a false self. The emotional life of the child suffers, and she
becomes poor and unapproachable. The false self is based on the child’s view
of what significant others expect of her (Tudor-Sandahl 1992).
A discussion of my work with a client, Thomas, provides an illustration of
a man who developed a false self. Thomas had no prior psychotherapeutic
experience and was referred to an expressive arts therapy group which I
co-led with the expressive arts therapist at an out-patient psychiatric clinic. It
was touching to follow him on his journey as he began to discover his true
needs.
Thomas, a 33-year-old single male, was a gifted musician suffering from
severe performance anxiety, panic attacks and insomnia. He had recurring
feelings of falling and of no one being there. My sense was that Thomas had
used music in his life to ‘mother’ himself. For a long time, music had served
this function well. However, as he had not dealt with the root of his problems,
his psyche could no longer hold the tension, and the defenses that had
functioned well previously had now failed. The freedom to make music
without ‘performing’ seemed deeply liberating for Thomas, and he entered
the creative field with awe and a child-like curiosity. The interpersonal
learning that took place, and the experience of not being alone with his
problems in this group of three male and three female clients, clearly had a
strong effect on Thomas’s well-being.
One sequence of events started with a drawing where he expressed his
feelings in the moment. In the drawing, there were a few angular shapes in
different primary colors. As the drawing was explored further in a drama, he
had a strong insight into his family of origin and the controlling subliminal
communication that existed under the surface between family members,
especially in relationship to his mother. Some weeks later, Thomas was the
protagonist in a musical psychodrama in which he understood more fully
how restricted and controlled he felt as a child, how he was forbidden to
make mistakes. He realized that he now lived with an inner meticulous and
sadistic tyrant. This understanding tore apart his view of himself as a
happy-go-lucky Bohemian musician. But, most importantly, he was able to
connect and stay with the feelings of despair and fear of abandonment that
the music had brought him. This was indeed a breakthrough experience in
his therapeutic work which enabled Thomas to begin to face his lack of
MUSIC AS MOTHER 181
adequate mothering. This contact with his true self made it possible for him
to begin to perform in public again (Wärja 1996).
It seemed that Thomas had a ‘sibling’ relationship to his mother and that
she had confided in him very early in his life. This had forced him to become
more grown up to be able to help her out, keep her secrets and be loyal to her.
In relationships with the other women in the group (as well as with us group
leaders), a deep rage would surface unexpectedly. Thomas would relate with
disdain and contempt. His friendly and almost seductive behavior in the
group was, as I saw it, one way he covered up rage and hate towards his
mother. In the beginning of treatment, he did not seem to have any conscious
contact with these layers within his psyche.
Thomas seemed to benefit immensely from the expressive freedom to be
able to move between different modalities. Using other modalities than
music provided new ways for him to nurture and inspire his musician side.
My understanding is that freedom to explore in art, movement, drama and
poetry connected him to his authentic music. At the conclusion of treatment,
Thomas’s panic attacks had decreased, his sleeping had significantly
improved, and he was beginning to enjoy himself as a performing artist.
The intermediary space

In growing and developing, the child creates an important space for playing
where she can have experiences of ‘me’ and ‘not me’. Winnicott (1971) has
called this phenomenon the ‘transitional space’. ‘Me-ness’ refers to that
which separates the person from others and makes him/her recognizable and
special. The ‘not me’ also refers to inner states and experiences that the
person has rejected and pushed aside. The true self relates to an individual’s
experience of me-ness. As the child develops, she experiences a clearly
defined membrane, that is, the surface of the skin that exists between ‘me’
and ‘not me’. She finds she has an inner and an outer side. According to
Winnicott, it is through this development that secondary processes are
founded through which the child gains access to a symbolic approach that
organizes the personal content of the psyche and creates the base for dreams
and fantasy (Lindell-Fjaestad 1989). The transitional space lies between the
mother and the baby and is an internal experience. In healthy development,
the child learns to internalize a good aspect of the mother which sustains her
when the mother is not there. This space for serious playing is critical in the
development of a healthy individual. Often the child finds an object, a
transitional object, that can represent the mother. It is important to point out
that this refers to a physical object that the child charges with a deep
meaning. Throughout life, the intermediary space is an area of creative play
for trying out new skills, for artistic expression, for personal growth and
therapeutic work which can be manifested in the outer physical reality but is
foremost an internal process.
With the developmental theories of the mother–child dyad and the
concept of the transitional space in mind, we shall move to the field of play, a
phenomenological model of engaging in therapeutic music-making.
The field of play

Kenny (1989) speaks of this aspect of music as direct experience in
presenting a phenomenological approach to music therapy called the ‘field of
play’. This approach provides a holistic model of engagement in music that
consists of three primary elements. The concept of interrelating fields is
fundamental to this model. The primary elements, or fields, are the aesthetic,
the musical space and the field of play. The ‘aesthetic’ refers to the field of
beauty that is the human person. As two people make music together, each
brings an aesthetic environment that consists of who they are and all the
potential they hold. The ‘musical space’ is the intimate and private world that
is created as the client and therapist make music together. It is a joining of
sounds, of relating to each other’s musical worlds. The ‘field of play’ is an
expansion. It does not always emerge when two people make music together
but, when it happens, one knows. It involves entering a new level, one of
experimenting, of trying out new sounds and ways of being and relating. The
experience can be one of awe and wonder at what is possible as the music
pours forth, as if one moves beyond one’s limits and taps into a collective
pool of music.
The above-described field of play has much in common with Winnicott’s
transitional space, which is created between mother and child. In this space,
the child can explore, play, gain confidence, grow and become increasingly
more capable and independent. The act of playing is central to the
development of the child; and in the healthy mother–child, interaction, the
child is mirrored, affirmed and thus develops basic trust and self-confidence.
I believe that this ability of the arts to bring about direct experience is one of the
founding principles of expressive arts therapy. These experiences occur
within the field of play, the transitional space. When I sing, play instruments,
move, dance, draw or write, I am involved on many levels. There are
kinesthetic activities, emotional experiences, cognitive processes and
MUSIC AS MOTHER 183
interactional events. When I engage in a creative act, I enter a world in which

only the moment exists. This world is a timeless dwelling place, a magical
realm where there is room for needs, for dialoguing longings, urges, wishes,
whimsical ideas and consciously experienced feelings, as well as unconscious
images that can carry me to unknown territory. Involvement in the arts
provides me with complex sensory experiences.
Returning to the concept of music as mother, I would like to present a
vignette from the work with Lars, which lasted for about five years of weekly
sessions. This example describes working in the field of play with the aim of
inviting and hopefully enabling Lars to develop a sense of ‘me’ and ‘not me’.
My assessment was that Lars had not been adequately mothered and that the
initial work needed to focus on holding and attachment through sound.
According to Bowlby (1988), the prime concern of the infant is not for food
and sleep but to relate and attach. Bowlby speaks of the importance of
developing a secure base which involves the ability to attach emotionally to
the primary care-taker, most often the biological mother. Contact with her is
the base from which the child can explore the world. If this base is secure,
then the child develops optimally. If unreliable, the child develops anxieties
and varying degrees of relational problems. If the base is non-existent, the
child grows up with problems in the area of trust, contact, security and
intimacy.
Lars was around 30 years of age when I first met him. He had lived in
psychiatric institutions for more than half of his life, as he was hospitalized in
his early teens for acting out and bizarre and self-destructive behavior. He
was described as having recurrent psychotic episodes with violent outbursts.
He was an only child of a single mother, and the contact between them was
poor and very sporadic. Treatment seemed to fail for Lars, and he became
more and more encapsulated and institutionalized. Lars’s isolation increased
with institutional life and, after some years, he stopped talking altogether.
Some time before Lars was referred to me, it was decided that the mental
hospital where he was living was going to close down and the patients were
to be placed out in the community and connected to an out-patient team. The
hospital staff were very concerned with the fate of Lars, as he had not been
outside the hospital for over a decade and could not care for his basic needs.
As a ‘last resort’, the treating psychiatrist hoped that music therapy would be
a way to help Lars. The psychiatrist knew that Lars had been a member of a
boys’ choir before being hospitalized, and he had noticed that Lars became
engaged when music was played on the radio or during sing-along activities
on the ward. After meeting Lars for an assessment, it was decided that we
would begin to work together. As I discuss my work with Lars, it is
important to remember that this was a team effort. Generally speaking, the
staff were supportive of my work with Lars, and he had engaged and caring
case managers at his side.
At the time of our first meeting, Lars had not communicated verbally for
over ten years. Initially, the main avenues for our contact were music and
movement. I would improvise on the piano and rhythm instruments as a way
to hold and mirror Lars’s movements. The following session, which occurred
eight months into the work, describes how an interaction between us was
shaped. This session was the first time Lars made active contact with me.
Lars arrives and stands in the doorway; he gives me a fleeting glance and
walks away leaving the door open. I can hear him moving around in the
corridor. I start playing a soft melody with a steady bass on a large
wooden xylophone. I still hear Lars as he moves around. I pick up a
humming melody as I continue to play on the xylophone. After a few
minutes, Lars walks into the room. He doesn’t look at me. He simply
walks into the sound and starts to move his arms as if flying. His body is
amazingly graceful and far removed from the repetitive movements I
have seen as he paces up and down the corridors in the hospital. I follow
Lars as he dances, picking up the rhythm and the intensity along with
him, and letting the holding bass just stay there within the sound. Lars’s
movements pick up speed and become more intense. He moves with big
steps around the room, and each foot is placed hard on the floor:
boom-cha-boom-cha-boom-cha. His face is alive and engaged. The
music is with him, containing and urging forward a tiny bit. Suddenly, he
stops at the far end of the room. His arms drop, his shoulders slope, his
face is motionless and flat, and he seems to want to leave the room or sink
down to the floor. I continue to play, more softly now. Lars just stands
there without moving. All the life and vitality that were there a moment
ago are gone. Then quickly he takes a few big steps towards me, comes up
very close and looks me right in the face without looking away. It seems
that he is studying my face. His gaze is clear and seemingly curious. In
that moment, he reminds me of a baby studying the face of the mother. I
meet his gaze and continue to make music. Then a barely audible
crooning sound comes forth from somewhere within him. For about 15
seconds we are singing together. As Lars is letting the sound out, his
body sways slowly to the beat of the bass tones. It is a touching moment.
Then, as quickly as he came, Lars moves away and resumes his flying-like
MUSIC AS MOTHER 185
motion around the room, and as he moves he now and then looks back at
me.
During the first year of our work, I rarely used words; instead, I would hum
and croon. Lars seemed to relate to the sound of my voice. My aim was to
tune into his world, responding to his movements, gestures and rhythm by
using sound. Stern writes about this in presenting one of his major concepts:
affect attunement (Stern 1985). This refers to the sounding response from the
mother as a way of connecting, communicating and holding the baby. The
mother’s voice is a musical instrument which is synchronized in rhythm to
the movements and needs of her baby. The voice can vary in intensity. The
sounds can be sharp and staccato-like, or the contour of the melody can be
smooth and pianissimo. It can begin with an intense forte and slowly die
away in a diminuendo. The mother uses her voice to comfort and protect her
child. Her voice conveys feelings and support, and is also an encouraging
force that sends out a sounding message for the baby to reach out and take
steps in its development. Where the affect attunement is out of rhythm, there
is usually a disturbance in the mother–child dyad.
My sense is that the work Lars and I did stemmed from a very early
developmental phase in his life. Our interaction began at a psychological
time before symbols were formed. Slowly during the following two years,
Lars began to develop symbolic thinking; with this came his speech. Lars
began to communicate through words. One word at first, then two-word
sentences and, at the end of our five years together, he would express himself
in more complete sentences. One clear example of his symbolic thinking was
his need now and then to take something with him from the session. It could
be a small instrument, but most often it was a record; the staff reported that he
often played this record on the ward.
After three years of music therapy, the team decided that it was time for
Lars to move to a small treatment home in the city where he would live
together with two other men and have daily contact with staff. This home
was within walking distance of the out-patient clinic where I worked. The
transition went smoothly, and Lars seemed content with his new home.
During the last two years of music therapy, the focus was on
separation/individuation; slowly Lars gained more independence. We had
one period of nursery singing. I would sing for Lars, and he would rest on the
floor or move around in the room as I sang. Then came a period of listening
to music by The Beatles and The Who. I learned that Lars used to listen to this
music when he was a teenager in the time period before he was hospitalized.
As we terminated our work together, Lars seemed well adjusted to his new
home; he would take daily walks in the surroundings or would go on
excursions around the city by public transportation. He started going weekly
to an activity center, where he worked in art, listened to music and
socialized. It is obvious that Lars’s quality of life was greatly improved.
Keeping the experience with Lars in mind, we now turn to look at how
music can serve as a mother in the time before symbol formation. Here, music
is seen as the primary agent for initiating change within the psyche of an
individual. The music evokes, challenges, energizes and sometimes simply
provokes and confronts. It is there to reflect internal states and to bring up
material from both the personal unconscious and the collective.
The role of music in reaching pre-symbolic levels

Prior to the formation of symbolic representation – that is, before the age of
approximately one and a half years – the infant is probably only capable of
abstracting its interactions. It cannot yet create an ‘object’, a symbol, of a
process, but likely has a bodily and feeling-oriented memory in
sensory-mother Gestalts. Thus there are inner representations from this time
that can be recalled as memory images. In this early time in the infant’s life,
the world consists of sounds, rhythm and darkness/light. Even though it is
nearly impossible to describe this early time in words, we must try our best to
understand and make sense of it as it holds many answers to ‘why we become
the way we do’. With the development of video technology and the
knowledge of how to ask questions of infants, many old developmental
theories no longer hold. Stern has tried to put words to the experiences of an
infant in his book Diary of a Baby (1990). I find it interesting to note that he
uses musical language and metaphors from the world of the arts to describe
what might be going on in the baby’s world.
A phenomenon from this time prior to symbol formation, first described
by Langer (1967), is the vitality affects, which Stern has researched further.
The term refers to bodily events and sensations that are going on all the time
within us and which stem from uneasiness, pleasure, tension and release.
Here, again, musical language is used to describe these processes: crescendo,
diminuendo, tempi, filling up, explosive, tuning in. These phenomena can be
likened to a wave filling up inside and then dying out. The wave can be soft
and slow or intense and explosive. These states are evoked through the
relationship and behavior of others, as in the way the mother holds her baby
or the manner in which the diaper is changed. It is believed that the baby
MUSIC AS MOTHER 187
perceives the vitality affects and stores them as bodily memories. And then,
suddenly in response to the touch of another person in the present, the adult
can be under their influence.
In a recent paper, Stern (1996, p.5) stated:
I will suggest that certain basic experiences of time and form that are
common to our encounter with music, are also common to an infant’s
ordinary, daily, socio-affective interactions … It is in large part through
[these] transmodal transfers of information of form and timing from
another into ourselves that we can emotionally understand what it is like
to be them and to identify with them. In a sense, our nervous system can
be ‘captured’ by expressions of vitality that emanate from others, or that
come from music. It is in this way that music, also, is processed and
‘enters’ into the listener’s mind and body to capture his feelings.
In the light of the above theories, I suggest that music can take an individual
back, at some level, to a time in early infancy before language was developed.
Lacan (1973) argues that the unconscious is constituted as a language. Could
it not then be possible that music is a language that speaks directly to the
vitality affects; in other words, is not music the sounding experience of
vitality affects?
Mothering qualities of music

Music evokes feelings
Music’s foremost quality is its ability to bring forth feelings. Music can enable
the person to approach and experience emotional areas otherwise avoided.
One can say that music is safe, and yet the paradox is that music is more direct
than words, since it is an ambiguous language and can be interpreted in many
ways.
Music can be experienced as having all those diverse qualities that can be
experienced in relationship to the real mother. The sound can, for example,
be invasive, smothering, aggressive or positive, holding, caring, loving and
safe. In other words, music can be both a warm and nurturing and a fearsome,
destructive mother figure. How is it that music seems to possess the ability to
bring forth images of such extreme polarity? There are no easy answers to
this question. Each individual experiences music in highly subjective ways; it
can become that which the client needs to encounter inside himself in order
to grow. The field of play is rich in texture, movement, dynamic tension and
harmonic structure; infinite responses are embedded within the musical

language. Therefore, images of opposite poles can be shaped, experienced,
held, integrated and transformed.
In the course of treatment, various levels of transference processes occur.
The music can become a space/field in which the client can project feelings
that are too difficult to carry. It is up to the therapist to contain this material
and help the client look at it when she is psychologically able. The musical
space is a sacred container which is larger than life. It is a space of surprises,
wonder, despair and suffering where anything can happen. The therapist and
the client are in the musical space together. This is not a hierarchical
relationship; the emphasis is on togetherness. In this space there is a
co-transference to the music and to the images the music evokes. The earlier
the developmental wounds, the more likely that the transference will come
up in the music. In both receptive and expressive music therapy, it is possible
for the client to have parallel transference processes. The music might have
brought up negative mother images while at the same time directing a
positive, trusting relationship towards the therapist. The reverse can happen
as well: the music being good and holding while the therapist is experienced
as negative and non-trustworthy. For clients with early developmental
problems, such as borderline personality disorders, the music can function as
projective identification where the client deposits toxic material. Then
slowly, with the help of the music and careful interpretation by the therapist,
the poison can be taken back in ‘digestible form’ and integrated in a way that
does not threaten the psyche. Thus the split between the good and the bad
mother can begin to heal (Wärja 1995).
I shall now return to the story of Susanna told above, and look at one
more piece of her journey. As mentioned, Susanna had not been adequately
mothered; in fact, she had had a cold, rejecting and punitive mother. The
theme of longing to be mothered was central throughout our work. About
one and a half years into our work, Susanna had a significant experience in a
receptive music journey. I suggested three different doors with the
instruction to open the door and step inside a room where she would meet an
aspect of herself. I left her in the room for exploration with about three
minutes of classical music, and then I guided her out and to the next door.
This experience brought to her mind three different parts that all related to
the mother-theme. It also showed that Susanna had begun to internalize a
good nurturing figure that was beyond her biological mother. First she met
the abandoned child, two to three years of age. This was a sad image of a
MUSIC AS MOTHER 189
small child with not enough protection. In the second aspect, she
experienced herself as a mother. And as she nurtured her baby, she also
nurtured herself. In the last image she met a totally new acquaintance. She
called her Sue. Sue was an embodiment of what was possible; a woman in her
own right, who followed her own path towards fulfillment and who was
strong, nurturing, capable, set limits and stood up for her own needs. The
connection with these positive and empowering female images gave Susanna
courage to face the hurt inflicted by her mother.
In the months ahead, as Susanna faced the abandonment of her mother,
she had the following GIM experience. The music that was used was
Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.
I am walking up a staircase. It’s like walking inside a skeleton. The
skeleton has no head. It is cold and chilling. An older woman comes
down the skeleton. She has a veil, like a witch. Her face is dark and
prickly. Ice and coldness. The face is sharp and evil. Not angry, but evil
… I saw my mother walk up the stairs. She was young and well dressed
… dressed in mourning clothes. I must talk with her: ‘Why did you leave
me?’ (Cries) … I want to reach out to her … Now she reaches out her
hand. I hesitate … ‘I have longed so much for the real you.’ [Cries] … A
diamond. She gives me a diamond. She gives it with kindness and
without reservation. She is young and beautiful. Now she is gone. The
diamond is small and round … Now she is flying, she smiles at me. She
had to go. Yes, today is that day. I like to fly with her. I am sitting on an
eagle. I fly beside her. It’s early morning.
Receiving a gift from her mother was deeply moving and seemed to give
Susanna energy to care more for herself. This session occurred on the
anniversary date of her mother’s death, three years earlier. In the last year of
treatment, Susanna’s physical condition slowly improved and, at the
conclusion of treatment, her somatic symptoms of severe rheumatism and
allergy had decreased significantly.
Music as holding
Winnicott speaks of one of the most important phases in the child’s
development as the ‘holding phase’. This early handling and holding is a
way the mother can show her love to the infant. Holding also includes the
total environment around the child. A holding environment is loving and
caring; it gives the child access to different kinds of object relationships. Its
most important task is to protect the child from invasion of its boundaries
(Winnicott 1965). Balint describes how infants need physical contact with
an individual whom the baby perceives through its feelings. The utmost aim
of the infant is to be loved and satisfied without having any obligation to
give anything back in return (Balint 1965, 1968). And as Winnicott (1965)
stated, the only way to express this love is in the physical care of the infant.
Positive maternal touch creates a ‘home base’ of body experiences within the
baby. The child can return to this base inside to sort out confusing messages
about her body. If the child has not experienced enough positive maternal
touch, there can be a tendency to sexualize touch or become afraid of any
kind of touch from others.
Using music can be of great help for individuals who have not been
adequately touched, held and handled, due to its ability to bring about
various kinds of bodily and kinesthetic experiences. These can be negative
(such as being knocked around, pushed or slapped) or positive (such as being
held, caressed, comforted and nurtured). In order not to overwhelm the client
or ‘re-traumatize’ him/her, it is critical that the facilitator assess the
developmental level and needs of the client and choose the music approach
accordingly. The first task is to create a holding environment, a secure base,
and later, when the client is ready, to provide a musical field that invites
exploration. In receptive music therapy, the music should have an appropriate
level of challenge, that is, music that is good enough. And in expressive music
therapy, the structure of the musical field needs to provide enough holding to
invite exploration. If the person is dealing with issues from infancy, the
archaic mother might come forth in the music. If the person is lacking early
holding and handling, the music needs to convey security and tenderness so
that basic trust can begin to form. The client who has been emotionally
suffocated in the tight embrace of an overprotective mother is better aided by
music that helps build the power necessary to be able to struggle and
separate.
Matthis, a psychoanalyst, speaks of the positive mother in a way that
supports my view of the mothering music that is good enough:
In the mother–child relationship there is also an assurance, an innate
security and a resting in the relationship that carries the child across
abysses, that conveys and speaks to the child of a will to live. I like to
name it ‘maternal flow’ because it is an uninterrupted stream, an
existence, i.e., that space that lacks symbols and language. (Matthis
1992, p.81; author’s translation)
MUSIC AS MOTHER 191
I believe there is a maternal flow which music presents that can bring the
individual to places before symbolic language was developed. Music that has
this ability tends to be predictable in rhythmic, harmonic and dynamic
structure. As the good mother, the music is experienced as holding, reliable
and secure. This flow of uninterrupted sound merges with the presence of the
therapist to create an environment which can become trustworthy enough to
dare to face fearsome aspects of the mother and to express longings and
needs, as well as providing energy for empowerment.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have looked specifically at the healing process with mothers
in the context of music-oriented expressive arts therapy. Mothers bring up
feelings as vast and turbulent as the seven seas. Like the seas, the feelings are
deep, infinite and of other worlds. The knowing that we, for a period of time,
lived inside this other person who was the enveloping world that supported
and sustained our existence is unfathomable. The experiences carved
memories into our cells long before language was developed. To be able to
deal with archaic experiences, one needs an avenue that can both connect
with this material and at the same time hold and handle it in ways that do not
become overwhelming. I suggest that music has these qualities.
Music accesses the pre-verbal, uncovers pain and at the same time builds
the power needed to face the hurt. Music has enveloping, enwrapping
qualities that are characterized by a good-enough matrix in early infancy.
Music moves into the body and works on a kinesthetic level to open up
blocked feelings. Music also holds and gives form to experiences for which
there are no symbolic representations. It is as if the music ‘massages’ the cells
of muscles and nerve endings and then presents the psyche with images. The
image could be a representation of an inner state, an actual event that has
taken place or representations prior to the development of symbols.
A person who has been wounded in his/her core identity needs to be held
and handled to heal. In instances where there have been hurtful experiences
at a very early age, it is often difficult to retrieve appropriate material. The
pain has been inflicted long before verbal language was developed. The
person has often no conscious memory of the handling by the mother but a
felt sense that something was wrong. Sometimes there are memory fragments
or negative bodily sensations. Other indications could be feelings such as
shame, fears of invasion, feelings of impingement, vague or non-functioning
boundaries or various psychosomatic symptoms. Finding avenues to reach
and deal with early trauma, that might not have a name or a form, is a
challenge. The strength of music is that it travels to pre-verbal layers. It is in
this way that music conveys emotions, carries affect, brings dynamic
movement and builds power. Music, the queen of time, takes us to the
never-ending now.
References
Achterberg, J. (1985) Imagery in Healing: Shamanism and Modern Medicine. Boston:
Shambhala.
Aigen, K. (1995) ‘An aesthetic foundation of clinical theory: an underlying basis of
creative music therapy.’ In C. Kenny Bereznak (ed) Listening, Playing, Creating: Essays on
the Power of Sound. New York: State University of New York Press.
Balint, M. (1965) Primary Love and Psycho-Analytic Technique. London: Tavistock
Publications.
Balint, M. (1968) The Basic Fault: Therapeutic Aspects of Regression. London: Tavistock
Publications.
Bonny, H. (1978a) Facilitating GIM Sessions. Baltimore, MD: ICM Books.
Bonny, H. (1978b) The Role of Taped Music Programs in the GIM Process: Theory and Product.
Baltimore, MD: ICM Books.
Bowlby, J. (1988) A Secure Base. London: Routledge.
Chamberlain, D.B. (1988) ‘The mind of the newborn: increasing evidence of
competence.’ In P.G. Fedor-Freyberg and M.L.V. Vogel (eds) The Prenatal and Perinatal
Psychology and Medicine. Carnforth, Lancs: The Parthenon Publishing Group.
Goldberg, F. (1989) ‘Toward a theory of guided imagery and music and guided imagery
and music as group and individual treatment for hospitalized psychiatric patients.’
Unpublished paper, Bonny Foundation.
Goldberg, F. (1992) ‘Images of emotion: the role of emotion in guided imagery and
music.’ Journal of the Association for Music & Imagery 1, 5–17.
Graves, P.L. (1980) ‘The functioning fetus.’ In S.I. Greenspan and G.H. Pollock (eds) The
Course of Life: Psychoanalytic Contributions Towards Understanding Personality Development.
Vol 1: Infancy and Childhood. Maryland: NIMH.
Kenny, C. (1989) The Field of Play: A Guide for the Theory and Practise of Music Therapy.
Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company.
Knill, P., Barba, H.N. and Fuchs, M. (1995) Minstrels of Soul. Intermodal Expressive Therapy.
Lacan, J. (1973). The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis. New York: Norton &
Company.
Langer, S. (1967) Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling Volume I. Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University.
Lindell-Fjaestad, M. (1989) Kroppen är den bok som själen skriver. Stockholm: Svenska
föreningen för psykisk hälsovård.
Matthis, I. (1992) Det Omedevtnas Arkeologi. Köping: Nature och Kultur.
MUSIC AS MOTHER 193
Moreno, J. (1980) ‘Musical psychodrama: a new direction in music therapy.’ Journal of

Music Therapy 17, 1, 34–42.
Stern, D. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and
Developmental Psychology. New York: Basic Books.
Stern, D. (1990) Diary of a Baby. New York: Basic Books.
Stern, D. (1996) ‘Temporal aspects of an infant’s daily experience: some reflections
concerning music.’ Keynote address at the World Congress of Music Therapy in
Hamburg, 18 July 1996. To appear in Le Temps de La Form.
Stewart, L. (1987) ‘A brief report: affect and archetype.’ Journal of Analytical Psychology 32,
1, 35–46.
Tudor-Sandahl, P. (1992) Den Fängslande Verkligheten: Objektrelationsteori i Praktiken.
Helsingborg: Walström & Widstrand.
Wärja, M. (1994) ‘Sounds of music through the spiraling path of individuation: a Jungian
approach to music psychotherapy.’ Music Therapy Perspectives, National Association for
Music Therapy, Inc. 12, 2, 75–83.
Wärja, M. (1995) ‘Music and mother – the use of guided imagery and music in working
with the mother–daughter relationship.’ Unpublished paper, Bonny Foundation.
Wärja, M. (1996) ‘The House of the Seven Muses – a research project.’ Music therapists in
collaboration with other creative arts therapists. American Association For Music Therapy,
Music Therapy International Report 10, 45–50.
Winnicott, D.W. (1965) The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment. London:
Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Winnicott, D.W. (1971) Playing and Reality. London: Tavistock Publications.
Woodman, M. (1982) Addiction to Perfection. Toronto: Inner City Books.
Further reading
Bonny, H. and Savery, L. (1973) Music and Your Mind. New York: Harper & Row.
Grof, S. (1985) Beyond the Brain. New York: State University of New York Press.
Kernberg, O. (1980) Internal World and External Reality: Object Relations Theory Applied.
New York: Jason Aronson, Inc.
Klein, M. (1957). Envy and Gratitude. New York: Basic Books.
Langer, S. (1942) Philosophy in a New Key. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Langer, S. (1953) Feeling and Form. New York: Scribner.
Langer, S. (1967) Mind: An Essay on Human Feelings,Vol I. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins.
Mahler, M.S., Pine, F. and Bergman, A. (1975) The Psychological Birth of the Infant. London:
Hutchinson.
Ramberg, L. (1992) Tänkbart. Om individuation och tillhörighet. Stockholm: Mareld.
Sandell, R. (1984) Det Psykosomatiska Sambandet Mellan Mor och Barn. Stockholm: St
Lukasstiftelsen.
CHAPTER 10
Between Imagination and Belief

Poetry as Therapeutic Intervention
Margo Fuchs
The basis of poetry is imagination, a going beyond what we ordinarily

believe. Yet the poetic imagination makes belief possible, a belief that life is
worth living; that love, beauty and truth, the ‘sovereign utterances’,1 exist.
This chapter will reflect on the relationship of poetry to imagination and
belief. In so doing, it will suggest the possibility of poetic intervention as an
essential act in expressive arts therapy.
When life’s sovereign utterances

tune in with one’s imaging voice,
spontaneous and unconditional,
the spell of circling feelings is broken
and
as created beings, we become creative,
pointing out through the artistic creation
to a creator
Poetry and imagination

Let us start by looking at the character of poetry, its existence in a wordy
world. To inquire into the nature of poetry-making will be a next step. Third,
as a re-play and re-imagining, we go on the quest called poetic experience.
Usually products come first; they immediately get our attention. We tend
to have an eye for the tangible, the thingly presence; we are enmeshed in
1 The expression ‘sovereign utterances’ derives fro the Danish philosoper, Løgstrup’s
expression ‘the sovereign life utterances’; cf. Chapter 3 by Majken Jacoby in this
volume.
195
seeking the not-graspable as a sensory presence. We want to hear it, to see it,
to touch it … and put it aside. We are fast in re-viewing, and letting go. We
see in order to have seen it. Poetry, in claiming the heights and depths of
human understanding, comes in just right there. In its life span of a second, it
opens us to a whole world of sorrow and joy. Its shooting-star nature lets
mountains turn to dust, lets lovers’ blossoming nights be cradled by
feathered wings. And it mocks us when we try to get its timeless meaning,
consuming it in a quick way as we are used to reading the headlines of the
news in the newspaper. Poetry cannot be grasped or touched like the thingly
world, it touches us by its not tangible imagination.
Poetry is seemingly here for those who have access to it, are ‘higher
spirited’ in nature. It speaks an uncommon, mysterious language, speaks in
waves of eternal blood pulsating through the veins of human flesh, lets the
ruins of memories blossom in longing. Why does it speak that way, why
couldn’t it just say that human beings are born to die, are ephemeral? Poetry
doesn’t seek the word, it wants to get rid of it. Words are a threshold into
realms of imagination, of image-thought. Not the tower of words is
foreground, much more the elusive imagination which lifts words into the
freedom of uncensored realities, of manifold layered meaning.
What kind of world is this, which makes us see things we actually don’t
see? You can see the ocean while you are literally sitting on a chair in a
fifth-floor apartment. You can see without a corresponding perception of the
immediate environment. A horse, galloping through the desert of a country
you have never visited, or a thunder storm on a remote island which wipes
away all the ancient huge trees like cartoon figures. This seeing without a
‘real’ object sprouts from the source and force of imagination. Poetry is a
literal act of making, and a making of non-literal reality.
Actually, you don’t read poetry, you see it. The language of imagination is
accessible to all of us, crossing biographical backgrounds, education, cultures
and beliefs.
Poetry is make believe

Imagination is the bridge between longing and reality. A double move, until
reality merges with imagination and imagination slips into reality.
Poetry is a desire for actuality. Yet it does not articulate the probable or the
possible. Its imagery colors the impossible probability.
The ‘as if ’ is the world of imagination. Something is like something else,
and the ‘let’s pretend’ makes it real. Poetry is about this is like that, and also
BETWEEN IMAGINATION AND BELIEF 197
this is that. Metaphoric content dissolves. Poetry does not show similarities
or differences. It exposes. Poetry is effected and effects by final calls. The
irreducible.
Question mark:
what will happen,
if the question
meets the mark?
Question marks:
I do all the questioning
and you death dressed up in life
answer with the ticking of the clock.
Poetry represents belief so we can understand.

Some view poetry as making direct statements about reality to its maker.
Others say that poetry has nothing to do with subject matter.
In fact, poetry is neither identical to reality nor isolated from it, but a
‘virtual realm’ (Nehamas 1996). This virtual realm exists by its essence or
effect. Poetry ‘affects’ as a sign of reality and as a self-contained entity. That
is, poetry can point to a belief world beyond but presents itself also as the
primary object of interest. Poetry affects us with its poetic logic. In poetry,
thought speaks in imagery. Knowledge doesn’t come as a moral sermon,
information or facts. Its imaginative word play makes sense and we
understand intuitively.
The virtual realm is not a pre-state for getting to higher reasoning, nor is it
above reasoning; it is beyond. Poetry is unreasonable and challenges our way
of reasoning.
Poetry doesn’t try to convince, it is convincing.
Poetry is made by belief

It thinks and speaks in imagery. Its thought body can take you into
uninhabited realms; the unthinkable becomes visible and makes you think
about the invisible.
The path
you begin
to believe
what you see
and
you see
in what you believe;
each image
a
give-a-way
to the seer’s
imagination.
Let us now inquire into the nature of poetry by asking, how can it come
forth?
The making of poetry takes place far away from belief

The making of poetry is a trivial profane act. It happens sitting at the
computer, sitting in a train, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea or
coffee and a cigarette. You go to a restaurant, order a glass of wine and write.
You watch a sunset at a deserted beach, go back to your car and create Haiku,
or you indulge yourself eating Swiss chocolate and write a love poem.
The making of poetry is play. A play with words.
Now play me, words

me now, words play
play now words me
words play now me
play words me NOW
The word-play takes low skill but high concentration. Word play helps you
to stay in the moment. It lives from being led by the power of the ‘thing’ and
the spiraling constitution of repetition. Its nature is surrendering to the
emerging, allowing the process to be fulfilling. To play with words, the
writer has the following tools: the rhythm which is inherent to each
language, the analogy, the will to create and let go of it, and the power of
imagination. Forget poetry so it can come. Poetry is the unexpected, it comes
as a surprise.
‘Let’s play with words’ doesn’t just happen. You meet resistance, the
indifferent and superficial, the judge, the block. Plays have winners and
losers. In the word-play you are on both sides.
The writer
Dare to go the path of stones
slippery and wet
Dare to long for the other shore,
for
you know the place of sounds hitting the bottom.
As a play of language, poetry is based on alienation, deviation, over-

structuring, leaving out and shortness:
• Alienation, deviation. Language is taken out of its automatic function.
It startles the reader and makes him listen attentively. Great
examples are Laing’s poems in his Knots (1972). He takes an
ordinary thought, such as ‘There must be something the matter
with him’, and goes into various thought word-plays with it.
Finally, it becomes obvious through the wording itself that ‘there
must be something the matter with them and us’, rather than him.
• Over-structuring. Poetry can have overlaps, such as reality shifts,
time twists, binds, paradoxes, polarities, exaggerations and
understatements. It brings the reader into an ‘unreal reality’, the
reality of the artificial which mocks our sense of time and space,
order, and right or wrong thinking. In Rilke’s Duino Elegies
(1989a), for instance, there is a world space filled with spaces of
flight, voices, spaces of the early departed, fortune’s favorites,
pouring out beauty, evaporation, the swinging emptiness and
nights of endless uproar. Nothing stands still. Prehistory melts into
an ‘it is time’, everything at once is within a timeless now-time.
• Leaving out. The stated is emphasized by the unsaid. The reader’s
attention goes unwillingly between the line. It is as if there is a
transparent door through which one can peek into a room filled
with many-layered revelation. In that way the reader becomes an
innate component of the poem with his bonding imagining. Here
might be an indication of what is distinctive between scientific and
poetic researching. The sciences offer information, data, models,
thought-packages, systematically wrapped up. Yes, also

questioned, but from a data base, from an outspoken frame. The
reader has to crawl into it completely and follow it closely to not
fall out of its stream of thought. The ‘leaving out’ is considered to
be a blind spot to be filled with new and more adequate findings.
Poetry goes the other way around; it creates little blind spots to
open up to a notion of the big, unexplainable wheel of life, where
torture lives next to the intimacy of bodily delight. The bonding
imagining dis-connects from the poem, separates with a sense of
unity.
• Shortness. Poetry is essence, density. The reader has no time to
think ‘about’ it, he is affected by a sense of being in it or out of it.
The shortest poem is the Haiku, just three lines to evoke worlds.
Yet shortness doesn’t necessarily mean a shortness in terms of
length. It is a density which shows, the tip of an iceberg, the stew
after hours of cooking.
Paz (1983), in describing the process of writing, speaks of two poetic
principles: separation and return. Poetic creation begins with a destructive
and destructuring act. You uproot words from our daily life-language, take
them out of their common sense and use, and let them come back home to
language for participation.
Poetry is inhabited by two opposing forces: a double movement upwards,
of elevation, and downwards, of gravitation.
Poetry
breaking out
breaking through
but
not breaking apart
going wide
going wild
sailing with the
breeze of life
So far the poetics of belief have been understood by entering a virtual reality,
analyzing the nature of poetry and poetry-writing as a play done to words by
imagination. To write poetry is one side of the poetic experience; on the
other side it calls to be read or heard. Poetry needs witnesses to become alive.
What exactly is this poetic experience?
Poetry gives people a chance. It is available for all of us, regardless of
background. Its understanding is based on tacit knowledge and doesn’t need
academic training. Poetry only lives in contact with the reader or listener.
Through participation it becomes alive.
The experience of poetry can be profane or sacred. You can hear or read
poetry and it may leave you untouched, you may get bored or just not get it. It
might be that it isn’t your style, that it is not the right time to let it enter, or it
might be that you put it aside too early, because it doesn’t sound familiar.
Poems are unique and not repeatable creations. Each text is different from the
others. Poetry is never common sense, never in fashion. Poetry is a norm
breaker, a revolutionary with an innocent veil. It comes to you as a stranger,
an unfamiliar guest. First it bewilders you with its newness, not because it is
modern. Poetry likes the difficult. Before you can enter a poetic experience
you meet the difficult. It awakens your resistance, the indifferent and
superficial.
You recognize the poetic experience when you are moved and
astonishment enters you. You are in wonder that poetry speaks to you so
clearly about the seemingly unspeakable. It has words for your stuttering and
speechlessness. You glide into it and extend in this timeless moment yourself.
The possible is in you.
The poetic experience is a union. You find in it what has been living with
you unnoticed.
Senses, skin to skin with the stream of thought.
Poetry wants to be spoken, heard and performed. Poetry is dead without a

poetic experience. You need to re-experience it, to breathe into it, to warm it
with your senses. Its fragile intimacy, its strong vulnerability need your hand.
Stand up for it, read it, hear it, perform it. This is a similar undertaking to
writing. Before you get a ride to be taken by rhythm and imaging play, you
meet the difficult. And there are, of course, breaks in between: stop signs
plead by your judgmental voices: shame, guilt or fear which block the path.
In daily life routine, the numbed well of tears, the gate of renewal, is
usually helpless to find its way out. Poetry, allowed to be read and heard, can
bring tears. When the voice fills the air, it breaks up the silenced. This is
expressive arts therapy, to give the daily life pace a pause to feel.
One aspect of poetic experience is to be astonished, in awe, to be aware of

life and one’s own existence, our relating to the world in its mysterious way.
Aristotle said that astonishment is the beginning of all wisdom. It is the
experience of being unconditionally moved by the quest for the meaning of
life, by the changing and by the fulfillment of the task life sets for us. This is a
sense of unity which was most clearly described by the mystics, an attitude of
not feeling only in accordance with oneself, and not only with one’s dearest
friends, but feeling oneness with all life and even with the universe.
Poetry is alive when it evokes astonishment, being touched and feeling
unity.
Poetry and belief

So far I have laid a ground for the nature of poetry and poetry-making by
talking about imagination as its fertilizer and the poetic experience as the
wonder of a wandering in-sight.
This brings us to the wanderings between poetic imagination and belief.
Through the imaginative force, poetry can become midwife to belief, to
believe into belief.
What does belief mean, what does it mean to believe? Belief is an inner
security which needs no proof. Primarily belief is trust, certainty, strong
conviction. Belief also takes supernatural, transcendental actualities to be
true.
Belief has always been a subject of dispute. Either it is put up on a pedestal
and looked up to as ‘higher’ or it is condemned to be minor, an ‘only’.
Beginning with Plato, and repeatedly, especially in the age of Enlight-
enment, belief was looked at as a deficient and thus dangerous pre-
configuration of knowledge to be overcome. On the other side, Aristotle was
convinced that it was necessary to put emphasis on belief rather than
deduction. Kant also gave less space to deductive thinking, in order to gain
more space for belief, mainly the belief in freedom, God and immortality.
Belief is always a sketch. An outline. A projection into the future. A
design, tracing out future roads with no road signs.
Belief is activated hope. And belief is a risk.
Belief cannot replace scholarship. And scholarship cannot replace belief.
Belief is beyond the acquired belief that life-matters can be proved. And this
is a belief too.
Anselm of Canterbury proclaimed: ‘I believe so I can understand.’
Belief exceeds provable knowledge. It is the base for any new knowledge.
If we look at belief developmentally, it is obvious that belief or disbelief

was prior to knowledge. The child’s acquiring of knowledge begins by
believing the statements of parents and teachers. There was understanding,
for the child, a tacit knowing. And this period of life was the time we learned
fastest and best. Belief was the primary ground we had for orientation and
distraction.
Belief cradles recognition and dissolves it into limbo. Belief is disruptive
and centering at the same time.
Poetry is a matter of dis-belief.

Poetry is believed in and praised for its beauty, sacredness, being soulful,
pleasure-giving, comforting and healing. Or it is condemned to be
dangerous and a sign of madness. One fears that people are, or must literally
become, what poetry represents. Plato, in his Republic, believes that poetry is a
straightforward representation of the lowest aspects of life. The only poetry
Plato allows in his city are hymns to the gods and praises of noble men. Leedy
(1973) informs us that until 1860, many members of medical professions in
the United States believed that the writing of poetry was an indisputable
cause of mental illness.
One believes in something to reach another belief.
It is believed that the unbelievable gives us belief.
I could say that I believe in the belief of my poetry.
The waiting room

I wait for knowing what to believe
and
I do everything to know that I believe.
Poetry: make us believe

May we hear the yearning of the things to be called
by their names and may we become midwives to set
their names free.
In what does poetry believe? Or what is meant by believing in the belief of

poetry? What are the main features of a poetics of belief ? I have come to
believe that poetry can express the three sovereign utterances: love, beauty
and truth. Poetry has the capacity to give utterance to ultimate experiences
upon which belief is grounded. By no means can this chapter cover such a
big subject, yet let us set a beginning for further investigation by looking at
each of these sovereign utterences in turn.
When rain and snow overtake and darkness is still

longer than the day, curl up, cultivate the longing’s
need to grow and Poiesis will call for a lover’s
secret to forget time.
Love is marked by a turning towards a person or a thing, by devotion. It is an

active concentration towards people or things which praises each as unique.
Love is a trinity. It shows as a sensual sensation, a sense of feeling and as an
ethical attitude (Meyers Kleines Lexicon Philosophie 1987, p.251).
Love is sensual, sexual, exotic and erotic. A physical push–pull between
eternal longing, forgetting and universal seconds of sprouting blossoming. A
rhythmical dance to surrender the momentary.
Love as a sense of feeling can be contemplative or active, it is always a
multiple felt-sense. It can be a contemplative love of nature, an active concern
about the well-being of another person, or a religious or mystic praising of
God. Love as a sense of feeling shows its in-visibility as a praising and
lamenting validation of a loved person or thing.
For Jesus, love as an ethical attitude was the most important command. To
love God can already be found in the Old Testament as a command, and as a
command to love one’s fellow men. In the New Testament, love is considered
as redemption.
In myths and early philosophical thought, love appears moreover as a
cosmic force which creates reconciliation between opposing principles.
Hesiod, Plato and Aristotle called this cosmic love which acts like a law of
nature, ‘Eros’.
In Christianity, God is love. Love yourself and you can love others. Love is
personalized. Love is a virtue, to do good for the other.
Love doesn’t erase weaknesses or failures. Love might turn weaknesses
into strong weaknesses, and give strength for daily life. Love is a gift
everybody deserves, yet hardly anybody can fully unwrap. Love needs awe,
play and seriousness. Love in its fidelity goes into the unknown future. Love’s
open-mindedness treasures the ‘in-the-making’.
Forget about poetry if you don’t love it. Cook, dance, listen to music, go
with your passion.
Love can make you want to write. Don’t write about love, write from a
place of love. Look at the act of poetry-writing as a devotion, an active
concentration towards people or things, a praising and lamenting validation
of eternal longings and forgetting, a surrendering of the momentary, a falling
in love with one’s sense of feeling.
Poetry can evoke the sensual, sexual, exotic and erotic.
How can I perceive beauty

when old scars are burning?
Sister, say yes to me with your kissing lips.
Brother, say yes to me with your firm embrace.
Lover, touch my skin again and again
to set the butterflies free.
Beauty is a central term of aesthetics. Beauty is a valuation regarding how a

natural or art object affects the perceiver.
Beauty is effective. Not neatly angled, or well balanced and round. It is
organic, orgiastic. You say, the stars, the flowers, pictures are beautiful. Yet
beauty affects your stillness. It touches your helplessness. Beauty is wonder,
awe, being touched. It wraps you in solitude.
Poetry affects you. And this makes you and the poetry beautiful. Don’t
write beautifully. Poetry gives the demons a space, sets the terrible free,
unchains the fears. In this way Rilke described in his poetry the drunkard, the
beggar, the idiot, the dwarf, the leper, the suicide and called it song (Rilke
1989b, pp.19–35).
Truth, you appear in moments of the blow of fate.
Truth is a central concern of philosophy. There are many different schools of

thought about what truth could be. Independently of their different
opinions, they agree that truth is a characteristic of statements or thoughts.
Yet what truth is cannot only be answered by language and thought. It is also
not guaranteed by the degree of subjective conviction. Truth is inseparable
from our view of the world (Weltbild).
Poetry is transcended personal experience and conviction. It doesn’t
belong to a school of thought, its imaging body of thought is whole. It tricks
thought to get lost and to be found transformed.
Truth is trivial. The ultimate. You are born and will die. There is war and
peace. You need food, air, a shelter, human beings. Sickness and health shape
you. There are more questions than answers. Truth is easy to forget, since you
are glued to it. Truth is not a matter to remember or think about, truth is
sacred. Yet it is made of your daily life. Its force lies dormant to let us live. All
of a sudden its lightning strikes you right through and, shaken to be taken,
you go on with your daily life routine.
Poetry doesn’t make truth into a central theme. Truth is its center. Poetry
doesn’t really elevate it, just allows it a momentary shelter. So it can shine.
What is beautiful is true, and truth makes beautiful.

The search for truth is love’s over-coat.
Between imagination and belief: poetry as therapeutic

intervention
It’s a fact,
I have to act
It’s a fact,
I am in the act !
Poetry is personal, the most intimate language we know, but its concern is not
the literal individual subject. It wants to reach the individual by the general,
by an original archetypal matter. Sometimes by playing with common sense.
Poetry has a chance to ‘intervene’ when we allow it to be in its own right,
not just an extension of ourselves. Extensions only transport what already
exists, what we are familiar with.
Poetry as an intervention in expressive arts therapy comes between by
hopefully unchaining the isolated spinning around of one’s ‘inner voices’.
Other voices break through, like the poetic voice. In relation to this voice,
phenomena change. This is not an additive act, adding to the inner voice
another one. Rather, one’s spinning gets off-centered, falls out of worn-out
balance. It dizzies, de-centers and fuses into relation.
Poetry can widen our view. It is not its intention to improve the world, but
to make it visible. To also let unnoticed or distorted presence shine. Not as a
juice-less replica, but as a strong-willed essence whose force enters our
senses. This is intervention in its original sense: to come between. The poem
as a coming between initiates an active break for a second: a shine-world is

here, a world in the world. Not to cover ‘the real world’, or to change its
outlook. It guides us to cross an invisible boundary with our sensing
imagination. We are allowed to have a real reaction to an unreal world.
Usually in daily life we first tend to have unreal reactions to the real world.
Poetic intervention uses the principle of the ‘coming between’. The dual, the
duel, is broken; the immediate sitting in it is banned; the boundless
nakedness, the exposure, is under a spell. In the poetic experience we see
more than we could experience in the real world. And this is the contribution
of poetry to expressive arts therapy: to get glimpses of insight, to see the
world inside-out, to experience moments of being in-sight. A sensed seeing
is comforting and confronting. It takes both. Only comfort cradles
innocence and only confrontation leaves one in the cold void. We have to
drown to feel the uplifting force of our flesh and muscles; we need to get lost
in despair to experience the rise of the Sun.
Poetry as an intervention comes between one’s own spinning little world
by praising and lamenting what usually gets lost or is hidden. It comforts and
confronts us by its belief that life stays alive and that life is living on life. It
separates individual concerns from their isolation and it weaves them into a
bigger connection.
We all are bound to the grip of decay, we decline as we grow. We march on
the edge of life, a dead end, with no sign to return.
Poetry as an intervention, a coming between, comforts by its beauty and
confronts with its unconditional truth. By speaking the unspeakable it
destructures the certainties of everyday life and puts us into an imaginal
in-between space in which there is no guarantee, only the hope to find a
shelter through the newness and freshness of the poetics of belief.
And let us not forget that poetry is often simply entertaining, full of
humor and nonsense. The poetic experience in a cathartic sense encompasses
tears of laughter, joy, anger and sadness. This notion of coming between
separates us from daily life concerns. This separation hole opens an empty
in-between space, tying afresh to connection, the midwife of separation.
The coming between of poetry sets a separation which is binding anew. It
weaves the web of thought, hope, power and solitude.
Poetry is an ‘inter-venture’ that cannot be planned or made. Belief is
needed for poetry to come, and great endurance to see the little plants and
creatures on the big desert of the unknown.
Poetry is not about solving problems, it is intervention, its coming

between is dissolving.
Let me illustrate poetry as therapeutic intervention with one example
from my therapeutic practice. I met Andy, 20 years old, at a day treatment
center where I led an expressive arts therapy group. Before we started free
writing, we did some back massage. Afterwards, each client could write in a
free associative way. Andy, who was suffering from psychotic episodes, wrote
the following poem, which he afterwards read to me. I read it back to him,
which led to a sharing about his constricting relationship with his mother.
The pond behind my house

swells like a breast full of milk.
A stream stretches into it
as a flame stretches into the air.
The water flows like air, like air
and clears the cobwebs of my mind
clears the air, clears the air like Spring.
And the water whispers:
empty yourself of yourself
and you will be full of God.
Mother, I have to empty myself of you
and your anger
which devours me
as a praying mantis devours its mate.
Mother, the river drags you away and drowns you.
Mother, the river drags you and your anger away,
you and your toaster oven, you and your
microwave,
the V.C.R. the dishwasher, the stereo
and your desire for me to become a doctor.
Mother, the river drags your dreams away
leaving me empty
to be free.
The poetic imagination can enable clients to give voice to a basic existential
theme, can provide a way for them to live creatively with suffering, to
de-form and to trans-form it.
In this case, poetry appeared as a vision which came between Andy’s life
with his mother. Poetry became like a prayer, coming between the daily life
concerns.
Poetry can be the most intimate language we know. Personal, yet
de-personalized. One gets to know more than the person with his problems,
concerns, sufferings, more than the symptoms of their illnesses. The person
appears in a new light as the creator of poetry, something shines through this
person, comes between her struggle: the beauty of clean and twisted thought,
the beauty of a quite right metaphor, the beauty of multiple views rooting in
the same image. What touches are not so much ‘personal facts’ but suddenly
being touched by what comes in between, a feeling which arises, a memory, a
connecting point.
The paper is a safe partner who listens patiently to anything and keeps it.
The writing comes between feeling exposed or isolated, as one can reveal
secrets with the veil of imaging protection.
The poetic experience allows the client to re-member, to stay with the
feelings and let the experience trans-form, rather than trans-late. Most likely
there are tears of relief, of sadness, of joy to feel seen and understood by the
poem. Here, poetry comes between as an in-sight messenger, the felt
sensations make sense.
Hope makes the surface, and doubt builds the

underground; in between lives belief.
The poetic imagination sets the ground for a belief in poetry and poetry
images a belief which allows life’s sovereign utterances a form to speak from a
place of love, beauty and truth. The possibility of poetic intervention opens a
playground where the unexpected changing has an in-between space to
become effective.
References
Aristotle (1980) Poetik. Leipzig: Reclam.
Laing, R.D. (1972) Knots. Vintage Books.
Leedy, J.J. (ed) (1973) Poetry the Healer. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott.
Meyers Kleines Lexicon Philosophie. (1987) Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut.
Nehamas, A. (1996) Boston Book Review.
Paz, O. (1983) Der Bogen und die Leier. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Rilke, R.M. (1989a) Duino Elegies. Manchester: Carcanet.
Rilke, R.M. (1989b) The Best of Rilke. University Press of New England.
Further reading
Fink, H. (ed) (1994) Standpunkte der Ethik. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh Paderborn.
Kluge’s Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache. DeGruyter.
Morrison, M.R. (1987) Poetry as Therapy. New York: Human Sciences, Inc.
Pöggeler, O. (ed) (1972). Hermeneutische Philosophie. Munich: Nymphenburger
Verlagshandlung.
CHAPTER 11
Poetry in the Oral Tradition

Serious Play with Words
Elizabeth Gordon McKim
Poetry is rhythmic imagistic language which embodies our experience.

Poems rise up like the life-fire from the whole person and bring us close to
the sources of memory and imagination. Poetry is pleasurable, powerful and
at the same time form-giving and freedom-seeking. Poetry is a wonder/full
synthesis of thought and feeling, form and content, quest and question, and
with a little bit of luck and a lot of labor, the words ring true. For all these
reasons and more, poetry, its reading and writing, its performance and
spoken expression, should be an available and accessible tool for the
expressive arts therapist, which he and she can enjoy and practise with a
client or within a group when the poem arrives kicking and cursing, laughing
and prancing, praying, moseying, sashaying, boasting, hiding or seeking,
keening or lamenting.
There were days even then I did not know who I was
My body was washed with the stain of the singing
it bled in the darkness the darkness was humming
Poetry is personal. It is our intimate connection to words. When we feel

something closely and deeply, and respond fully, we search for the right
words, the true cadence. We derive pleasure from the weaving together of
sound, image and meaning, and we gain empowerment through speaking
and writing our experience. Through language, we remember and try to
reconstruct what we know. The poet moves into the heart of the matter to
name, to reveal (not explain) in language these fleeting and insistent messages
that come spontaneously into our lives. These ideas are not general and
abstract, but specific, personal, and closely connected to our senses, our
physical selves, our pulse and heartbeat, our humor, our outrage, our intimate
211
and heard diction, our ethnicity and cultural connections, our praises, our
childhood, and our dreaming evolving selves. In poems we honor the
particular and unique way we speak: what we listen to in the neighborhood
of our familiarity, on the street corner of memory, in the landscape of our
childhood, in our states of feeling in the country of our emotions.
We crawl on hands and knees to the center of heat

to the center of our bodies:
the ghettos, the hot enclaves, the hidden suburbs
with uncut grasses, the barrios at midnight.
Poetry is by nature associative – one word leads to another, one sound calls to
another, one image relates to another, and in this way a poem can be the wave
you ride, allowing your controlling mind to step aside and follow what your
intuitive understanding knows you know, and urges you on to be attentive,
brave, crafty, deliberate, humorous, humble, patient, angry or whatever it is
you are feeling. Then it is up to you to move into the poem with your
laser-beam attention and your poet’s tools.
Dig dig dig in the dirt now.

It won’t hurt now –
I have worked as an artist-in-residence with children for over 25 years and

almost that long with teachers in the public schools studying for their
master’s degree in the field of creative arts in learning, as well as graduate
students training to be expressive arts therapists in the mental health field.
The poetry process with the children is much the same as poem-making with
teachers and expressive arts therapists and their clients, though of course the
perspective is different. We might not talk about poetry and its uses in the
same way, but we begin together in the common process of finding the poet
and the poems in us. In this work I am a guide. I help people to begin, people
sometimes deeply resistant to poetry or who have minimal reading and
writing skills, or people who somewhere along the poetry path have been
hurt or shamed out of their natural ability to make poems.
An agile guide’s good

When you cross a fragile bridge
From here to here … Here!
POETRY IN THE ORAL TRADITION 213
As in all the other expressive arts, we want to start in the safe place where
risktaking is serious play, and where the circle contains and holds the
confidences of the people.
I begin with a chant that we do with simple hand movements which
reflects the rhythm of the breath. In/and out/In/in and out/That’s the way the
poem begins. We move our hands with the sound of the words and the actions
described. Reach reach/reach for the sky now/don’t ask me why now. The rhythm
begins to take over. Push/pull/gather the wool. Dig/dig/dig in the dirt now/it
won’t hurt now. The rhythm has its own life. It enters the body. We repeat it. Me
and you/me/me/and you and us/us ride the bus. Rhythm is inside us, in our
heartbeat and pulse, rhythm surrounds us in the passage of time and seasons,
in our growth and development, our beginning and endings, our aging and
dying, in the light and darkness, the waves and the wind, in every gesture and
action, in our speech.
We say our names, feeling the rhythm of the sounds and syllables. We
chant our names connected to sound and movement, the holistic way of
words: breath sound movement language. We write simple, non-threatening
poems called acrostics with our names, something we all own. This is a
helpful way of making introductions in an expressive therapy group: small
messages emerge from the letters that are the backbone of the poem.
Egrets
Linger at dusk
at the rIver’s edge
amaZing the darkness
with their pAtient onelegged
Bird beauty
under/standing how Evening shadows
OverTake
The Heated tones of day
One word pulls us towards another and we don’t need to plan ahead! We step
aside and follow the poem. We read the poems out loud. Sometimes in these
readings we use musical instruments such as a drum, kalimba or rainstick, or
we move with the rhythm and beat of the words. Often people read their
poems simply from the page, but the healing moment comes when the poet
speaks the poem and the poem is heard. The listeners provide the container
for the poem.
I swing out into a clearing

I do not smile
but I am pleased
as I repeat the words
Prima Materia. For the poet it is words. Nouns and verbs. We know that nouns
are the stuff of the uni/verse, and the verbs are the motion and commotion at
work in the uni/verse. We can make our own word collection. Look around
the room or go outside on a wordwalk and find nouns and verbs directly
observable with your senses. Be hunters and gatherers. Serious play. After you
have your words, specific and sensory and concrete, start to play and work
with the words, arrange and rearrange the words and lines, and see how they
are woven together, giving sense and form to the poem. Let the message
emerge.
And now you will swim

through coves and bays and open seas
You will wear water proudly
And I, like a well-used anchor
will bear witness
to your shining tides
Sometimes certain periods of your life, your infancy, childhood or

adolescence, will be the source and catalyst for your poems, or perhaps a
specific incident, situation or person will evoke words. Daily life, simple
things such as waking up in the morning, leaving your home, moving into
your day, turning and returning to a thousand familiar activities, freshly
experienced, can provide endless inspiration for your writing.
Uprising
You do not will
what emerges
what emerges
will teach you
You only must be ready

to receive the messages
and the messages

are everywhere
language
up-lifting
off the leaves
of trees
the effortless encounter

with the universe
After you have found the nouns and verbs, placed on two pieces of different
colored construction paper, tear them out so they are separate entities and
place them in front of you. Now ask an essential question: what do you want
to keep and what do you want to let go? Spend and save. Lost and found.
Serious play. Choices. Decisions. What do you add and what do you subtract?
Say your poem out loud. Repeat it. Get your voice in and under it, behind it.
Struggle with it. Wrestle it. The poem is in process. It is not carved in stone.
Work the page. Cross out. Recycle your mistakes. Change your mind. This is
one of the most interesting times in poem-making; the time when the poem is
finding its shape.
Finding our shapes

In any old manner/we sprawl and stammer/we don’t know what to
do/about the commotion/or how we dare assume our shapes/we fold
our pitiful wings/we don’t know how to pause/or come to full
stop/we babble/we flail about in the uni/verse/we clear our throats
forever/it seems we have no skin/everything hurts/we only remember
the mud where we were born/we pretend indifference to the mist/we
weep uncontrollably/we tell a joke/forget the punchline/we aren’t
prepared for the forest/we never learned to fight/we want to speak
eloquently at the feast/we have no words/it was the same at the
funeral/we want to declare love/we don’t know the first thing about
courtship/we blush/inside we feel slow/we always fall apart in a
rush/what comes is impossible/we say our prayers and poems

dumbly/same for the lullabies, full speed ahead we careen into blazing.
Very often a need to write will arise in the expressive therapy group out of the
welter of experience: from intermodal work: out of issues, events, anger, loss,
confusion, dialogue, conflicts, out of the dance, the singing, the movement,
out of meditation or chant, out of the psychodramatic moment, out of
role-playing. We try to give body, voice and form to the experience through
poetry and the other arts. We begin to write.
In the beginning
when the world was just new
Everything was all wrapped up
and covered over
In the beginning let the words pour out like water from a pitcher. Take the
space of the page. We use large pieces of newsprint and simple art materials
such as crayons, magic markers, colored pencils. We get out of the way of the
words. They have their own momentum. We listen. We write. We continue
until we have completed this first step: writing what we need to say. We read
over our poems: how the poems begin, how they continue and how they end.
(At least for now.) The work of poetry is connected to all the other expressive
arts like organs in the body, interdependent and independent.
Your breath is in my song my song is in your

heart your heart is in my blood my
blood is in your hands your
hands are on my body my body
is on your mind your
mind is in my spirit
my spirit is in your fire your fire
is in my life my life
My life. My life
is on fire!
Then we share the poems with others, and this completion is essential for
healing change to take place. If one other person hears and hears well, the
words are not lost. We read the poems in pairs, in small groups in the big
circle. We listen. Some of the poems are thoughtful, others are hilarious,
some are difficult to hear, some are reflective, others are projective, some are
simple and child-like, some are mysterious, and others are strident and
hard-hitting. If expressed with authenticity, integrity and feeling, a poem is
at work here. Some need to be expanded and developed, others need to be
waited with, some need to be more condensed and concentrated, others
more specific and personal. We do not judge these poems. We try to
understand what we have heard. We see where the weak spots are, where we
can go further, where we have not made ourselves clear, where people nod
and say yes or are confused and baffled. We listen. We respond. The poem is
held and contained within the group.This is where the healing begins.
And what is unfinished

is always unfinished
And what is finished
begins again
and the green goes over

and over
When we write in groups we start simply with non-threatening writing

suggestions, ones that will include and invite rather than discourage and
exclude. Sometimes we begin with listening in on whatever it is we are
writing about. We focus and give our complete attention, letting the image
evoke the necessary words. I help students to listen in (or eavesdrop) on
people, situations, nature, city streets, voices in conflict, a memory, a fantasy,
characters and objects in dreams, the wound, the joy, the complaint, the ache.
As we write we begin to hear the voice or voices, we let them speak to us,
sometimes we place the voice of the poem inside a visual shape or frame.
The animal speaks

the maiden speaks
The shamed one speaks
the wife speaks
the healer speaks
the fool speaks
the traveller speaks
the judge speaks
the thief speaks

the drunk speaks
the addict speaks
the teacher speaks
the child speaks
Listen to the voice of the poem: its tone and inflection, its nuances and
subtleties, its direction and intention, its richness or sparseness of detail, its
roots. We work to feel how the poem begins, how it continues, how it pauses,
how it takes its shape and how it stops. We notate the words like a musician
does. We edit the poem by reading the poem to ourselves and reading the
poem to others, trying to feel what we have said and what we have not said,
taking responsibility for our words, making ourselves vulnerable in the safety
of the circle, giving voice, breaking the silences.
It didn’t sting or fly away

I held it in my hand
In fact it stayed
through all that season
till the weather swarmed
and changed
I didn’t know
what it could mean
or why I cried.
All poems are small stories of who we are, where we’ve been and where we
are going. The poem is a small drop with many interconnected circles which
keep moving outwards. The poems that tell your own personal stories of who
you are and where you began (somewhere back in your own real time) are
essential to the width and depth of further words and worlds. These poems
provide your ground/work and pave the way for ground/swell. They are
necessarily brave poems, because they tell us something about you and how
you grew. They can help us see you in the web and weave of your own
personal context, and they give credence to further poems which might deal
with freedom and confinement, conflicts and resistance, relationships,
politics, love and longing, fury and fear, nature and doing what comes
naturally, stars and starts, endings and mendings, tendings and touching, and
all the human things that human poems are about.
Baby sister
You were the last extravagence
of the old man’s seed.
You were too blond
for me
And I was dark
and deeply restless.
I wanted you
to stop.
And when you didn’t
I held the rage
between my scabby knees
for years.
Still
I wanted to hold you
Ma said
when you were born
I’d let you drop.
They sent me away.
When I came home
I couldn’t hold
on anything.
Numbers or colors
or even cutting paper
I learned to stutter.
What did you expect
A song?
Forget it
I’m almost forty
I want to hold you
Begin from the small place, the rooted place that only you know in the
particular way you know things. And you can’t tell the whole story. But you
can give us a glimpse into your world. You can let us enter in, so we can feel
you and your situation, your moment of poetry.
Let your senses inform your words: what you listen to and for, what
sounds surround you, the touch of the surface and the underside, the
observations and the insight, the scratch and smell of things, the sweet sharp
tastes, the callings and recallings, the push and pull of the ancestors, the turf
on which you build your life. If you tell us these story poems with energy and
honesty, we shall be able to feel you and your life with more respect and
compassion (with passion).
In poetry, we have to be archeologists, we have to uncover and recover in
order to discover the poem that has always been there. Each poem has its own
specific energy, breath, line, cadence, tone, color and shading; its own
personal direction. These poems of her and his story help us to understand
what it means to be you, what it means to be me, and so what. The poem is the
so what. With practice and passion, the expressive arts therapist can weave
poetry into one’s work and add vision, depth and intimacy to the texture of
one’s daily life and endeavors.
Who is me and who

is thee and so what and so
that’s it! Poetry
Oral tradition
prayers
utterances
invectives
jokes
questions
challenges
rap/songs/toasts
tall/tales fairy tales
tremblings/ramblings praises
love songs/cooings/sighings/sightings/
oaths/brags/boasts/preachments
epics/histories/blues
mumblings/mutterings/stutterings
clammerings/stammerings
prophecies/pronouncements
auctioneerings/hard/sell/soft/sell
market cries/lullabies/cons
catcalls/healings
cross/cultural/questionings
across the board questings
in earshot
of global villagers/visitations
talismans/spells/protections
poems to honor the four directions
poems rooted in region
and local color and seasons
poems to sing and drum to
passed down from generation to generation
first sounds
breaths/cries/whispers/hollers
poems to bring us pleasure and
poems to treasure
poems to measure the pain
poems so we don’t have to explain
poems for the tribulation
and poems for the celebration
poems that reveal
poems we lean into
and poems we lean out from
poems for the beginning
and poems for the end
poems for the mending
and spinning/poems
for the next inning
poems for gathering and sifting
and hunting and seeking
stretching and running and fucking
and muckraking
poems for rocking and freedom-
seeking/poems for the wee ones
and poems for the wizard
poems for the crone
and poems for all alone
poems for the dark hour
and poems for the high tower

poems to break the chains
poems to ease the loss
poems for choice
poems of discovery
poems to rejoice
poems for eros
poems for recovery
poems from you to me
and poems from me to you
poems to all/ways
get us over
and poems to get us through
CHAPTER 12
The Theater of the Holocaust

Yaacov Naor
Introduction
For over ten years I have been traveling regularly to Germany (mainly to
Berlin) in order to lead a special workshop: ‘Confronting the Holocaust
Through Psychodrama’. Although designed specifically for Jewish sons and
daughters of Holocaust survivors and Germans of the generation after World
War II, the workshops are open to all people interested in the subject. This is
not an easy task for me, being myself the child of two Holocaust survivors.
The purpose of the workshops is to gain better understanding and to
recognize the moral, social and personal implications that the Holocaust left
us with. In the workshops, we explore spontaneous, expressive and creative
ways of dealing with the interrelationship of the persecutor–victim roles
within each of us and in our society.
The workshops are generally led by myself and Ms Hanni Lewerenz, a
German psychodrama and playback-theater director. In our work, we apply
psychodramatic techniques and tools, together with other action and
non-verbal media drawn from the field of intermodal expressive arts
therapies (therapeutic uses of art, music, movement, drama and poetry).
Therapeutic theater and psychodrama were chosen as the main tools for
working with this population because they stress the use of the body as the
major medium of expression, instead of relying only on the world of words,
which holds many dangers.
The method of psychodrama is based on J.L. Moreno’s philosophical
theory and psychotherapeutic experience. In psychodrama, the ‘actor’ can
enact his/her experiences, dreams and feelings on the stage and, by doing so,
discover the deep meaning of his/her own history of experiences and their
influence upon his/her decisions and acts in life.
Through dramatization and role-playing, the participants can reach a
more empathic attitude towards each other and develop appreciation of the
223
differences among them. As a result, they learn to face their own history in a
truer, more genuine manner.
The active work through the body allows an immediate safe opening of
the inner emotional world and an encounter with the truth that lies within.
The discovery of emotional truth and sharing it with others is in itself a
liberating and curative act. The group’s process leads to a gradual building of
trust, cooperation, partnership and sensitivity among the participants.
Much attention is given to the process of putting oneself in the center (the
inner center and the group center). This prevents comparisons, judgments
and criticism, and creates a strong sense of support. In particular, it invites a
process by which each participant takes responsibility for his/her actions.
The theatrical and psychodramatic stage allow the group members (each
according to his/her level of self-development and his/her own rhythm and
abilities) to present and share their real selves, the memories, experiences,
feelings and images with the group. This process requires no previous
dramatic talent; it develops out of a sense of support and acceptance by the
other group members.
Therapeutic theater and psychodrama give the participants an
opportunity to win in the struggle against anonymity and tell and share their
stories. This can become an experience of breaking silence. Children both of
Holocaust survivors and Germans have grown up in a state of denial and
repression. The silencing of emotions is a familiar experience to members of
both communities. The common experience of the persecutor–victim
relationship may bring forth an encounter with the ‘other side’ and allow
better, deeper understanding. It may not lead to forgiveness or reconciliation,
but it can heal some of the wounds. Above all, it can open a dialogue.
Characteristics of the generation of children of Holocaust

survivors
There are three main characteristics of the second generation:
1. A strong experience of the Holocaust as the background that
characterizes members of the second generation even more than
their parents. The parents were at least born into a world without a
Holocaust (they had a childhood; their children did not). They are
able to relate the present to what existed before the Holocaust. For
them, there is some tie to the sane world.
THE THEATER OF THE HOLOCAUST 225
2. Unconscious identification with unknown figures. The children of

Holocaust survivors are occupied, for instance, with the brothers of
their parents who perished in the Holocaust. Some of their parents
had children who died in the Holocaust. They ask themselves to
whom their parents are more attached.
3. The adjustment mechanisms of the parents often necessitated a
degree of insensitivity to suffering, to death and to pain – a
flattening of the emotional world which affects their functioning as
parents. The first years of life of a child, whose parents may
perceive themselves as defective, as emotional robots, inevitably
affect their entire lives.
In fact, people who were born to Holocaust survivors have had different
childhood experiences, some of which contradict each other; it is not
possible to create a uniform image of this generation, which we can call the
‘second generation’. Nevertheless, in their reports about their lives and their
childhoods, we have found some recurring themes, indicating common traits.
Due to post-war society’s closed nature and its refusal to listen, the children
of Holocaust survivors were flooded with their parents’ emotions, memories
and experiences.
The role of the children in the family was to rescue their families and to
compensate for their suffering. Children who were named after relatives who
were killed in the Holocaust, developed identity problems. In some cases,
they were not even told whom they were named after. They wondered: who
am I? Am I the lost child of an earlier marriage? And subsequently they
suffered from feelings of guilt: is it my fault that I am alive and he/she was
murdered? They carried this secret and did not know what was expected of
them.
Some children were given two names: one for life and one for death. This
testifies to the difficulty of survivors to come to terms with their loss and their
attempt to eternalize the past through the next generation. The emotional
burden created by these messages, both explicit and hidden, created many
splits in the individual, a sense of living death and an inner conflict between
the desire to act and the inclination to give in to depression.
Some children internalized their parents’ conflict between family and
friends. These children now have difficulty in parting from their injured
parents, from their nuclear family, because it is associated with guilt and
death; the outcome is interference with the development of normal

interpersonal relations.
Some feel the need to be strong and powerful, as a matter of survival.
Members of the second generation incorporate both the victim and the
aggressor into their inner world. They demonstrate a tendency towards
self-idealization, a feeling of omnipotence. Since their parents fled the
inferno, they have a feeling of being unique and have a strong sense of
belonging: ‘I am a child of a Holocaust survivor.’ On the other hand, some
suffer from low self-esteem and symptoms of depression. They attempt not
to stand out and even sabotage their own chances of success. The fear of
success among the second generation may derive from the belief that
standing out can be life-risking, as well as a conflict between the desire to
succeed and guilt about having a good life. Some members of the second
generation go as far as suffering from an inability to achieve enjoyment.
Some children have uncontrolled anger, guilt and shame. They bear great
anger about what happened to their parents; this anger is internalized and
sometimes erupts out of proportion in other aspects of their lives. They fight
against losing control; losing control means death.
Certain children bear feelings of martyrdom and victimization. The
insult, humiliation and persecution of their parents have been transmitted to
them unconsciously. They feel very vulnerable. The prominent tendency to
protect their parents is a heavy emotional burden. Such burdens easily make
the individual more sensitive and are liable to make him/her more fragile in
situations of departure. Some have occasional nightmares, like their parents.
Many unconsciously relive parallel variations of their parents’ stories.
Sometimes, they develop symptoms that resemble their parents’ behavior
during the Holocaust, such as stealing. These behaviors stem from processes
based on internalization and projection.
The scar is long term and is transmitted from generation to generation.
Removal of the scar usually involves pain. Work with children of survivors
involves an encounter with a great deal of pain. They suffer a conflict
between the desire to know the truth and a powerful desire to hide it.
Children of the second generation are more liable to suffer anxiety and
have difficulty in coping with aggression. There is a tremendous difference
between the world void of violence in which the second generation was
raised and the philosophy transmitted so clearly to them: ‘They’re out to get
you.’ The double message creates confusion.
The world is perceived as hostile, oppressive and threatening. The parents

and their children are united against it. The family closes itself up in an inner
world and communicates little. The degree of anxiety and depression of the
children of survivors in such cases increases.
In our workshops we often encounter the attempt of children of
Holocaust survivors to live out not their own lives, but those of people who
were murdered. Through experiencing imagined situations of how their
relatives were killed, as well as through psychodramatic scenes of meeting
these dead people, they can learn to separate themselves from these others.
This separation breaks the illusion that the dead are still alive within
themselves and separates the memory of the relatives who were killed from
the hope that they may still be alive or come back to life.
Characteristics of Germans born after World War II: children

and grandchildren of Nazis
Although Germany is a leader in the historical research of the National
Socialist era, German society and the majority of the people of Germany are
not fully able to deal with their legacy as children of the perpetrators and its
influence on their inner emotional life. Some very important research has
been done on this subject, but it is difficult to find people who are prepared to
talk about it. It seems that most people tend to hide their feelings of shame
and guilt; statements of denial about the Holocaust are steadily increasing.
Therefore, we regard each person who attends our workshop, which deals
with this painful subject, as a pioneer, a courageous person.
For the most part, the Germans who were born after World War II are
silent about their family members’ involvement in Nazi activities. They have
created what is called ‘the big collective silence’. This repression manifests
itself in the inner lives of many Germans in self-devaluation, lack of clear
identity, depression, self-abuse and feelings of powerlessness.
In Germany, there is not much interest in research into the emotional
implications of this period – after all, what benefit would they derive from
knowing more? They want to forget. The Germans are in a beginning stage
of feeling their way in this area. The first students of this subject have to cope
with a thick barrier of taboos.
Professor Dan Bar-On, an Israeli researcher from the University of the
Negev in Be’er Sheva, who met and interviewed the offspring of Nazis in
Germany, believes that the lag in research on the effects of the Holocaust in
Germany is the result of deliberate neglect, of an inability and a lack of tools

for coping.
In Austria, for instance, to the best of our knowledge, not one study has
been conducted on this subject, while at the same time in the West, the
aftermath of the Holocaust has become a central subject of study.
Professor Bar-On found that, for most Germans, breaking the barrier is
not perceived as worthwhile. He claims that the few studies that have been
conducted in Germany indicate that the stories that the Nazis told their
children, in the rare cases that they told them anything, were characterized
by lack of detail and description, as though there was nothing special to tell.
Professor Bar-On believes that as long as German society does not take an
unequivocal, definite stand regarding the murderers living among them and
their children, the prevalent inclination to blur history will continue. Most of
the offspring – children and grandchildren – simply do not know.
Furthermore, they do not investigate where their parents or grandparents
were and what they did in that period.
Almost the only encounter that the children of Nazis can have with their
past involves a sense of infinite, unrelenting pain. They cannot identify with
the murderous parents. They often have difficulty marrying and having
children. It is as though something evil has infected them and they don’t
want to pass it on; those who do decide to marry do not tend to share their
parents’ past with their partners. They are interested in burying the secret.
A father who murdered other children but loved you is a confusing image.
The inevitable question arises: ‘What is true love?’
The healing power of theater

Theater as an art form can give voice to suffering. It expresses the pain and
confusion of the disintegration of the self, and in doing so, enables the
participants to face themselves without reservations.
Theater is an act of ritual, where the story, the myth, is reacted to through
action. The ritual itself has a therapeutic potential. It creates perspective, a
space that exists simultaneously in the past, present and future. It is a bridge
between the individual’s inner and outer world. It leads to catharsis, change
and integration.
The ritual has a balancing effect between the individual and the group.
Theater provides a safe structure for risk-taking.
We believe in the healing power of theater as an art form. Like all the
other expressive arts, theater has the ability to create a focusing effect. The
actor–protagonist brings to the stage a performance of his/her soul, a

metaphoric translation of unseen, hidden emotional processes. Theater
allows the participants to bring to life that which has been repressed and
suppressed. It forces us to face reality by using the distancing effect, by
creating the convention of a super-reality or, in psychodramatic terms,
‘surplus reality’. This therapeutic theater can help the participants to go
through a process of letting go of old scripts and non-effective roles and
separating from useless illusions.
Therapeutic theater and psychodrama aim to increase the breadth of the
client’s repertoire of roles, and by doing so enrich the ability to respond and
to act. The group leader or therapist helps the client view the dialectic
between the mask and the face, the persona and the person. The image of the
therapeutic theater is one of constant shifts of perspective between the
fictional and the real.
Theatrical techniques are applied in therapy because they are a powerful
means of looking at the complex ties of human existence, the balance
between imagination, fiction, the subjective and everyday objective reality.
I have found five different results in the use of expressive arts therapy and
therapeutic theater in groups:
1. Satisfaction of experience of using the body in action.
2. Liberation of emotional stress, anger, fear, anxiety, pain, tension,
erotic feelings, and so on.
3. Improvement of the ability to experience through imagination, play
and expression.
4. Processing of themes, such as trust, openness, encounter, loneliness,
support, leadership, assertiveness, loss, mourning, separation,
rejection, surrender, control and dependency.
5. Creation of relationships, a window to the inner world and hidden
areas of the personality.
Therapeutic theater and psychodrama can improve the participants’ lives and
help them to develop in terms of self-control and self-organization while
expressing focused emotions in a safe place. They can learn to improve their
social skills by communicating verbally and non-verbally.
They can improve their self-esteem and self-and-body image, as well as
develop their imagination, play and dreams. Participation in therapeutic
theater workshops can help them learn to distinguish better between reality
and fantasy. They can experience controlled physical contact and touch.
Therapeutic theater and psychodrama provide catharsis of action and
action-insight; development of spontaneity and creativity in clear and
protected boundaries. Taking part in role-playing may build their ability to
trust and get a stronger feeling of belonging to the group.
Examples of processes and events that have occurred in the

workshops
‘It is a small place. Nobody knows about it’
In one of the workshops, the protagonist, a 36-year-old German woman,
came to the stage and said: ‘I would like to do a psychodrama about what
happened to me as a child, when my father was away. I can tell you that my
father was an SS officer in a camp, some place on the Eastern front. I don’t
want to deal with this fact, since I have worked on it already in my therapy. I
just need to deal with him not being home. Not about why he was not at
home, but about me as a child feeling that I miss my father. To this day I feel
this loss.’
I was listening to her patiently, but my heart was beating rapidly. I had
some questions. I said to myself: ‘What kind of a father can an SS officer be?
How can she call him “father” at all? He is a murderer. What kind of crimes
did he commit? Who suffered at his hands? … Don’t tell her your thoughts.
You are here in the role of her psychodrama director, you are here to help her.
Don’t put energy into hating this man. It is not your story. It is her story.’
Then, as if she was reading my mind, she said: ‘Let us make an agreement
that we don’t deal here with where my father was.’ I agreed to that, but all the
time it was nagging me inside: ‘Where was he, where was he? Who is he?’
I asked her to set the place where she wanted to meet her father and to
choose someone from the group to play the role of her father. Then I
suggested that she role-reverse with her father, so I could ask her in the role
of her father some background questions to help the Auxiliary Ego (the
person who plays a role in the protagonist’s psychodrama) to understand and
feel the role he was about to portray.
This role-reversal is usually also a chance to ask questions you would not
ask the protagonist himself. When she was in the role of her father, I asked:
‘Can you please tell us a little about yourself ? What kind of a person are you?’
And then, while she was talking about the camp, I lost my self-restraint and
asked: ‘Which camp is it? What is its name?’ I felt awful at that moment,
because I knew I had broken the contract we made. But it was something
that came from very deep inside me.
She looked at me and said: ‘It is a small place. Nobody knows about it.’
She was trying to hint to me not to continue with this kind of questioning.
But I couldn’t believe my ears. I started to feel goose bumps and my heart
was racing. I had a feeling of déjà vu. I remembered one Saturday, when I was
six or seven years old, my father came back from work and I asked him: ‘Why
are you working all week, even on the Sabbath? Why are you never home to
play with me?’ My father was unshaven and looked very pale. He sat down
and told me about how it is very important to work, so that we will never
again suffer from hunger, and then he told me about the Holocaust and the
camp where he was. When I asked him for the name of the camp, he answered
in the same way, even in the same tone of voice: ‘It is a small place. Nobody
knows about it.’
In the psychodrama session I was shocked when she said the name; it was
exactly the name my father used after I insisted that he tell me.
I felt I had to do something, since I could not continue to play the role of
the psychodrama director. I role-reversed her back to be herself again. I had
her sit on the other side of the stage and I said: ‘I need a few moments for a
break. I need to be a protagonist myself for a few moments.’ Then I invited
someone from the group to play the role of my father. I sat with ‘him’ on the
stage, and said to my father: ‘Please forgive me, please allow me to help this
woman whose father was the SS officer you probably suffered from so much.’
At that point I was crying and tears were streaming down my face. I reversed
roles and as my father I said: ‘I forgive you because you are here to heal and
not to hurt anyone. I trust you. You can continue with this psychodrama
because actually this is also your psychodrama. I am proud of you that you are
now in Germany, this time not in the role of a victim but rather in the role of
director. This is my victory, to see how you grew up to be who you are, and I
love you.’ I reversed back to listen to these moving and touching words.
After a few minutes’ break, we came back to this German woman’s
psychodrama. This time I was freer, and judging from the feedback I got
afterwards, it was meaningful and important for her, too.
In the sharing time (sharing in the performance on the stage), many group
members chose to address themselves to the role of the missing father.
The longest silence

One of the group members, Harold, a tall, thickly-built German of about 62,
a professor of social science in a well-respected German university, hesitantly
joined one of the workshops. His uncertainty about joining was especially
understandable after he told his story on the stage and after the enactment of
the story as a theatrical scene.
The following is a concise version of the story, told in the first person:
It is 1944. Rumors and information begin to arrive about defeats of the
German Army. Nobody dares to talk about this openly. Outwardly,
everyone still adores Hitler and his actions. But the true situation is one of
hunger and lack of basic foods. I live in a small village. My father is far
away at the Eastern front and I haven’t seen him for many months. I live
with my mother in a sort of small animal farm. Every morning I go to
school and from there I bring home all the fresh news.
I am ten and the children my age are busy like most German children –
in joining what is called ‘The Hitler Jugend’, a special youth movement
devoted to Nazism, which serves as an incubator for anti-Semitic ideas
and preparation for joining the adored German Army. Somehow I have
not yet found my way to this youth group, but I do not succeed in
avoiding my national role for long.
One day, during recess, I am summoned to the head of the children’s
group that belongs to this youth movement. He shoves a baby bird, one
that has not yet learned to fly, in my face, and orders me to come back the
next day with the bird dead, as proof of my bravery. He adds: ‘You have to
kill them when they are small so that they don’t finish our army’s food. If
you do this, you will be accepted into the movement.’
My heart flutters and the baby bird flutters in my hand. I feel
frightened and helpless. I have never killed an animal. This is my first
experience, and it is very difficult for me. I feel pity for this helpless bird.
All night I deliberate and debate and find myself talking to the baby bird
and begging it to die itself before I have to kill it. I know that if I bring it
to school alive, the children will make fun of me and I will be ostracized
for a long time. I am also afraid that I will be beaten and tortured cruelly
by the leader and his friends. I try to use a knife but I use the blunt end of
the blade. All I manage to do is to cause the bird to bleed, but the baby bird
is still alive, breathing heavily and chirping in a terrible, disgusting way.
When I get to school it takes the leader a few seconds to break the pitiful
creature’s neck. He does the bird a favor because all my attempts to kill it
only caused it suffering and torture.
His story was painful for all of us. A long silence, unlike any I remember in all
my experience as a group leader, prevailed in the room when he finished.
There was a feeling that only this shared silence of us all would heal the
wound that had been opened in front of us.
The dramatic action after the story was an act of relief that enabled us to
control the incredible reality we had experienced. The sharing afterwards
was also moving and gave a release to feelings of pain, anger, fury and
hopelessness that had developed among the group participants.
The technique that we used to work with this story was ‘playback
theater’. This is a method developed by Jonathan Fox, one of Moreno’s
students. With this method, the group of ‘actors’ performs part of his story
for the story-teller, using their own creative interpretation. We felt that we
had to maintain distancing because, as noted, the feelings of pain in the room
were sky-high.
After the first performance of the chosen scene (the encounter between
Harold and the baby bird during the night), Harold asked to take the stage
again in order to create an encounter between himself and the bird. In the role
of the bird he chose a Jewish girl who only a few hours earlier had presented
a poignant psychodrama of herself and her parents, who were Holocaust
survivors. Harold’s scene was moving, and it enabled him to express feelings
that he had kept inside for over 50 years. As the bird in the scene, he was also
given the right to express his anger and fury.
Harold performed the role of the bird as a role-reversal. The roaring
silence at the end of the story quickly started a chain of actions. We all sat
there and cried about the fate of the bird, and each one, each person in the
room, felt that he himself was this bird.
The sharing in action afterwards was particularly productive, as it
contained personal stories that the members of the group presented on the
stage as a reaction to what happened in the course of the psychodrama itself.
Some of the patterns of sharing that appeared on the stage actually became
what are called in psychodramatic terms vignettes. This is a sort of
mini-psychodrama, focused and potent. The scene that recurred most often
was that of the ‘burial’ of the baby bird and parting from it.
This special momentum led to additional group work during the
workshop. We decided to return to the story of the bird, but this time from
the movement-body point of view. The participants were only allowed to use
sounds, no words. We divided the group into couples. Every person chose
his/her role. One member of the pair took the role of the mother bird, the
other the role of the baby bird that doesn’t know how to fly. The task of the
mother was to teach her child to fly. The non-verbal process allowed each
person to work with his or her body in movement and thus explore the
content of the role. The process was limited in time, but it was not necessary
that the mother succeed in teaching her child to fly. There were mothers who
chose to make it difficult for the baby bird to learn to fly, so that he wouldn’t
leave her alone. By the same token, each baby bird chose his/her difficulties
in learning and the rate of success.
Afterwards, we did a role-reversal, so that everyone could try both roles.
The end of the session included reading poems or letters written by the
participants. Each person chose whether to write in the role of the mother
bird or the baby bird. Reading the letters and/or poems was also theatrical in
nature, as the readers were asked to perform on the stage what they wrote.
Some chose to accompany the reading of poems with music that other
members of the group volunteered to play. Others chose not to write at all
and found themselves reacting to the earlier process through drawing. These
drawings were presented on stage by some of the group members who
wished to share them.
Hands up
At times in these groups we use exercises that involve controlled physical
suffering. For instance, we suggest a structure to the group for work on the
stage. Each participant, in turn, is asked to stand on the stage, with his/her
arms raised. After a few minutes, when it becomes painful, and the
participant asks to put his/her arms down, he/she is told to keep them up
and in place. This is done in order to find a new way to cope with pain, using
movement and voice, connecting with what is happening in the body and
spontaneously expressing emotions. The reactions are always powerful.
People scream, get angry, cry and tell things that were forgotten, that only
the pain can reawaken.
Eva, one of the German participants, reports her experience in the
exercise:
It seems to me that in this exercise we passed the boundaries of our
recognized ability as people, in physical and emotional terms. The
experience sunk deep into my soul, and I now know a bit more what it
might have been like to be on the side of the victim. I felt that I was
hanging by my hands on the gate of a Polish town. Around me stood SS

people, with boots and dogs, yelling and hitting, and it was as though I
was without a physical outside. Without a place to flee. Only an infinite
scream … I would give anything not to have been born in Germany, not
to feel the constant torture. I cannot forgive Auschwitz. I think that I
could not overcome this my whole life, but this is the first time that I
could admit it and share this hate. I feel anger but at the same time I can
also begin to see other sides. I was not there.
‘You yourself are a true Nazi’

One of the most memorable psychodramas in my mind was that of Tony, a
45-year-old Jewish man, whose father is a Holocaust survivor. Most of his
father’s suffering was in Auschwitz, where he experienced the worst of all.
Tony’s psychodrama focused on events from his early childhood, mainly
from ages 5 to 12. He unraveled before us a series of scenes of torture and
cruelty administered to him by his father.
The theatrical scene that was chosen to extract these experiences took
place in the cellar of the house where Tony grew up. His father would
arbitrarily, without any obvious provocation, lock Tony in the cellar and
leave him there, usually for several hours and sometimes even for two or three
days. His mother was helpless and did not react to the torture of her son. On
the contrary, she cooperated quietly and usually justified her husband’s
actions for fear that she too might become a victim to violence.
Through psychodrama, Tony was finally given the opportunity to express
his anger and rage towards his father, feelings that he never turned towards
his father in life, out of fear of more violent reactions from his father and also
out of pity for him. The group was invited to create the closed cellar.
Everyone stood around Tony and created the feeling of suffocation that he
felt during the many hours that he was forced to spend in the cellar alone,
hungry and thirsty. Someone in the group was chosen to play the role of the
father. He was outside the ‘cellar’, demanding angrily and adamantly that his
son be punished. The tight circle symbolized the cellar and, on the other
hand, it served as a defense against the feelings of anger that might have been
likely, under uncontrolled conditions, to lead to direct aggression.
At one point, I suggested to Tony that he use a pillow to hit an empty
chair, in order to direct his feelings and focus them. Through the tears it was
possible to hear the following sentences, which still echo in my ears,
mercilessly: ‘You always warn me against the evil Nazis who will come and
punish me. What was my crime? Why are you always cruel to me? I am the
most important thing you have, that is what you always say. Those Nazis
who you claim are outside our house and will soon come, they never come.
Who are those Nazis? This is your invention. It is a lie. You yourself are a true
Nazi. You are the one who hurts me. I am angry at you. I need you and
instead of loving me you always correct me. You always want me to be
someone else. You close me up now here in the cellar, but the day will come
and I’ll get out of here and then I will fly far away and then it will be too late
…’
In the role-reversal, we were all very surprised when Tony, playing the
role of his father, said something his father could never have said to him: ‘I
am angry at you because you are close to me. You are the dearest thing to me
and I am angry at you. And I don’t know why. Maybe because of what they
did to me [and here Tony bursts into tears, from a place deep inside] … You
know that under it all lies my love for you … maybe I never told you but
when I was in Auschwitz … [and then followed the moving story of the
father’s suffering].’
When Tony returned to himself he refused to hug his father who held out
his hand to him and stood there like a beaten and abandoned child: ‘I cannot
forgive you yet. If I hug you now, everyone here will think that this story is
over. For me this story has just begun …’
This time, in the process of sharing, we used the technique of
letter-writing. In this technique, all the members of the group sit in a circle
with their eyes closed and each one, who wants to, in turn creates a letter out
loud, directed to the protagonist. One can also ‘write’ letters to other
members of the group as a reaction to their letters. One has to ‘sign’ the letter
and may also add a postscript.
One letter from a son of a Holocaust survivor in the group particularly
touched me. That very evening I wrote it down, trying to be as close to the
original as possible:
Tony, my dear brother, it is more and more clear to me that we are
actually Holocaust survivors, that we grew up in our destroyed families,
with these dead people who are called parents. That we actually
succeeded in getting out of the cellar in the dark night, and despite all the
losses, we continued forward out of the child’s life-force. Out of the
strength of the child who waits for his moment to get up on the stage and
say, to scream to everyone: Here I am – I have been saved. I am alive.
What is so hard is to help people around us to understand and absorb
with their hearts that this is a true holocaust. Since there are no
photographs or historical studies, and especially because everyone deals

with the other Holocaust and our holocaust looks small, comparatively;
it almost disappears in the shadow of the other. After all, we remained
alive. And what do we actually want? What do we actually lack? We
were given everything. They gave us everything. And what do we have
to complain about? Maybe we are just spoiled children who do not
know limits and want more and more. We are only the ‘desert’
generation – the intermediate generation. A bridge. Memorial candles.
Living reminders of those who have gone. Guardians of hope. The
embers. The faith. We are not allowed to enjoy, to be happy, to go wild.
We are supposed to be those who mourn, who cry with real tears, as our
parents did not dare to do in front of us, so as not to hurt us, and so as not
to encounter the pain themselves. We are their representatives, sent to
express the sorrow, grief and fear for those who deny any connection to
emotions and who told themselves and those around them, particularly
those closest to them, that everything is all right, that nothing happened.
That it is all our imagination. That everything is over and what was was,
and that was actually a long time ago and now nothing remains of all
that.
And all that is left for us to do is to succeed, to gather material. We should
obtain more money in order to buy another piece of furniture. Another
something. Since it is important in life that you have more and more
material to cover the terrible pain. Since what is important in life is to die
– because death is a good end. It is like sweet sleep. The hunger stops
rampaging the body. And you do not have to work all day. And you do
not have to suffer any more. Death is the tranquilizer, the relief, and the
release. To die is not to feel, not to know the truth. To die is to pretend.
To put a mask on and tell everyone that everything is all right … and
everything is all right in the cellar …
Conclusion
Most of the participants have no previous experience with psychodrama and
expressive arts therapy. They find these techniques helpful in overcoming
their fear of the subject of the Holocaust. The arts provide a safe arena for
expression and experiencing the inner truth.
The group process is especially meaningful. The group provides trust,
support, sensitivity and a sense of belonging. People in the group move from
silence to sharing. Performing difficult scenes gives the participants a sense

of control and a way out of self-victimization.
The encounters between the group members create a conflict-oriented
environment where projected feelings towards ‘the other side’ can be
expressed and acted out. This creates an open (at times difficult and painful)
dialogue where more realistic relationships can be explored. In this process
mistrust and suspicion give place to hope.
Many of the participants report that taking part in this process helped
them heal their past wounds and become more alive.
In many ways both sides are victims of World War II. What they share in
common is the fact that the natural historical focus has always been on the
survivors or the perpetrators (the first generation); there was not enough
space for their stories as the second generation.
Against this background, therapeutic theater and psychodrama were
chosen as methods of expression, because by definition they involve the
process of taking the stage to share and perform the individuals’ own life
stories. For many of the participants this was the first time ever to open this
subject up in front of others.
It is not our intention to reach or bring about reconciliation, but rather to
be involved in a process that will provide individuals with new insight into
their personal and family lives. This could help them find new expressions
and creative ways to deal emotionally with the psychological burdens they
bear.
The goal is not to find a solution, not to end these meetings with
friendship or closeness. Instead, it is aimed at allowing each of the
participants to learn about the other side, to learn about him/herself and
accept the pain of difference. As Paolo Knill has often said, peace is not the
absence of conflict; it is the ability to live with the differences.
Our objective, then, is to find ways to help individuals to rejoin their lost
communities, to reconnect with families and individuals. The aim is to learn
to belong – not to forget or forgive, but rather to become witness to the
richness and beauty of the person behind the history.
Our work is based on the assumption and belief that the individual is able
to grow mentally and spiritually and is able to change his/her former point
of view. We believe in the possibility of development of people.
Real dialogue always becomes possible for the group members after we
create a safe place for all, without criticism or judgment.
This is a bridge-building process. We try to change the familiar process of

creating walls between enemies or within ourselves as human beings.
One of the results of these workshops is the ability to identify and express
existential questions:
• Is there a way to build trust between former enemies?
• Is it possible to lead a dialogue with enough space for what has
been suppressed, silenced and denied?
• Is it possible to touch this inner pain?
By asking these existential questions, we testify to our faith that working
therapeutically with the arts will give us the strength to confront tragedy in
its ultimate form: the theater of the Holocaust.
References
Bar-On, D. (1989) Legacy of Silence: Encounters with Children of the Third Reich. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Bar-On, D. (1995) Fear and Hope: Three Generations of the Holocaust. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Bergmann, M.S. and Jacovy, M.E. (eds) (1990) Generations of the Holocaust. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Blatner, A. (1996) Acting-In: Practical Applications of Psychodramatic Methods. Third Edition.
New York: Springer.
Emunah, R. (1994) Acting for Real: Dramatherapy Process and Technique. New York:
Brunner/Mazel.
Epstein, H. (1988) Children of the Holocaust: Conversations with Sons and Daughters of the
Survivors. New York: Penguin.
Fox, J. (1994) Acts of Service: Spontaneity, Commitment, Tradition in the Nonscripted Theatre.
New York: Tusitala.
Jennings, S. (1994) Introduction to Dramatherapy. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Kellerman, P.E. (1992) Focus on Psychodrama: The Therapeutic Aspects of Psychodrama.
London: Jessica Kingsley.
Krondorfer, B. (1995) Rememberance and Reconciliation: Encounters Between Young Jews and
Germans. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Moreno, J.L. (1946) Psychodrama: Volume One. Beacon, NY: Beacon House.
Moreno, J.L. (1973) The Theatre of Spontaneity. Beacon, NY: Beacon House.
Rosenthal, G. (ed) (1998) The Holocaust in Three Generations: Families of Victims and
Perpetrators of the Nazi Régime. London: Cassell.
Salas, J. (1993) Improvising Real Life: Personal Story to Playback Theatre. Dubuque, IA:
Kendall/Hunt.
Sichrovsky, P. (1986) Strangers in their Own Land: Young Jews in Germany and Austria Today.
London: I.B. Tauris.
Wardi, D. (1992) Memorial Candles: Children of the Holocaust. London: Tavistock.
CHAPTER 13
In Exile from the Body

Creating a ‘Play Room’ in the ‘Waiting Room’
Melinda Ashley Meyer
In this chapter I shall present and discuss expressive arts therapy as used in
group therapy with ‘traumatized refugees’. The term ‘traumatized refugees’
means here clients who have been exposed to organized psychological and
physical violence from their official government or from political, religious
or ethnic enemies.
All asylum seekers who come to Norway live in refugee reception centres.
People living in these reception centres do not know how long they will be
able to stay in the country. It is vital that we give them immediate tools to
cope with the stress that emerges through living in a ‘waiting room’.
At the Psychological Centre for Refugees at the University of Oslo, I have
been the leader of a multicultural expressive arts therapy group for the past
six years. The case examples discussed in this chapter come from my work
with this group.
After a short introduction concerning the effects of trauma and war, I shall
introduce ‘the house’ as a metaphor for the human body. One of the
questions I ask is: how can expressive arts therapy help bring a sense of
re-integration with the body while ‘living in exile’? Is a ‘successful’
repatriation process dependent on the sense of ‘being home in the body’? I
shall try to give my understanding of this latter phenomenon. The final
question is how can I, as a therapist, protect myself and stay at home in my
body?
People who live in exile have often lost everything. They have lost the
‘house of the family’, ‘the house of the community’. The only house they
have left is ‘the house of the human body’. Because this house often contains
so much pain and ‘bad memories’, the owner ‘moves out’ in order to save his
or her soul.
241
One of the consequences of war is that community networks are

destroyed. The boundaries of the community are invaded, communication is
cut, plumbing breaks down and electricity and energy are shut down. When I
was in Bosnia in the autumn of 1996, I witnessed hundreds of houses
looking like skeletons. Only the ruins were left. All the houses looked
haunted; every house had its story to tell.
If we stay with this image and focus on the ‘house of the body’, we can see
that similar damage is done to the individual. Under torture and violence, the
boundaries of the ‘house of the body’ are invaded. To protect itself, the
individual will lock the doors, close the windows, turn off the lights and hide
in the dark. One or several of the senses are temporarily shut down to soften
the pain. In the worst cases, it is totally unbearable to stay within the house,
and the only way of surviving is leaving. Under extreme trauma, such as
torture, the individual will ‘flee from the house of the body’ in order to
survive. As in ‘the house of the community’, all networks are shut down in
‘the house of the body’. The lack of energy makes the house cold and dark.
Over time, this house breaks down – the body experiences pain through
discomfort in muscles and joints. What the soul cannot express, the body will
express.
Being in exile from the body as a method to avoid the pain of trauma will,
over time, give an individual the experience of belonging to the ‘living dead’,
a state where one feels totally isolated from life.
The effects of trauma and war

Nesna comes walking into the group room, her eyes seem as though they are
looking beyond time into another dimension. She stands leaning into the
wall with one leg twisted around the other. I ask her if she has ‘arrived’ in the
room. She says that she cannot carry ‘this body’. It is as if it belonged to
somebody else. ‘What do you feel?’ I ask. ‘Nothing,’ she replies.
People who have survived organized violence, war, torture, concentration
camps and prison tend to move out of their bodies as a defence to survive:
When confronted with danger, animals have three basic options – fight,
flight or immobility: the immobility or freezing is presumably animal
hypnosis. Humans have in a more complex form, the same fundamental
repertoire and, if they have the hypnotic capability, they may
instinctively revert to spontaneous self-hypnosis as a primitive coping
tactic. (Stuntman and Bliss 1985, p.741)
IN EXILE FROM THE BODY 243
The survivor removes him/herself from the situation as a protection against

physical and mental pain. ‘Self-hypnosis, then, can generate a host of
symptoms including depersonalization, derealization, hallucinations and
amnesia. This process in turn, can instigate and perpetuate a disabling
post-traumatic syndrome’ (Stuntman and Bliss 1985, p.741).
Several research studies of the past few years have suggested that having
dissociative experiences at the moment of trauma is the most significant
long-term predictor of the ultimate development of symptoms of
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (Herman 1992, p.85). These symptoms
include sleeplessness, lack of concentration, irritability, muscular pain,
headaches, a sense of no future and lack of affect. The trauma is so
overwhelming that the individual turns away from him/herself.
Pain in the body confirms the experience of being alive. Pain is a bodily
language. In contemporary Western culture (‘culture’ meaning here the way
people communicate with each other), there is a low tolerance for pain. Pain
is a state which one wants to get rid of as fast as possible. Pills are taken for
headaches, muscle pain, toothaches, and so on. The information the body is
trying to communicate is neglected. When the whole body is in pain, as in
torture, the individual wants to get rid of the body. One way of doing this is
to turn away from the self to total isolation.
Wilhelm Reich observed that there was a recurring pattern among his
clients. By holding their breath and breathing as shallowly as possible, they
were better able to control their feelings. Lack of energy results in lack of
normal facial movement – eyes, mouth, brow, and so on are ‘frozen’. This low
energy level can be directly related to a decrease in the client’s metabolism,
which again reduces their feeling of anxiety (Reich 1972).
Through shallow breathing and tightening of the muscles, the body
becomes numb. From being ‘somebody’, one becomes ‘nobody’. The goal of
torture is to take away a person’s power of being a subject and turn him or her
into an object. The body becomes an ‘open house’, where the owner is not at
home and anybody can enter. Under torture, the goal is to deobjectify the
objects; the unmaking of the made causes the world to disintegrate. This is
done through confusing and distorting sense-memory. The smell of flowers,
which normally brought good memories prior to the trauma, is now
connected with the experience of being raped. A bathtub for most people is
related to something pleasurable; under torture, it becomes a weapon, for
example, by holding the individual under water. Beautiful music is played
under the most gruesome circumstances – so one can never rest when this
music is played again. Through connecting beauty to awful experiences, one

will never get out of the trauma experience. Rather than being present one is
often drawn back in. One is ‘back there’ and not here. Overwhelming pain is
language-destroying; words lose their original meaning. The search for
adequate words to give justice to the experience is vital for recovery. The
‘trauma narrative’ is isolated from the ‘life narrative’; this means that it lies
there and expresses itself through the body. The memory of the trauma then
lives in the cells of the body. To be fully present and alive in the body means
being in touch with the pain and facing it, thus integrating the story behind
the pain with the rest of one’s life history.
Treatment
The first step to help recovery after trauma is to assist the individual to move
back home into his/her body, to regain ownership and to confront the
stories, but from a safe place; to break the feeling of being isolated and to be
able to participate in life again; to experience the here and now, and move out
of the frozen and immobile position where time does not exist and the terror
of the trauma never lets one move.
Locked memory is one of the challenges in treating torture survivors.
Memory is flexible and tries to adjust itself; with trauma survivors it becomes
locked to the trauma. Through working with the imagination, the flexibility
of memory and thought may be restored. Thus it may help the survivor to
imagine different outcomes, new possibilities (Van der Kolk et al. 1996).
D.W. Winnicott (1991) differentiates between imagination and fantasy in
a way that is helpful to us here. Fantasy is an internal activity that does not
relate to reality in the outer world; imagination, on the other hand, is the
bridge from the internal to the external world. Every moment the individual
is exposed to impressions and chooses consciously or unconsciously which
impressions to take in and which expressions to ‘give out’. In a healthy
person, this relationship between the inner and outer world, between fantasy
and imagination, is a dialectical one, constantly moving. After trauma, the
relationship is often ‘deadlocked’; it is as though the whole world has been
cast a part in the trauma story: all men are rapists, everyone is out to get me, I
am a victim, as though the reason for not leaving the ‘house of the body’
becomes the only memory and all good memories that also lived in the body
prior to the trauma have been buried in darkness. In expressive arts therapy,
connecting imagination with physical movement assists the good memories
to emerge through the body.
We can also relate this notion of expressive imagination to Jacob Levy

Moreno’s theory of spontaneity and creativity (see Moreno 1973). Creativity
is the substance to which spontaneity gives birth; spontaneity means to have
an adequate response to a new situation or to make something new out of
something old. Without spontaneity, there is no life, the opposite of
spontaneity is anxiety: becoming stiff and immobile. There is no energy
available to give birth to the creator. In our view, spontaneity is the key back
to life after trauma. To be able to imagine a new outcome of an old trauma,
the client has to be safe and regain his/her energy. The body is again ‘alive’;
all the ‘networks’ are functioning and spontaneity is available. The first step
in moving ‘back home’ is to begin to move the body and breathe, being able
to eat a normal diet and to be in the here and now.
The Bosnian women with whom I worked had many roles prior to the
war; one was cutting the grass with a machete. In the group, the members
took on the movement of cutting the grass. The movement was beautiful and
graceful. Their faces came alive. It was through imagining this role and doing
it that the good memories emerged.
How can expressive arts therapy help bring about a sense of

re-integration with the body?
‘Expressive art therapy is distinguished from other modes of therapeutic
practice by its emphasis on bodily expression. It is the body that dances,
sings, makes music, paints, sculpts, enacts scenes and speaks poetically’
(Levine 1997, p.131).
Through moving the body in dance, deepening the breath through
singing and moving, and ‘giving life’ to the imagination with the help of
painting, story-telling and poetic language, the survivor may find his or her
way home.
Paolo Freire states in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed: ‘Only by helping
suppressed people find a way to express themselves will they feel free’ (Freire
1996). Expressing oneself in exile can break the feeling of being in ‘prison’.
Can this experience of freedom help to promote the freedom to move back
home to the mother country when possible?
A method developed in Chile, called ‘Testimony’, where the individual is
given the chance to tell his or her story in front of witnesses, has proved to
have a great healing potential for trauma survivors. However, in my
experience, people often find no words to express what they have been
through. Movement, film, pictures and painting may offer the individual
many possible vehicles for the ‘soul’ to find its way ‘home’ and for the ‘body’
to tell its story and integrate it with the life-narrative preceding the
trauma-narrative, to help them to become one story.
The story, the play, the poem, the film is shown to all, to bear witness to
their fate; it is of great importance that the content is delivered in a way that
engages the listener. The ‘teller’ must experience that his story is received if
healing and integration are to take place. Many dare not tell their story or
show it out of fear that they will not be believed. Living in exile, as stated
earlier, breaks the continuity in life. One of my group members drew an
image of herself lying in a void between two disconnected railway tracks.
The process of finding a way for survivors to express their story and
experience it being received can be part of reconnecting the ‘railway tracks’
so life can continue.
Trauma survivors have normal reactions; they react normally to a ‘sick’
situation. The danger is that we make them feel abnormal and sick. Today,
refugees all over the world risk ending up feeling passive and dependent
upon the ‘host’. In many cases, they become medical clients. Living in exile is
involuntary; it is a punishment. The goal of sending a person into exile is to
remove him or her from the ‘scene’ and ensure that they will live like ‘objects
in isolation’ without influence on the outer world as long as they are alive.
Exile breaks the continuity of one’s life story.
With this understanding, it is vital for therapists to help survivors from the
beginning of their stay in exile to find their way home in the body and to
facilitate the process of finding a way to express themselves and cope with
the pain that emerges with the telling of their stories.
The arts give the possibility of expressing the self through all the senses,
which also gives the witness the chance to take in what is trying to be
communicated. The art product will ‘communicate’, and we can share what it
expresses. Communicating through all the senses helps one to stay present in
the house of the body and not leave or be ‘invaded’ by the other.
As Stephen Levine wrote:
Healing after Auschwitz means survival. Expressive therapy teaches the
art of survival, survival through the making of art. Why art? Because
nothing else is strong enough to contain the destruction of the self. Not
art as entertainment or art as high culture or art as kitsch, but art as the
form of infinite suffering. (Levine 1997, p.120)
He goes on to say that, ‘The therapeutic power of art lies in its capacity to
render life valuable by showing both its horror and its pity. If we hold fast to
this task we may be blessed with the presence of joy’ (Levine 1997, p.121).
Because art can contain both the ‘ugly’ and the ‘beautiful’, the void
between the tracks may begin to mend. The resources in the person’s past
may be connected to the present and brought into the future.
The survivor may discover the beauty that can emerge through the art
which lies in ‘the ruins’, the beauty that rests in the ability to face and give an
expression to the truth. I believe that in the ‘truth’, both ugliness and beauty
live in the shadow of each other; the arts give the human being the chance to
live with the truth and bring the body home.
Creating a ‘play room’ in the ‘waiting room’

In the following I shall present case stories from two different expressive arts
therapy groups for people who are survivors of organized violence: a
monocultural group of Bosnian war refugees in a refugee reception centre in
Stokke, Norway, and a multicultural group of torture survivors at the
Psychosocial Centre for Refugees, Oslo, Norway.
In January 1993, there was a total of 49 Bosnian men living in a reception
centre near Oslo. Forty-seven of the men had been prisoners of war in
Serbian concentration camps in the former Yugoslavia. The average length of
stay in the concentration camp was six months. Forty-one had experienced
physical violence, 35 witnessed torture and/or execution, but only 3 had
participated actively in the fighting. Thirty-three had lost close relatives
(wives, children, brothers, sisters).
In the concentration camps, the men had been forced to lie in the burning
sun in one position for hours at a time, often without any liquid to drink.
They had been beaten and had witnessed friends being killed. In the
concentration camps, they had lived on the brink of starvation. When they
arrived at the reception centre in Norway, they were malnourished.
In Norway, refugees’ first stop is often a reception centre where they do
not know how long they will be allowed to stay. The consequence of living
in a reception centre is usually physical passivity over a long period of time.
Time is often spent worrying about how relatives are coping in the homeland
and what has happened to people they know. Their worrying is constant.
There is an uncertainty about one’s own future and that of others; in this
chronic situation of worrying, the body will be under constant strain. At the
point when the refugees enter treatment, they have been in the ‘waiting
room’ of the reception centre for a long period. This situation intensifies the
feeling of being ‘out of the body’; they experience themselves as ‘dead
bodies’.
I started a group in which all the men, young and old, participated. The
goal was to help the individual to get in touch with his body, to breathe, to
move and feel that he was not alone with his story. Through evaluating the
culture of the group, I found that movement was the least alienating of the art
modalities. All the men had done gymnastics in school or in the military.
They were very fond of folk song and dance.
Through moving the body in the ‘waiting room’, we slowly created a
‘play room’. Playing engages in the here and now. The arts help us
communicate in the poetic language of play.
Each session started with the same group ritual. Creating a group ritual
gave the participants continuity and predictability in an unpredictable
situation. The ritual gave them the possibility of expressing themselves
physically and verbally, in the sense that it gave them the freedom to express
emotions, such as anger, in the form of shouting out, saying ‘No!’, saying
‘Yes!’, crying, laughing and screaming. All of these expressions had been
frozen in the beginning. The ‘movement’ group gave the participants the
freedom to do the opposite of what they had been allowed to do in the
context of the concentration camp in which they had survived in Bosnia.
One of the participants said about the group: ‘I was stiff when I came to
Norway. I came alone. My family was left behind, the group helped me to
meet others and make my body more mobile. If we hadn’t got that help, half
of us would have been invalids.’ Another man exclaimed in amazement
during a play session: ‘This is the first time I have laughed in months!’
Re-experiencing lost emotions gave the participants hope that change
might be possible in the future. A young boy expressed such joy by watching
his father play and move in the group. At home, the father just sat still and
stared at the wall. Seeing his father in a state of being alive gave the young
son hope and permission to have feelings of pleasure again in life. One
participant summed up his experiences this way: ‘It is as if my soul has come
home to a new body.’
At the Psychosocial Centre for Refugees at the University of Oslo,
Norway, I have led a multicultural Expressive Arts Therapy group over the
past six years. The group consists of six to eight members. All members have
been granted asylum. Each member comes from a different country. This
provided an opportunity to create a specific group culture. If too many
participants come from the same country, these group members can ‘regress’
to their native culture; this can alienate and create an unsafe environment for
the others and/or leaders.
In addition, a monocultural group is not always an option at treatment
centres because there might not be enough clients from the same country or
because participants may refuse to take part with someone from their own
country for reasons of political, religious or ethnic differences. The model of
having only participants from different countries emerged from encount-
ering the difficulties mentioned above.
All the participants in this group complained about having pain in their
bodies. Several had been to a number of medical doctors with ‘no
abnormality detected’. Insomnia, nightmares and general tiredness were
common complaints. Their bodies gave me the image of too tight guitar
strings. One of my clients said in the group, ‘Sometimes I wish that I had only
one leg, because then people would have believed my pain.’ But she never felt
that the other group members doubted her pain.
The participants had difficulty relating to each other and to being present
in the room. They experienced themselves as isolated and scared of making
contact with others. Through the repeated possibilities of artistic expression,
they became grounded in the here and now. They were slowly confronted
with their feelings towards one another and within themselves. The art work
spoke to everybody. The participants experienced the art as cathartic.
Expressing the movement of pain through dance gave the pain a form, a
beauty. Passing the trauma story of one’s life through the ‘art work’ gave the
story and the group a focus.
I asked one of the group members from Eritrea, whom I shall here call
‘Oscar’, if he knew what the shadow above the head in his painting was. He
said: ‘It’s the part of my history that I have never told that haunts me every
night. The voices of children.’ When Oscar was 11 years old, he witnessed
his parents being shot while they were begging for their lives. When he was
13 years old he became a soldier himself. One day he was to transfer six
prisoners of war from one camp to another. Between the two camps, the
prisoners, especially one of them, began to threaten to kill him because he
was so young. He panicked and shot the man. The others began to beg for
their lives, but he shot them all. The worst, he told us, was that they had
families and were begging, just like his mother and father did, to be spared.
He knew that today their children were orphans, just like himself. This art
told its story. His art made it possible for the others to be witnesses.
Six months later, Oscar went home for a visit after eight years in exile. On
his way home for a second visit a year later, he ended up being killed in an
accident. Today he is buried beside his mother and father in his home
country. He was one of the youngest participants in the group and the other
participants grieved for him profoundly, which led them further into an
existential crisis of meaninglessness.
Through art-making, the group was able to find different expressions for
their feelings; and one of the participants suggested that they could make a
calendar out of the pictures they had made, dedicating it to Oscar.
Nela, who had participated in the group since it started, was deeply
touched when Oscar told the part of his story that was the most difficult to
express. Nela was a radical student who joined a revolutionary party at the
age of 16. When she was 17, she was arrested and sentenced to four years in
prison. These four years were gruesome; she was often tortured and
humiliated. One of the torture methods was to take a fire hose and spray the
victims with a water-force that could almost penetrate the body. She still feels
the pain from this ‘treatment’, especially in her chest. But the worst was the
pain she caused her family: she experienced her brother and her sister being
tortured in front of her in order to get her to reveal other party members. She
did not see her father while she was in prison, and he died before she was able
to contact him. (Her mother died when she was nine years old.)
In our group, Nela was asked if she would like to ‘meet’ her father and talk
to him. A psychodrama student directed and the drama started:
Nela: When I was a revolutionary I stood on stage, but after I came out
of jail I became isolated and now I am shy. It is difficult to go out
into life.
Director: Where do you want to meet your father?
Nela: In prison. It is visiting hour. A long queue of people are
standing in line to see me. My father is the last one. I see him,
but I don’t want to see him.
Nela (in role as father): My name is Mustafa and I am 50 years old. I can see
my daughter. I want to know how she is. I am both happy and
sad that she is arrested. I am afraid that she will have no future.
When I die, who will take care of her? I am here once a week.
She never sees me, only her friends, they are more important
than me. I am sad. I know that you, Nela, are fond of me, but
you have changed. I am concerned. It is good that you are
‘inside’. On the ‘outside’ you could get killed. I can see that you
are strong, but you are still a child for me. I want to come closer
but I am afraid of being rejected again.
Nela (to her father): I want you to come closer, I love you. But if I experience
my feelings I shall lose my strength. I have to throw away
feelings of love for my sister, brother and father. It is dangerous
to feel weakness. This is why I cannot see or meet you, father.
(The director asks if there is a favourite place where she would like to meet her
father.)
Nela: I grew up with my grandmother. My father worked close to a
mountain. I would like to meet him on this mountain. The
mountain is a symbol for father and it is so beautiful.
Nela (in role as the mountain): I am purple and mystical. My colour is telling
you that you can never really know me. I have a lot of secrets.
The top of me is white and at night the shepherds come with
their animals. They come, find shelter and light their bonfires. I
have stood here a long time. I was a volcano, but not any more. I
give Nela strength and support.
Nela shows how the mountain supports her and wants me to be the
mountain. Nela and her father come riding side by side up the mountain.
Nela (to her father) : I never came even though I knew you were dying. We
have never learned to express emotions in our family, but now I
want to say that I love you and that I shall never forgive myself.
Nela (as father): I was sad that you rejected me and did not come, but now I
forgive you.
Nela: I shall have to continue to punish myself for the pain I have
inflicted on my family. But I am glad I was able to meet you now
and express my feelings for you.
Nela (as father): I hope it is not too late to ask you to take care of yourself ?
Nela: I can still not forgive myself.
Nela was continuing to punish herself by staying isolated and inside herself.
Inside the house of her body, it was black and cold. Everybody she had loved,
she had thrown out. She felt like she was under ‘house arrest’ in her own
body. Helping her to come out into life and express herself was one step
towards healing. She subsequently went back home for her first visit with
her brother and sister after nine years in exile.
The therapist as an artist among the ruins

Therapists who work with victims of traumatic violence run the risk of being
traumatized themselves.
One of the most agreed upon important healing factors in therapy is the
relationship between the therapist and client. The ability of the therapist to
be present in the moment with him/herself and the other is the basis for the
therapeutic relationship. If the therapist becomes traumatized, he or she will
be in exile from themselves and thus unable to be present.
The real goal of torture is to destroy the self of the individual so he or she
will never be able to become the person he or she was or engage in society
again. Trust, for the victim of torture, is shattered for a lifetime.
Listening to the stories of the survivors from the death camps of Omarska
and Manjaca in Bosnia, I heard of things I had never imagined before. My
whole perception of the world changed. I felt in some ways dirty, my
‘innocence’ was gone; and now I was carrying the knowledge of evil. I have
difficulty telling the stories I know of evil. My fear may be that I will
contaminate my surroundings with evil.
All the pain and fear in me gets stimulated. A way of keeping control is to
stiffen up and hold my breath. I can remember situations where I wanted to
cry out: ‘I can’t stand it any more. I don’t want to hear any more.’ Being in
pain, taking in impressions with no room to express the pain that is evoked in
me, has also at times led me into exile from my own body.
How can the therapist protect him/herself and stay at home in

his/her own body?
The arts give both the client and the therapist another means of expressing
themselves when words no longer carry their original meaning. When I was
working with the Bosnian refugees, I had to find a way to be present over a
longer period of time while the war was still going on and everything was
unpredictable. I knew that there was a limit to the amount of horror stories I
could absorb, and my experience is that most people in the beginning would
rather not talk about the trauma. So we ended up moving, breathing and
singing together. We all received many impressions and had the play-space
between us to express ourselves in dance, movement and sound. Through the
constant movement between impression and expression, contact between

the group members emerged.
In artistic expression, there is room for the fantasies of the client. This
often gives the therapist enough distance from his or her own pain that he or
she is able to be present and grounded in the here and now – not in exile. In
traditional verbal therapy, the fantasies of the trauma survivor are often
transferred on to the therapist; this creates difficulties in creating a trusting
and holding relationship, which is quite challenging for trauma survivors in
the first place. The therapist in this kind of relationship has the more
powerful position, and I often ask questions about the client’s life. For
survivors, this can easily remind them of an interrogation.
In expressive arts therapy, on the other hand, the context is different from
an interrogation room: instead of a bare room with some lights, chairs and a
table, the room is full of art equipment, colour and music. The context creates,
in itself, a distance from the trauma.
A culture is not static; it is dynamic. All cultures have their way of
communicating pain, passed down through the generations. The challenge
for the therapist working with people who come from different cultures is to
be ‘eclectic’ enough to meet the client without forcing his/her own culture
on the client or without losing his/her own culture. Expressive arts therapy
gives the therapist the flexibility and creativity to be able to communicate
with different cultures.
The arts touch our humanity; their power is essential in therapeutic
situations with trauma survivors, people for whom humanity itself has come
into question.
The following poem by Nela expresses her experience of five years of
participating in the multicultural expressive arts therapy group:
We came here sometimes with pain, without hope

or happiness. Through sharing our feelings a light
appeared.
The light became hope in the distance like the stars
in the sky, so near and at the same time so far away.
I experienced faith, but it was out of touch.
I came with my loneliness to the group and I
escaped out of it for a while.
The group became a door out of my loneliness –
my own world. Loneliness cannot be shared.
If loneliness could be shared, it wouldn’t be

loneliness.
My trauma can be shared through my expressions.
My loneliness is shared with my trauma. I have to
accept this truth so my complaints can rest and life
continue.
The danger of expressing is the fear of not being received. The ultimate
question is then: ‘Do I have the right to exist?’
By creating a play room in the waiting room, the expressive arts therapist
helps victims of trauma come home from exile and find again their right to
exist.
References
Freire, P. (1996) The Pedadogy of the Oppressed. Revised edition translated by Myra
Bergman Ramos. London: Penguin.
Herman, J. (1992) Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books.
Levine, S. (1997) Poesis: The Language of Psychology and Speech of the Soul. London: Jessica
Kingsley.
Moreno, J.L. (1973) The Theater of Spontaneity. New York: Beacon.
Reich, W. (1972) Character Analysis. New York: Touchstone Books.
Stuntman, K.R. and Bliss, E.L. (1985) ‘PTSD, hypnotizability, and imagery.’ American
Journal of Psychiatry 142, 6.
Van der Kolk B.A., Pelcovitz, D., Roth, S., Mandel, F.S., McFarlane, A., and Herman, J.L.
(1996) ‘Dissociation, somatization, and affect dysregulation: the complexity of
adaptation to trauma.’ American Journal of Psychiatry 153, 7, Festschrift Supplement.
Further reading
Janet, P. (1909) Nevroses et idees fixes, Vols 1, 2. Paris: Alcan.
Knill, P., Barba, H. and Fuchs, M. (1995) Minstrels of Soul: Intermodal Expressive Therapy.
Laban, R. (1947) The Mastery of Movement. London: McDonald & Evans.
Levine, S. (1994) ‘The second coming: chaos and order in psychotherapy and the arts.’
C.R.E.A.T.E. 3
Levine, S. (1996) ‘The expressive body: a fragmented totality.’ The Arts in Psychotherapy 23,
24.
Lowen, A. (1988) Bioenergetics. London: Penguin Books.
Marks, L. (1978) The Unity of the Senses: Interrelations among the Modalities. New York:
Academic Press.
McNiff, S. (1981) The Arts and Psychotherapy. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
McNiff, S. (1985) Educating the Creative Arts Therapist: A Profile of the Profession. Springfield,
IL: Charles C. Thomas.
McNiff, S. (1988) Fundamentals of Art Therapy. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
McNiff, S. (1992) Art As Medicine. Boston: Shambhala.
Meyer, M.A. (1992) ‘Creating a character in a locked facility.’ In M. Cox (ed) Shakespeare
comes to Broadmoor. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Meyer, M.A. (1994) ‘The symbolic expression of pain.’ In Pain and Survival. Human Rights
Violations and Mental Health. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press.
Meyer, M.A. (1995a) ‘Stress prevention in refugee reception centres.’ London: Energy and
Character, The Journal of Biosynthesis.
Meyer, M.A. (1995b) Stressforebyggende tiltak I flyktningemottak. Oslo: Sykepleier.
Meyer, M.A. (1996a) ‘Nar selvet blir ødelagt og nedbrutt av tortur.’ In medicinsk Arbog.
København: Munksgaard.
Meyer, M.A. (1996b) Videofilm: ‘In exile from the body.’ (21 mins) Oslo: NIKUT.
Scarry, E. (1985) The Body in Pain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van der Kolk B.A. (1989) ‘Compulsion to repeat the trauma.’ Psychiatric Clinics of North
America 12, 2.
Van der Kolk B.A. and van der Hart, O. (1991) ‘The intrusive past: the flexibility of
memory and the engraving of trauma.’ American Imago 48, 425–454.
CHAPTER 14
On the Play Ground

Child Psychotherapy and Expressive Arts Therapy
Ellen G. Levine
David, age nine, enters the play room after a long goodbye to his mother
in the waiting room. He gives the therapist a pillow to hold in order to
show him his ‘moves’. Head-butting, punching, posing, flexing muscles
and a great exaggerated display follow. The therapist is admiring David,
holding the pillow and absorbing the blows. Then David begins to order
the therapist around the room: he’s the boss now, a master drill sergeant,
barking his orders. The therapist obeys and plays the game to the hilt:
huffing and puffing to carry out David’s commands. In order not to be
exhausted physically, the therapist maintains an as-if relationship to
David’s orders. He plays with them, exaggerating his responses,
sometimes never leaving his chair. In this way, the play can continue, and
1
the therapist can remain present and engaged with the child.
David is living in the moment, experiencing the to-and-fro of a
relationship with someone who is willing to enter this specific play-space
with him. Play usually involves feeling. The affect or feeling which
accompanies David’s play is experienced as exciting and heated. David is
totally immersed. The therapist who is working with this play material
understands that the play is not a literal re-creation of David’s experience in
the outside world. Rather, the play emerges from the imaginal world of the
child, a world which he needs to show to the therapist and to have
recognized by him. The therapist is not afraid of David or of what he has to
1 The vignettes in this chapter are drawn from my own experience and that of students
whom I have supervised over a 22 year period working clinically with children, both
in private practice and at the C.M. Hincks Centre for Children’s Mental Health in
Toronto.
257
offer in play. He accepts what David offers to him. In a back and forth
movement, the therapist gives David an imaginative response which can
then be responded to in turn.
Matthew, age ten, first came into the play room convinced that the room
was ‘bugged’ and that the therapist would talk to her ‘bosses’ about him.
Matthew wanted to draw but threw his work into the garbage each time
he produced anything. This day, after several months of tossing out his
images, Matthew sits and watches while the therapist paints. The therapist
is enjoying the color, and the feeling of the paint going on to the paper,
sharing these feelings aloud. The therapist invites Matthew to join her. At
first, Matthew copies the therapist’s picture, but then begins to make his
own picture, sharing the same paints with the therapist. After several
weeks of these painting sessions, he announces: ‘Look at me, I’m an artist!’
As Matthew experiences the pleasure of his own art-making alongside
the therapist, the therapist, in turn, mirrors and encourages Matthew’s
vision of himself as an artist.
Matthew is experiencing the concreteness of putting paint on paper, and he is
recognizing what can emerge. After a period of accepting Matthew’s
frustration at his inability to make an artistic image, the therapist now
encourages Matthew to create something. She takes a risk and the time is
right.
In the above vignettes, each therapist is working with different material –
one with play and objects of play, and the other with art – and yet the
framework is the same. Playing and art-making derive from the same
impulse, are nurtured in the same atmosphere and take place on the same
ground.
In this chapter, the convergence of these two activities will be explored in
terms of how they find their home in the therapeutic encounter. The
foundation of their common thrust lies in the interconnection between
transitional experiences developed in play therapy contexts and the
necessary dwelling in the in-between in artistic practice. Their fundamental
interconnection can be shown along several lines in terms of the following
concepts: imagination, transitional space and transitional phenomena, the
frame, experimentation, circularity and metaphor. There is, of course, a sense
in which all of these concepts are linked but, for purposes of analysis, they
will be dealt with separately here. My purpose is to show that play therapy
ON THE PLAY GROUND 259
and expressive arts therapy have common roots: play and art are
fundamentally interconnected.
Imagination
Imagination is the central concept which informs the understanding of the
use of the arts and of play in therapy. Without imagination, human beings are
lost in a world of appearances, of surfaces, condemned to reality. It is the
imaginative capacity that takes us beyond and behind everyday life. This
capacity is essential to our experience of the world. In our therapeutic work
with play and the arts, we put our faith in the imagination and its powers.
Both playing and making art require imagination. How do we understand
imagination in this context?
Imagination, as distinct from fantasy, refers to that capacity of mind which
creates images, manifests them and shapes reality according to them. Images
are the primary material of the imagination and its external manifestation as
the building blocks of play and of art-making. In a productive or an active
way, imagination serves to connect us to the world and to others. Imagination
gives us access to that which is hidden from us. It shapes our relationship to
the world, a world which we are constantly constructing and co-constructing
with others. This productive view of the imagination contrasts sharply with
the view that imagination has primarily a reproductive function.
Psychoanalysis has traditionally seen the imagination from this point of view,
regarding the play of the child as an internal symbolic universe which needs
to be interpreted to be understood. The task of the therapist, then, would be
to help the child master difficulties and traumatic experiences by providing
him or her with interpretations of the play material which speak to the
underlying anxiety, begin to address and diminish the defenses, and
ultimately release the child from the rigidity that the trauma has produced in
the psyche. Psychoanalysis has derived a concept of the imagination, then,
from pathology. In the grip of pathology, the psyche will tend to repeat and
re-enact the traumatic material in an obsessive and rigid manner; the more
traumatized the individual, the more repetitive and compulsive the play will
be.
While this is, of course, the case, I am arguing here that this is not the only
way in which we can look at the role of imagination in the psyche. If we turn
to look at the imagination from the point of view of the artist, we see that it
can have an entirely different function, one of free exploration rather than
repetition. In fact, while it is true that pathological play is not free and
exploratory, there is a sense in which any re-enactment is not simply a literal

re-creation of the traumatic scene. Whenever the child plays, there is some
degree of transformation. Children take much of their play material from the
experiences of their lives. Just as the dream uses what is termed ‘day residues’,
play incorporates language, scenarios, objects, and feelings from the
everyday world of the child and the significant relationships in the context of
that child. Yet if one observes the play of children, there is always a twist that
occurs around the literal reality of their lives. The play is always shaped in a
different direction. This can be a matter of degree: if the pathology is
dominating, then the material is repetitive, more literal and less
transformative. Yet I would argue that it is still very difficult to read off from
play the actual life experiences of the child. The child does not show directly
what has happened to them, and this is because they are always attempting to
shape it differently, to master experiences and to gain control over them.
Thus we cannot explain the function of imagination wholly in
reproductive terms even in the case of pathology. In expressive arts therapy,
we see the imagination as derived not from a pathological foundation but
from a notion of art-making which tends towards the active transformation
of experience. We see imagination as both bound and free: sometimes stuck
and looping back upon itself, sometimes flowing and experimental. The task
of therapy with children which uses play is to mobilize the imagination, to
free it up and to loosen the play as much as possible. At times, we might need
to teach a child to play if the ability to play has become constricted. Play and
imagination go hand in hand in expressive arts therapy. From psychoanalysis
we can take the notion of the constriction of play and imagination under the
influence of trauma. Our work is to augment this reproductive notion of
imagination with a more productive notion, one which takes account of the
activity of shaping that goes on in both play and art-making. We see the
imagination as critically involved in the process of development as the child
moves into adulthood. If the child is bound by trauma and unable to use
imagination productively, one of the consequences is an inability to continue
along the developmental line; development depends in part upon the
imaginative transformation of experience. The capacity to shape our
experience imaginatively, in the way that the artist does, is an essential part of
our being in the world.
Transitional space and transitional phenomena

Imaginative work in therapy, work which plays with the life material of the
child, requires an engagement in the relationship between the child and the
therapist. If we return to the vignettes cited above, we see that the therapist
survives David’s attacks because of the play-space that has been created
between them. The therapist is David’s play-mate. More importantly, he is
also holding David in a bounded frame, a frame that marks off this space
from the space outside the room. The therapist waits until he and David are
inside the room to begin the play. They do not play in the waiting area or in
the hallways. The frame around the play room heightens and enriches the
potential for possibility. What occurs inside the frame, when therapy is
working, has been termed the ‘transitional experience’ (Winnicott 1971). It
is ‘transitional’ because it is created between the therapist and the patient, as a
co-creation by the two of them.
Matthew, on the other hand, has been playing with the arts and using the
art material in a toy-like manner. He has also been participating with the
therapist in a bounded relationship, one in which the therapist makes an
intervention and introduces her images as a way of beginning a to-and-fro
exchange between them. Her images take off from Matthew’s, and their
collaborative activity has the effect of producing Matthew’s art work. This
work of art is itself a transitional object. It is ‘transitional’ because its creation
depends upon the sharing of images between Matthew and the therapist.
Matthew paints a picture which was stimulated by the imagination of the
therapist. The therapist, in return, provides a response to the image which
helps to further its emergence. Thus they create an object together which is
both of and by Matthew and of and by the therapist.
The back-and-forth, to-and-fro quality of the relationship is generated by
the presence of the therapist as a witness and responsive partner in the
showing/display of the work of the child. In expressive arts therapy, we
emphasize the importance of the therapist as seeing and responding to the
showings of the child. Art-making gives rise to a work that becomes manifest
in the world. As expressive arts therapists, we give what is termed an
‘aesthetic response’ (Knill, Barba and Fuchs 1995) to the work, and thereby
create a shared world between us. Our aesthetic response is a responsibility to
the child; it indicates our degree of attunement and the quality of the
relationship. This witnessing and responding and the back and forth of the
play together is what builds up the transitional space between us. The
creation of a bounded space in which therapy takes place is also a key concept
in both expressive arts therapy and in play therapy. The bounded quality of
the space is surpassed by the kind of activity that can take place there. This
activity is transitional because it is neither just of or from me or just of or from
the other. It is an intermingling of both of us, a back-and-forth interchange
which builds a world between us. This co-created world is the third area, the
transitional space in between us.
As Ogden (1989) notes, this space might also be conceptualized as a
dialectical relationship in which the patient and the therapist each create the
other. Ogden uses a dynamic rather than a spatial metaphor to understand
the area of co-created in-betweenness in therapy. He uses the conceptual
analogy of a dialectical process to understand the formation of transitional
experience. He understands it as a process in which two opposing forces
create, preserve and negate the meaning of each other as they stand in
dynamic relation to each other in the form of a co-created potential aliveness.
There is no patient without a therapist, and there is no therapist without a
patient. Between patient and therapist, there is constant movement, a
continual ‘resonance of meanings’ (Ogden 1989, p.259). Ogden posits a
notion of aliveness in a dialectical relationship in opposition to the deadness
of a relationship in which imagination has collapsed into reality. He gives the
example of a patient who cannot play with the as-if situation of therapy and
literally believes that the therapist is her mother (the delusional transference
of a borderline or schizophrenic patient, for example).
In play therapy, there is a dialectic between fantasy and reality as well,
where ordinary objects are transformed by play into imaginal objects, ready
to be used by the one who is playing. This transformation can only take place
in a particular state of mind which is established by the dialectic of patient
and therapist. Here is where we can play, in the as-if realm where objects can
take on many different characteristics. We are not playing in the real or literal
world, where objects are defined by their function. In the literal world, we
regard a table as a repository for things, a resting place. In the imaginal mind
of the play, a table can have an unlimited number of uses and appearances – a
bed, a boat, a beach, a parking lot, and so on.
The notion of transitional space arises out of the psychoanalytic literature
and was developed particularly in the work of D.W. Winnicott, British
psychoanalyst and pediatrician. For Winnicott, all therapy has to do with two
people playing together; ‘… playing is itself a therapy’ (Winnicott 1971,
p.58). But playing does not just happen. It emerges as a developmental line,
appearing first in infancy as part of the initial bonding dance between
mother and infant. When the newborn emerges from its sole and exclusive
preoccupation with its own bodily needs, it starts to respond to the world.
This response usually begins with a smile. With the smile, the infant begins
to show a response to others outside of itself. By this response, the mother
can also feel recognized and validated. So the dance of back and forth can
begin. The bond is being co-constructed as it comes into existence. Yet, as
the infant grows and is able to master more tasks, more and more
separateness is allowed to enter the relationship. The reliability of the
mother and the establishment of a sense of trust are crucial for the infant to
begin to separate. But this separateness involves loss at the same time: loss of
the state of merger and oneness with the mother and loss of the feeling of
being totally held. In order to re-create the lost aspects of the relationship
which have been discarded in the process of developing and becoming more
independent, the infant creates a symbol of the relationship embodied in the
transitional object. Typically, this object is real: the thumb, a scrap of
blanket, a teddy bear. Yet, paradoxically, the real object is now a loaded
symbolic equivalent of the experienced relationship. The transitional object
retains its aliveness and symbolic character because it gets its charge by
continually participating in a flow between the absence and the renewed
presence of the mother. The transitional object can temporarily fill up the
absences. It is, then, an absent-presence and, as such, can be a field or
container for all sorts of imaginative activity.
Winnicott expands the idea of the transitional object to that of a space or
area of experience in which many such objects can be contained. Such a
notion of a locus of imaginative activity is useful in understanding the
therapeutic action of play and the arts. The therapeutic space is quite peculiar,
and yet it is akin to other experiences in which there is imaginal work going
on. Sometimes these experiences occur alone when no one is watching, for
example, drawing, reading, or solitary fantasy play. The therapy space
maximizes the presence of an other who also takes part in the action. The
relationship is the ground upon which the transitional space can flower. It is
built out of experiences of trust and reliability, first with the mother and then
with the therapist as an active participant who fosters these qualities. When
the patient has had the experience of a break in trust or a chronic violation of
the trust that is so necessary to the formation of the self, there is a consequent
inability to form the ground upon which imaginal/transitional experiences
can be built. It takes a great deal of time to establish a trusting relationship
with such people, let alone a transitional area of experience.
The capacity to play and to form relationships seems connected from this
perspective. If the mother is continually inconsistent and/or unreliable, then
the infant cannot feel held. As a consequence, confidence-building is
interrupted, and the infant cannot experience any rudimentary sense of
control or omnipotence which is so necessary to self-formation at its earliest
stages. What can result is an inability to play, a lack of access to a ‘basic form
of living’ (Winnicott 1971, p.50).
This ‘place where we live’, as Winnicott refers to it, is the location of the
therapeutic encounter as well as the location of cultural experience in
general. It is also the place where play and art-making occur. In play, as we
have seen, there is a back-and-forth, to-and-fro movement of shared images.
In art-making, the power of the work stands in between the maker and the
world. The making of art requires a mediated relationship in which the work
takes on a life of its own and asks for something from the maker. Introducing
play and art-making into therapy work shifts the action from the direct
encounter between patient and therapist, where the focus is on transference
and counter-transference as the primary matrix, to a focus on the work of art
or onto the play creations. With play and with art, patient and therapist enter
a domain which they create between them. It is separate from them and yet
the same as them. It is both me and not-me, you and not-you. It is us: our
world, our story, our making. We develop our own language, our own stories,
our metaphors. The works of art that emerge between us take on a life of their
own; in these works we can recognize the flavor and characteristics of our
relationship.
We can remember the works that we created in the therapy encounter as
markers and points of emphasis in the process of treatment: one young
woman of 19 remembers ‘that painting of the girl with the colors swirling
around in her stomach, the angry girl’. She painted this work when she was
ten years old and wants to see it again to remind herself of the power of the
image and to reconnect to it. Even years later, when she looks at it again, she is
moved by it. Through viewing the work, she can connect her current feeling
with her state of mind at that time and, in so doing, gain some insight.
The frame
The creation of an as-if world is central to both playing and art-making. It is
also what guarantees the safety of the therapeutic encounter. This safety
depends greatly on the maximization of the boundaries around the
encounter. When the therapist emphasizes the special nature of the space in
which the work takes place, he or she is firming up the frame. If the frame is
secure, it can hold anything. We can go anywhere, do anything, providing
we stay within the frame. The frame holds imaginal activity. Firming up the
frame requires speaking about how special the space is, how the time is
circumscribed, and how we cannot hurt each other. We can do anything as
long as we pretend to do it. Establishing the pretense is the creation of the
as-if world; this makes it possible for playing, as therapy, to take place.
What is inside the frame is the transitional space. It is a potential space,
filled by the imaginal work between the patient and the therapist. The job of
the therapist is to enrich this area as much as possible. This might be done by
a variety of means. The therapist might initially set the stage by emphasizing
the difference between everyday reality, where the child would be
accountable for her actions, and this play space, where there is no censorship
or direction. The therapist might say that we can play with anything, make
and do whatever we want to do. There might be a need to go a bit further in
modeling what this play might actually look like. As with Matthew, it might
involve inviting the child into something that the therapist has initiated in
order to help begin enriching the potential space. As with David, it might
mean playing with the child in the sense of demonstrating to him that the
activity of play is valued and welcomed when it arrives. In play therapy, this
would be a process of amplification – making the play bigger through a tone
or quality of voice and bodily gesture.
However, one needs to take care not to impose one’s own needs and
images on the child at this point. Following the lead of the child is central to
this work. Transitional space can only arise when the child can feel heard,
seen and understood. This might mean holding back for some time and
allowing the child to come forward until there is an opening for engagement.
Many children who come for therapy do not feel a sense of agency or control
in their lives, and they need to be given the freedom to explore in a
wide-ranging way. This search takes place in the presence of someone who
holds the frame for them. The holding does not impose upon them but
guides them into imaginal activity.
James was five when he entered therapy. His mother, Ms M, said that he
had been sexually abused, allegedly by his father, from early infancy until
the age of three. James had not seen his father since these allegations had
been made public. Currently, Ms M was having difficulty with James at
home: he was angry, oppositional and threatening to throw himself out of
a window. After some time of seeing James alone, the therapist received a
phone call from Ms M asking her advice about a recent incident. James
had a rope that was given to him by his father, and he was using the rope
to tie up his dog and himself. Ms M was afraid that James would hurt the
dog or himself.
The therapist suggested that Ms M and James come in together and
bring the rope. In the beginning of the session, the therapist raised the
issue of the rope quite directly. She spoke to James in front of Ms M,
sketching out her hypothesis and a preliminary interpretation about the
rope – mainly her sense that this rope was very important and powerful,
that it might remind him of his father, and that he might be using the rope
to stay close to his father. However, she went on, James was using the rope
to hurt the dog and himself. He knew this was not good but part of him
did not know how to stop. James sat on his mother’s lap, holding the rope.
He cried as the therapist spoke to him.
After the therapist spoke and James cried, he brightened and said that
he had an idea. He hopped off his mother’s lap and asked for some paper
and markers. He began to draw furiously. He said that he was making a
special machine to take the power of the rope away. James took charge of
the session at this point, assigning roles to the therapist and to his mother.
When the drawing of the machine was finished, he instructed his mother
and the therapist to sit on the floor and to hold the drawing up off the
ground slightly by holding opposite ends of it. James placed the rope
under the drawing. He then drew the ‘control panel’ for the machine. Ms
M and the therapist were directed to make machine noises as James
pushed the control buttons. Depending upon the button – high, medium,
or low – the noises had to follow. They were also supposed to shake the
drawing as if the machine were vibrating. This went on for some time,
over and over, until James was finished.
At the end, James removed the rope from under the machine. He
announced that the rope had ‘lost its power’. James and his mother left the
session with the rope. They agreed that they would put it somewhere safe
where it could not hurt anyone any more. Several weeks later, when the
therapist asked about the rope, neither Ms M nor James could remember
where they had put it. James was also beginning to be easier to handle at
home.
The therapeutic action of this vignette has many layers. For our purposes, it
serves as a good example of the power of framing in order to intensify
imaginal work, work in the transitional area. The therapist creates a frame by
inviting the rope into the space and by naming the rope as a central symbolic
object. She then relies upon the child’s creative powers to come up with a
way of defusing the power of the symbol. This also has the effect of putting
the power in the child’s hands, trusting that he has the resources to come up
with an imaginative way through the impasse.
The therapist also takes a risk in setting down the frame: she puts out an
interpretation in the form of an understanding of the meaning of the symbol.
This interpretation is preliminary, a hypothesis, but it becomes material upon
which the child can work. Then, together, a world can be created in which
the child feels safe. This is, of course, an as-if reality, but one in which
powerful psychic work can occur. The frame would not work in this way
unless the child could also begin to resonate with it.
The therapist, of course, need not always introduce an interpretation. In
James’s case, this intervention was chosen by the therapist based on an
intuition and upon her understanding of James and his mother over time.
James was highly imaginative, but he was also quite confused. Ms M was
usually afraid to speak openly to James about experiences from the past and,
especially, about his father. This had to do with Ms M’s fear of James’s father
and her sense of being ‘hunted’ by him. James and Ms M were literally hiding
out from James’s father. By bringing in the notion of the father, the therapist
sought to de-mystify him and to create a more open climate where James
could feel more free to act. The act that he chose, in this case, was play.2
Experimentation
Playing and art-making in the therapeutic encounter involve a high degree
of experimentation in which there is no truth beyond what seems to resonate
and keep the images flowing back and forth. Experimentation requires an
exploratory spirit which remains open and flexible to possibilities. For
children, play is a way of trying out different outcomes. It is a major way in
which they learn about themselves, others and the outside world. In addition,
play is the work that children do to come to some mastery; it is a way of
2 At the time that I worked with this child, I was primarily using a psychoanalytic
framework in which interpretation has a central place. Perhaps today, from a more
artistic point of view, I might have begun by inviting the child to play with the rope
and then wait to find its meaning later. The whole question of the relationship between
art, play and interpretation in expressive arts therapy needs to be explored in greater
depth.
turning passivity to activity. This is precisely what James did when he

invented the machine to disempower the rope; he was mastering an
experience in which he felt helpless and controlled. He tried out an idea
which began to work, and he enlisted his mother and the therapist as
play-mates in this task. The experiment grew and built upon itself until it was
completed.
Art-making, too, involves exploration and discovery. Creating requires
destroying and making again. Sketching, trying out all the different
possibilities, is central to the way in which many artists work. Musicians do
many ‘takes’ before they arrive at a piece. Sculptors will often look at the
stone to find the possibilities that are suggested within the material and then
follow them. Dancers may begin a piece with an idea or some music and then
find the movements which fit, listening to the music and beginning to move
until the movements cluster into a dance. Many movements might be thrown
out or reformulated along the way.
In the establishment of a transitional space, playing with possibilities is an
essential element: a willingness to go where one has never gone before or,
conversely, to go where one always goes over and over until something new
arrives. Expressive arts therapy is distinguished from techniques such as
behavior modification which prescribe in advance the course of the
treatment and do not rely on exploration or wandering around to achieve a
therapeutic result. Ms M knew that she wanted James to change his behavior,
but the therapy with play and the arts did not go precisely for that. There was
a willingness to see what would happen in the as-if. The hope was that James
would ultimately begin to feel less of a need to hurt others and himself, but
this was only loosely held as a hope.
If the therapist had been attached to a particular outcome, namely that
James stop tying up the dog – change his behavior – the chances are that
James would have come up with another way to discharge his feelings.
Creativity would have found its way but in a negative sense – in opposition to
the agenda of the therapist and, of course, of the mother.
If behavior modification had been employed as a therapeutic strategy
with James, the therapist would have worked with the mother to design a
program of rewards and punishments for him. Such a program would not
make use of James’s innate inner resources. Partially this would be because it
would not enlist James in the process but also because it could not rely too
much on chance and possibility. The goal is embedded in the whole process
from the beginning. Unlike behavior modification, which is essentially
goal-directed, working with play and the arts in therapy is a matter of

putting out probes and following the lead of the outcomes of these probes.
Circularity
Any discussion of exploration and experimentation in relation to play and
the arts must take account of the notion of circularity. Play is, by definition,
circular activity. It gains its meaning by virtue of being done as an activity in
and for itself. It is distinguished, then, from ‘game’, which implies a sense of a
goal or an end result. Games have rules and a firm structure which are agreed
upon by participants. The etymological roots of the word ‘play’ are
connected to the roots of the word ‘dance’ or ‘the stepping forward and
backward and to the sides’ (Knill et al. 1995, p.24). Playing can have the
effect of going around and around in endless repetition. Playing derives its
satisfaction and its heightened emotional charge from this repetitive, circular
movement.
Repetition is central in the process of ‘working through’ in play therapy.
Children will often play the same sequences over and over, session after
session. This repetition has an ebb and flow character, a back-and-forth
movement that loops back over itself, either in terms of the concrete images (a
truck gets buried in the sand and then another truck rescues it) or theme
(good guys versus bad guys). The repetition is necessary in order to probe
and explore more deeply and in order to repeat until something shifts.
Distinguishing between empty, stereotypic repetition and repetition in
the service of working through is important for the therapist. Empty
repetition seems devoid of life; rather than being circular, it appears stuck. If
we look back at the initial discussion of imagination, empty repetition would
signal the appearance of the reproductive imagination which would, in turn,
give us an indication of the presence of pathology. Here we can see that the
psyche cannot generate any options for itself. All possibilities have collapsed.
In terms of intervening, one might try to interrupt an empty cycle by
introducing a new character or a new option within the metaphor of the play.
If the repetition is seen to be in the service of the child, the therapist might
work on containing her own feelings of boredom by understanding how
important the play is for the child and by beginning to see the small and
subtle shifts that are taking place. Because of its circularity, play can
sometimes be frightening in a way that games are not. The game, by staying
within its structure, keeps feelings on the perimeter. The child can be upset or
elated by the outcome of the game in terms of winning or losing, but a direct
connection to emotional life is not necessarily activated by the process of

playing the game. At least whatever feelings are emerging must be kept
under control so as not to spoil the game. In play, feelings are actively
engaged to fire the play as it goes along.
Metaphor
Peter, age six, came for therapy because of aggressive behavior in school
and at home. He attended kindergarten for half of the day and grade one
for the other half. In kindergarten, he was able to function, whereas in
grade one he seemed distressed and agitated most of the time. At lunch
time, Peter needed his mother to come to school and feed him or he
would refuse to eat. At home, he often attacked his younger sisters. It was
difficult to discipline Peter; his behavior was leading his parents to define
Peter as ‘bad’. Both parents worked long and irregular hours, and the
children were often left in the care of babysitters. Peter had been tested
several times; there was a suspicion that he might be developmentally
delayed.
Peter began therapy and, for several weeks, played with his back to the
therapist. She could barely hear Peter while he was playing. Although she
felt quite shut out, she stayed in this position. After some time, Peter
began to include the therapist in his play. This play shaped itself around a
particular metaphor: Peter took a large pillow and made himself a ‘home’
on the floor. He would turn out the lights and go to sleep lying on the
pillow. After a few minutes, he would wake up and begin his day. He
called the therapist ‘mommy’, and together they would have breakfast.
Peter would make breakfast for ‘mommy’; then they would spend the
time happily eating and chatting about the ‘food’.
Peter continued to circle back to this play sequence several times in
subsequent sessions. This metaphor became his signature and his touchstone,
even when he was immersed in other activities in a session. The ‘home game’
was somehow necessary for Peter to play out repeatedly with the therapist.
On her part, the therapist reported a growing identification with, and
empathy for Peter as he played out this particular metaphor. She was not
afraid to be ‘mommy’ in the play and to have strong loving feelings for Peter.
She did not act out these feelings in a literal way but took these feelings and
re-inserted them into the play in order to make the metaphor even richer.
The circularity of the to-and-fro movement of play within the therapeutic

context is also a container for the work that is going on between patient and
therapist. Their co-creation takes the outward form of metaphorical
constructs: play sequences in which stories are embedded. The process
involves circling back and forth among the parts of the child’s inner life, as
they are put into metaphorical form, responded to by the therapist within the
metaphor, and then taken back again and transformed by the child in a more
creative way. Because the therapist can hold powerful material, such as anger
and aggression or love and sexuality, by empathizing with this material and
playing with it but not retaliating, she can give these feelings back to the
child in order for the child to accept them.
Metaphor in play therapy allows a distancing to occur. If we work with a
doll, a character or a story emerging from an encounter between various toys,
we are recognizing that the feelings associated with this play can be
separated from the child and encountered indirectly. This act of distancing is
sheltered in the construction of the metaphor. It can protect fragile and
vulnerable parts of the self and provide a way of working with them that is
less intense and threatening than confronting them directly.
Generally, children who come for play therapy have split-off, unaccept-
able aspects of themselves and see themselves as ‘bad’. The therapist is not
afraid to look at and play with these split-off, ‘bad’ parts of the child.
Constructing metaphors and playing with them involves the willingness to
go around and around, back and forth, over and over again, sometimes with
distressing and upsetting content. This movement results in the building up
of the child’s resources and draws upon his fundamental creativity. Over
time, the building up of characteristic stories ultimately allows the child to
experience himself as seen and recognized by the therapist.
Metaphor is the major way in which this work is carried forward. ‘When
the child is entranced by the play metaphor, experientially anything is
possible’ (Caspary 1993, p.211). Staying within the metaphor is necessary
for the carrying out of this work. To step outside of the material crystallized
and sheltered in a metaphor can lead to an empathic break with the child. In
this way, the holding container of the transitional space can be broken. If
Peter’s therapist had been uncomfortable with being assigned the role of
‘mommy’ in the play, confusing the literal with the metaphorical reality, she
might have refused to play the role. This would have broken the magic of the
metaphor. She would have lost a good opportunity to play (work) with Peter
on something very important, namely his need for security and a home base
that he could count on. Playing and living in the metaphor, most
importantly, provides shelter and safety in order for the child to take some
risks. These risks involve going into dangerous material and working it by
playing with it. The example of James and the rope from his father is
certainly another way in which metaphor shows itself as central to the work
of therapy. It was in and through the acceptance of the significance of the
rope as a charged repository of feeling and longing that the play with James
could be a ‘working through’. Certainly in the arts, especially poetry,
metaphor is central. Poetry speaks in metaphor. ‘The poet suspends every
direct correspondence and thereby awakens intuition’ (Gadamer 1986,
p.170). Metaphor in poetry both shelters and reveals the truth by distancing
and suspending literal reality.
Conclusion
As practitioners of expressive arts therapy, our work uses play and art-making
to broaden and deepen imaginative activity. The imagination is implicitly
therapeutic. Yet in therapy we are creating a special context for playing and
art-making. We are carrying out these activities in an intentional way within
a relationship that makes use of transitional experiences. When we heighten
the efficacy of the transitional space by firming up the frame within the
relationship, we allow imagination to flower. The aesthetic response of the
therapist accepts the impulses and feelings of the child and encourages the
possibility of their transformation. Our intention has to do with helping
something new to arrive and freeing the imagination.
When imagination can be framed and enhanced in play in this way, then a
shift may occur in the child’s relationship to reality. Ultimately, the
connection between child psychotherapy and expressive arts therapy rests on
the same foundation: the capacity of the imagination to shape experience. In
psychotherapeutic work with children, we must pay attention to the
fundamental interconnection between play and art-making, to the essential
role of metaphor and imagination in the creation of a play-space of safety and
risk for the child. It is in this play-space that the child, like the artist, can
emerge and re-create him or herself in and through playing with images.
Ultimately, then, psychotherapy with children takes place on the play ground
of the imagination.
References
Caspary, A. (1993) ‘Aspects of the therapeutic action in child analytic treatment.’
Psychoanalytic Psychology 10, 2, 207–220.
Gadamer, H-G. (1986) The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays. Edited by R.
Bernasconi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Knill, P., Barba, H.N. and Fuchs, M.N. (1995) Minstrels of Soul: Intermodal Expressive
Ogden, T.H. (1989) ‘Playing, dreaming, and interpreting experience: comments on
potential space.’ In M.G. Fromm and B.L. Smith (eds) The Facilitating Environment:
Clinical Applications of Winnicott’s Theory. New Haven: International Universities Press.
Further reading
Jabes, E. (1972) The Book of Questions. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Levine, E. (1992) ‘Imagination and understanding in expressive therapy: guiding
formulations and embedded interpretations.’ C.R.E.A.T.E: Journal of the Creative and
Expressive Arts Therapy Exchange 2, 23–26.
The Contributors
Annette Brederode is an artist, expressive arts therapist and Gestalt therapist. She
has worked with adults in mental hospitals, therapeutic communities and out-patient
clinics. She is the Director of the Center for Expressive and Creative Arts Therapy in
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, founded by her in 1985, and is in private practice in that
city. She also directs a training program in expressive arts therapy in Helsinki, Finland.
In 1986, Annette co-founded the International Network of Expressive Arts Therapy
Training Centers.
Margo Fuchs, PhD, is the Program Director of the Expressive Arts Therapy Program
at the European Graduate School, Switzerland. She is a poet, supervisor and
psychotherapist who teaches and publishes in Europe and the United States. She is the
author of Season-ing Life (Palmerston Press) and co-author of Minstrels of Soul
(Palmerston Press).
Daria Halprin, MA, trained as a dancer and performance artist and had a film career
before becoming a psychotherapist. She is co-founding Director of Tamalpa Institute
in California and author of Coming Alive: The Creative Expression Method (Tamalpa
Institute). She is an international teacher and trainer and an adjunct faculty member of
the European Graduate School, Switzerland.
Majken Jacoby, MA, initially trained as an art teacher and painter, has worked as a
producer and director of television and radio productions at the Danish Public Service
TV and Radio Station. She has exhibited as a visual artist, illustrated books and created
theater sets and puppets. She is the founder of ISIS-Denmark, a training program in
expressive arts therapy, and an adjunct faculty member of the European Graduate
School, Switzerland.
Paolo J. Knill, PhD, is Professor Emeritus at Lesley College Graduate School in
Cambridge, MA, and Provost and Dean of the European Graduate School,
Switzerland. He is a performance artist, teacher, supervisor and psychotherapist. He
initiated the International Network of Expressive Arts Therapy Training Centers and
is the co-author of Minstrels of Soul (Palmerston Press), and author of Ausdruckstherapie
and Medien in Therapie und Erziehung, both published by Eres Edition Lilienthal.
Ellen G. Levine, MSW, PhD, is a child psychotherapist and an expressive arts
therapist. She is a visual artist and has worked extensively with children and adults,
both privately and in clinical settings. She is Co-Director of ISIS-Canada in Toronto
and the author of Tending the Fire: Studies in Art, Therapy and Creativity (Palmerston
Press). She is a core faculty member and the North American Liaison Director of the
European Graduate School, Switzerland.
Stephen K. Levine, PhD, DSSc, is Associate Professor of Social Science and Social
and Political Thought at York University, Toronto. An actor, poet and clown, he is
Co-director of ISIS-Canada in Toronto and the author of Poiesis: The Language of
274
THE CONTRIBUTORS 275
Psychology and the Speech of the Soul (Jessica Kingsley Publishers). He is Associate Dean
and Director of the Doctoral Program in Expressive Arts Therapy at the European
Graduate School, Switzerland.
Elizabeth Gordon McKim is a poet and teacher of poetry to people of all ages. She
is an adjunct member of the Graduate Faculty of Lesley College in Cambridge, MA,
both in the departments of Expressive Arts Therapy and Creative Arts in Learning. She
has published four collections of her poetry, a teaching manual co-authored with poet
and teacher, Judith Steinbergh, and an audio tape of music and poetry entitled To Stay
Alive.
Shaun McNiff, PhD, is the Provost of Endicott College in Beverly, MA. He was the
founder of the Expressive Therapy program at Lesley College, Cambridge, MA, and is
the author of many books in the field of expressive arts therapy including The Arts in
Psychotherapy (Charles C. Thomas), Art as Medicine (Shambhala), Depth Psychology of Art
(Charles C. Thomas), Art-Based Research (Jessica Kingsley Publishers) and others.
Melinda Ashley Meyer, MA, is a psychodramatist and a bioenergetic therapist. She is
the founder and co-leader of the Norwegian Institute for Expressive Arts Therapy. She
is a founding member and council member of the Federation of European
Psychodrama Training Organizations.
Yaacov Naor, MA, is a psychodramatist and an expressive arts therapist. He has
worked as a therapist with psychiatric patients, children and adults in addition to his
artistic work as a theater actor and director. He is the founder and director of the ‘Inner
Theater’ psychodrama training center and of ISIS-Israel, a training program in
expressive arts therapy.
Paul Newham is a therapist, teacher and author based in London, UK, where he is the
Director of The London Voice Centre. He leads the professional training in voice
movement therapy and is founding director of the International Association for Voice
Movement Therapy. He is author of Therapeutic Voicework (Jessica Kingsley Publishers)
and teaches courses in the therapeutic use of voice in Europe and the United States.
Natalie Rogers, PhD, is an author, artist and psychotherapist. She is the founder of
the Person-Centered Expressive Therapy Institute in Santa Rosa, CA. She lectures and
facilitates workshops in Europe, Russia, Japan and Latin America, as well as in the
United States. She is the author of Emerging Woman: A Decade of Midlife Transitions
(Personal Press) and Creative Connection: Expressive Arts as Healing (Science and Behavior
Books).
Margareta Wärja, MA, is a music psychotherapist and a Fellow of Guided Imagery
and Music. She is currently in private practice in Stockholm, Sweden, and is the
Training Director of the Swedish Expressive Arts Therapy Training Institute.
Baby Sister 219 in expressive arts therapy 50–2
Subject Index beauty 19–20, 53–4, 59–60, 61, differance 34–5
amacoustic expressions 93–4 176, 205 Dionysus 23–4
active imagination 90 behavioral science methodologies dis-belief, and poetry 203
aesthetic probing 48 83 disability, influence on voice 106
aesthetic response 261 Being, concept of 23–7 disintegration 82–3
aesthetic responsibility 11, 34, 48 belief, poetry and 197–8, 202–6 dissociative experiences, PTSD
aesthetic theory 48–9 bodily being 32 243
aesthetics of music 176, 182 body stories, exploring 138–9 distance in art work 64
necessity of form 53–66 Bonny Method of Guided Imagery therapeutic 74
as theoretical foundation 19–20 and Music (GIM) 175, 189 double life, concept of 75
affect attunement 185 bound expression 57, 59 drama therapists, voicework 108
alienation, in poetry 199 bounded space 261–2 drawing, movement-based arts
American Indians, voice and song California Institute of Integral therapy 140–2
98 Studies 10 dreams
Andy, poetic therapy 208 care 37 imagination 40
anger 126, 226 care-taking 66 soul nourishment 50
appearance 42 catharsis 98–9 Easter Symposium 10
arena of authentic music 178 Center for Expressive and Creative eating disorders, voicework 107
art Arts Therapy 151 ecstasy, experience of 20
bodily being 32–3 change, through intentional effective reality 41
as disciplined play 42–3 movement 137 effectiveness, in professional
Plato on 22 child psychotherapy 257–72 practice 81–2
poiesis 28–32 children of Holocaust survivors eidos 21, 23
in voicework 103–5 224–7 embodied experience 136
art making of Nazis 227–8 emotions see feelings
aesthetic response 261 Cicero 98 empathy 124–5
experimentation 267–9 circularity, play therapy 269–70 enlightenment 114
and play therapy 257–9 client-centered approach, politics epic poems 20
survival 246 of 120 ethical demand 57–9, 62
wilful interaction with clinification syndrome 78 ethics 53–66
imagination 40 collective singing 108 European Graduate School 10
art media 65 collective unconscious 101–2 European Network of Expressive
Art Studio, healing experience coming between, poetic therapy Therapy Training Centers 10
151–69 206–7 eurythmy 102
beginning 153–5 community 35 Eva, psychodrama workshop
cleaning up 167–8 Confronting the Holocaust 234–5
in dialogue with images 158–60 Through Psychodrama 223–4 exchange, artists and art work 64
individual work 160–5 exile 246
layer upon layer work 155–8 congruence 121–3 experience, poetic 201–2
presentations 165–7 continuity principle 43–5 experimentation, play therapy
art work cooing 93, 99 267–9
articulation 56–7, 62, 64, 66 creation, tension between exposedness, sovereign life
distance 64 annihilation and 65–6 utterances 57
and psychological reflection creative connection 115–19, 137 expressive arts chorus 138–9
69–74 creative inquiry 81creativity 245 expressive arts therapy
sensory nature of 63 crystallization theory 47–8 child psychotherapy 257–72
articulation, of tuned sensing defining 10–12
Da-sein 30, 33
56–7, 62, 64, 66 development of 9–10
dance 134
artist-in-residence 78–9 ethics and aesthetics 53–66
dance movement therapists,
artistic inquiry 67–84 poetry 206–9
voicework 108
arts psyche medicine 50–2
David, play therapy 257–8, 261
as a continuity 43–5 research 67–84
day-dreaming 40
as human existential 39–40, 52 theoretical foundations 19–36
deconstructionism 9
association, in poetry 212 trauma survivors 245–54
deviation, in poetry 199
astonishment, through poetry 202 work-oriented approach 43–9
dialectical relationships, play
audio-phonic skin 95 see also expressive music therapy;
therapy 262
authentic music 173 movement-based expressive
diet and medicine
babbling 93, 99 concept of 49–50 arts therapy; play therapy;
276
SUBJECT INDEX 277
receptive music therapy; Holocaust survivors intrapersonal theory 45–6
therapeutic voicework; voice children of, characteristics Invisible, The 166
movement therapy 224–7 ISIS see International School of
expressive music therapy 172–4 workshops, processes and events Interdisciplinary Studies
Expressive Therapy Program 9 230–7 James, play therapy 265–7
facilitative relationships 120–1 Homer 20, 21 justification research 76–84
false self 180–1 hormones, effect on voice 103–4
house of the body 241–2 Kant 19
fantasy 244 knowing, artistic 82
feelings idea (eidos) 21, 23
corresponding vocal sounds 98 identity, and voice 91 language, acquisition of 95
evocation through music 187–9 IEATA see International Expressive Lars, field of play 183–6
expression through movement Arts Therapy Association layer upon layer work 155–8
137 image, and voice 91–2 leaving out, in poetry 199–200
healing through experiencing images Lesley College, Expressive
117–19 dialogue with 158–60 Therapy Program 9
muscle change 135 expression through movement letter-writing 236–7
re-experiencing through group 137 Lexical Syntactic Deficit Syndrome
therapy 248–52 music therapy 175 108
uncovering 126–8 imaginal reality 41 literal reality 41
felt sense 49 imagination locked memory 244
field of play, music 182–6 as a continuity 43–5 love 58, 129, 204–5
form, necessity of 53–66 distinguished from fantasy low-skill high-sensitivity 12, 45–6
Form of the Good 21 244–5 make believe, poetry 196–7
forms, theory of 21–2 intermodal aspects of 40–1 Marcia, person-centered expressive
foundationalism 19 play therapy 259–60 arts 117–19
frames, play therapy 42, 264–7 poetry and 195–202 Maria, expressive music therapy
functional voice disorders 104 impersonal evaluation 74 173–4
Germans, born after World War II improvisation martyrdom, children of Holocaust
227–8 musical 46, 173 survivors 226
Gestalt experience 141 singing 94 masks, vocal 92
good-enough mother 177 individual work, Art Studio 160–5 mastery 61
graduate students, art–based infancy, early songs of 93–6 maternal flow, of music 191
research 68–74 inner ear 102 maternal voice 94–5
Grotowski, Jerzy 101–2 inner polarities, transcending Matthew, play therapy 258, 261
group process, psychodrama 125–30 me-ness 181
237–8 inoperative community 35 meaning, cognitive process of
group therapy, traumatized insight finding 43
refugees 241–54 through intentional movement medicine see diet and medicine
guided imagery 117–18 137 medicine song 98
through metaphoric messages memories, evoking 155–6
handling 177 115 memory, locked 244
hands up exercise, psychodrama inspiration, for poetry 214 mental illness, poetry as cause of
workshop 234–5 installation art 46 203
Harold, psychodrama workshop intentional movement 137 metaphors
232–4 intermediary space 181–2 house of the body 241–2
Hart, Roy 101 intermodality 11–12 movement as 135–6
Harvest Symposium 10 International Expressive Arts play therapy 270–2
healing Therapy Association (IEATA) metaphysics 20–3
Art Studio experience 151–69 10 methodological stances, artistic
ceremonies, singing 97–8 International Network of inquiry 69–74
in poetry 213–14 Expressive Arts Therapy mimesis 22
power of theater 228–30 Training Centers 10 mother–child dyad 176–9
saving sorceress 147–8 International School of mothering function, music
Hegel 23 Interdisciplinary Studies (ISIS) 171–92
Heidegger 27–32 9–10 movement, influence on voice 102
hermeneutics 9 International Theatre Research movement-based expressive arts
Hippocrates 98 Centre 101 therapy
holding function, music as 177, interpersonal theory 45 as agent for change 137
190–1 interpretation, aesthetic theory 49 case study 143–7
SUBJECT INDEX 278
creative connection 137 Path, The 198 practitioners, of voicework
evocation of feelings and images pathology, imagination 259, 260 98–103
137 Person-centered expressive arts present, sensory experience of
exercise 139–42 Marcia, healing process 117–19 being 63
integrating process 136 philosophy 120–5 preverbal infancy, sounds 95–6
method 138–9 principles 130–1 psyche
roots 134–5 Person-Centered Expressive imagination in 259–60
saving sorceress 147–8 Therapy Institute 113–14 metabolism of 49–52
use of metaphors 135–6 personal artistic inquiry 69–74 voice and 90–3
movement-body point of view personal aspects, poetry 211–12 psychoanalysis, imagination 259
233–4 personality psychodrama
multiculturalism 35 therapists 37–8 aims 229–30
multidimensional approach 11 and voice 92 method 223–4
muscles Peter, play therapy 270 music 172–3
emotional thoughts 135 phenomenology 9 workshops for Holocaust
voicework 103 physical intervention, therapeutic survivors 230–7
music voicework 103 psychological liberation, through
as an aesthetic field 176 Plato voicework 100–1
evocation of feelings 187–9 attack on Greek poets 20–1 psychological reflection, art-based
field of play 182–6 critique of art 22 research 69–74
holding function 190–1 on poetry 203 psychological states, voice 103,
image formation 175 theory of forms 21–2 105
intermediary space 181–2 truth 21 psychology, relevance of 12
mother-child dyad 176–9 play Psychosocial Centre for Refugees
Nietzsche 23 art as disciplined 42–3 248–52
reaching pre-symbolic levels as a continuity 43–5 psychotherapy 89–90, 107
186–7 existential phenomena 39–40 Pythagoras 98
sensory nature of 63 theatrical 41 realities 41–2
true and false selves 180–1 play room, for traumatized receptive music therapy 174–5
voicework 107–8 refugees 247–52 recognition, sensory experiences
play therapy
see also expressive music therapy; 56
receptive music therapy; and art making 257–9 Renaissance composers 98
singing; songs circularity 269–70 repair of the world 81
musical space 182 experimentation 267–9 répétiteurs 96–7
myth of the eternal return 25, 26 frames 42, 264–7 repetition 269
nazis, children of 227–8 imagination 259–60 repression 125–6
Nela, traumatized refugee 250–2 metaphors 270–2 research 67–84
Nietzsche 23–7 transitional space 261–4 resonance of meanings 262
non-verbal expression 117 playback theater 233 revolving feelings 55
non-verbal singing 108 poetic openness 59–62 rhythm 213
non-verbal sounds 96 poetry ritual
not me experiences 181 and belief 202–6 group therapy, trauma survivors
now, sensory experience of 63 and imagination 195–202 248
in the oral tradition 211–22 theater 228
object-formation theory 38 as therapeutic intervention
object-presenting 177 ritualistic facilitations 42
206–9 role-reversals 230–1, 233, 234,
openness of speech 55 tragic dramas 20, 23–4
opera, therapeutic 108 236
poets, Plato’s attack on Greek
Oral tradition 220–2 20–1 saving sorceress 147–8
oral tradition, of poetry 211–22 poiesis 11, 28–32, 34 schizophrenics, voices of 100
organic voice disorders 104 politics, poiesis 34 Schopenhauer 23, 24
oscar, traumatized refugee 249–50 polyaesthetic theory 46–7 science, in voicework 103–5
Other, experience of the 33–4 positivism, sensory experiences seances, voices of the dead
overman 25 55–6 99–100
overstructuring, in poetry 199 post-modernism, poiesis and self-direction, climate for 120
pain 19–36 self-esteem, theater workshops
controlling 243–4 Post-traumatic Stress Disorder 243 229
learning to cope with 234–5 practice, separate from research self-hypnosis, coping tactic 242–3
Paracelsus 70 68–9 self-image, and voice 91–2
SUBJECT INDEX 279
sensory basis, of human nature 54, therapeutic voicework verbal language 94, 96
55–6, 62 future of 107–9 virtual realm, of poetry 197
separation/individuation, music history of 97–103 vitality affects 186–7
therapy 186 preverbal modes of expression vocal masks 92
sexual abuse, voicework 106–7 96 vocal nourishment 94
shadow 125 therapeutically instigated singing vocal ranges, elements of earth 98
shamanism 147–8 107 vocal styles, theatre groups 101
sharing therapists voice
Holocaust workshops 233, disintegration 82–3 expressive art of 89–90
236–7 intermodality 11–12 and psyche 90–3
poetry 216–17 personality 37–8 see also singing; songs
shortness, of poetry 200 working with trauma survivors voice movement therapy 97,
singing 90, 92–3 252–4 105–7
healing ceremonies 97–8 see also drama therapists voices, damaged 104–5
improvisation 94 therapy see expressive arts therapy; voicework
medium for expression 100 psychotherapy art and science in 103–5
psychotherapy 107 thesis projects defining 96–7
transitional objects 94 mother–daughter relationship see also therapeutic voicework
see also songs 70–2 Wagner, Richard 25
singing partners 96 personal reflections on art work Waiting Room, The 203
slave-morality 26 69–70 war, effects of 242–4
Socrates 24 pictorial account, everyday life Will, Nietzsche on 23–7
songs and imagination 72–4 Wolfsohn, Alfred 100–1
healing power of 98 thingly substance 40–1, 48–9 word-play, in poetry 198–9,
of infancy 93–6 Thomas, false self 180–1 214–16
presentation of trauma 106 thought, metaphysical tradition workshops, for Holocaust
spontaneous 94 20–3 survivors 223–4, 230–7
see also singing tikkun ha’olam 81 Writer, The 199
sonorous envelope 95 togetherness, music therapy 188 writing, expression through
soul nourishment 49–52 Tony, Holocaust workshop 235–7 159–60, 216
soul-maps 98 tragic dramas 20, 23–4
sound enactments 108 transference, music 188
sounds, preverbal infancy 95 transitional experience 261
sovereign life utterances 54–5, transitional objects, singing 94
56–7, 203–4 transitional space
spontaneity 245 infant development 181–2
spontaneous music-making 173 play therapy 261–4
spontaneous song 94 transpersonal theory 46, 51
studio-oriented approach 79 trauma
sub-personalities 100 case stories 247–52
survival, through art making 246 effects of 242–4
Susanna, mothering quality of expressive arts therapy
music 177–9, 188–9 245–7
taking care of 66 presentation through song 106
talking cure 89, 99 therapists 252–4
temperature, quality of voice 91 treatment 244–5
testimony 245–6 see also Holocaust survivors
theater, healing power of 228–30 triviality 60
Theater of the Holocaust 223–39 true self 180, 181
theatre groups, vocal styles 101 truth 205–6
theatrical play 41 Heidegger 27–9
theoretical foundations 12, 19–36 Nietzsche 26–7
theory of forms 21–2 Plato 21
therapeutic relationships tuned sensing 56–7, 62, 64, 66
conditions for 120–1 unconditional positive regard
congruence 121–3 123–4
empathy 124–5 unconscious, exploration of 125–6
unconditional positive regard unreal 41–2
123–4 Uprising 214–15
Author Index Kenny, C. 176, 182
Kent, J.K. 38
Rasmussen, K. 97
Redfearn, J. 91
Achterberg, J. 175 Kessler, I. 107 Reich, W. 99
Aigen, K. 176 Killingmo, B. 96 Rice, J.S. 71
Alexander, F.M. 102 Kirkeby, P. 64 Rilke, R.M. 199, 205
Allen, P. 74, 78, 82 Klienes 204 Robbins, A. 107
Anzieu, D. 91, 95 Knill, P.J. 12, 44, 74, 269 Rogers, C.R. 120, 123, 124
Aristotle 202, 204 Knill, P.J., Barba, H.N. and Fuchs, Rogers, N. 126
Artaud, A. 101 M.N. 11, 20, 32, 40, 43, 45, Rosolato, G. 95
Ayre, L. 96 79, 176, 261 Samuels, A. 90
Balint, M. 190 Kolk, B.A. van der, Pelcovitz, D., Shapiro, J. 73
Bion, W. 94 Roth, S., Mandel, F.S., Silverman, K. 91
Bonny, H. 175 McFarlane, A. and Herman, Skinner, B. 95
Boone, D. and McFarlane, S. 105 J.L. 244 Smith, W. 96
Bowlby, J. 183 Kristeva, J. 96 Spariosu, M. 42
Brook, P. 101 Kumiega, J. 102 Steiner, M. 108
Brownell, A. and Lewis, P. 108 Lacan, J. 187 Steiner, R. 102
Butcher, P., Elias, A. and Raven, R. Laing, R.D. 199 Stern, D. 185, 186, 187
105 Landy, R. 75 Stewart, L. 175
Canner, N. 108 Langer, S. 95 Stuntman, K.R. and Bliss, E.L.
Caspary, A. 271 Leedy, J.J. 203 242, 243
Chamberlain, D.B. 177 Levinas, E. 33 Sutton, J. 108
Levine, E.G. 15, 80 Todd, M.E. 135
Dalcroze, E.J. 102 Levine, S.K. 11, 32, 82, 245, 246,
Densmore, F. 98 Tomatis, A. 94
247 Tong, R. 96
Derrida, J. 34 Lewis, M. 93
Doane, J. and Hodges, D. 95-6 Tudor-Sandhal 180
Lindell-Fjaestad, M. 182
Dürrenmatt, F. 64 Løgstrup, K.E. 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, Wärja, M. 173, 178, 179, 181,
Eliade, M. 97 59, 60, 61, 65 188
Fink, E. 39, 41, 42 Lowen, A. 99 Winnicott, D.W. 90, 94, 177, 181,
Forrester, J. 89 McKim, E. 31 190, 261, 262, 264
Franco, G. di 108 McNiff, S. 9, 108 Woodman, M. 172
Frank, J. 98 Martin, J. 101
Freud, S. 99 Matthis, I. 191
Frey-Rohn, L. 89 May, R. 147
Friere, P. 245 Meekums, B. 108
Gadamer, H.G. 41, 272 Merleau-Ponty, M. 11, 32, 95
Gardner, H. 94 Merloo, J. 134
Gendlin, G. 49 Mitchell, S. 108
Gilligan, C. 96 Moon, B. 74
Goldberg, F. 175 Moreno, J.L. 172, 245
Graves, P.L. 177 Moses, P. 99
Greene, M. and Conway, J. 94 Nancy, J.L. 35
Greene, M. and Mathieson, L. 94 Naumberg, M. 90
Gregersen, F. and Køppe, S. 64 Nehamas, A. 197
Halifax, J. 97 Newham, P. 90, 91, 92, 96, 97,
Hargreaves, D. 94 100, 101, 104, 105, 106,
Harris, J. 95 107
Hauge, H. 57 Nietzsche, F. 23, 24, 25
Heidegger, M. 15, 27, 28, 29, 30 Nordoff, P. and Robbins, C. 108
Herman, J. 243 Ogden, T.H. 262
Highwater, J. 134 Ostwald, P. 93
Hymes, D. 95 Paquet, N. 82
Innes, C. 101 Passalacqua, L. 108
Paz, O. 200
Jenkins, K. 69, 70 Pinker, S. 95
Jensen, O. 56 Plato 21, 203
Johnson, L. 40 Politsky, R. 74
Jung, C.G. 89, 100
280

Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy

Tapestry of Cultural Issues in Art Therapy

Using Voice and Movement in Therapy

Jessica Kingsley Publishers

First published in the United Kingdom in 1999 by

Second impression 1998

© Copyright 1999 Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN-13: 978 1 85302 463 4 pb

Printed and Bound in Great Britain by

Part I Philosophical and theoretical perspectives

2 Soul nourishment, or the intermodal language

3 The necessity of form: expressive arts therapy in

4 Artistic inquiry: research in expressive arts therapy 67

Part II Clinical perspectives

6 The creative connection: a holistic expressive arts process 113

7 Living artfully: movement as an integrative process 133

8 Layer upon layer: a healing experience in the art studio 151

10 Between imagination and belief: poetry as

11 Poetry in the oral tradition: serious play with words 211

12 The Theater of the Holocaust 223

13 In exile from the body: creating a ‘play room’

14 On the play ground: child psychotherapy and

The Contributers 274

This book gathers together a multiplicity of perspectives which represent the

Studies (ISIS), programs were established in Switzerland, Canada, Denmark

particular framework. Its interdisciplinary nature requires an ability to bring

specific creative needs of the moment is a particular goal of training in this

developed by her father, Carl Rogers. ‘The Creative Connection: A Holistic

Philosophical and Theoretical

Poiesis and Post-Modernism:

In a story by the American author William Saroyan, the protagonist

Beauty is what takes one’s breath away; it is literally breath-taking, as Paolo

Furthermore, not only do the poets produce psychological and political

relation to philosophy; the concept, then, must necessarily be held to be

lifeless individualism of our modern scientific culture. In The Birth of Tragedy,

truth itself is constantly changing; in fact ‘truth’ is only what we will to be

Nuremberg rally was called ‘The Triumph of the Will’. Is Nietzsche’s

in its preserving–concealing resists appropriation. Rather than a ground

several things become apparent. In the first place, Heidegger’s destruction of

Heidegger’s thinking of poiesis is itself not a foundational ground that we

dispersal. Jean-Luc Nancy, following Derrida here, speaks of ‘the inoperative

Soul Nourishment, or the Intermodal

The arts: a fundamental way of living the ‘coming to be’ and

Imagination, play and the arts

methods have the advantage of using the complexity of the intermodal

dreams and day-dreams. Fink elaborates on this distinction with respect to

1 All translations from this volume are my own.

realm of appearance. In turn, appearance must not be understood in the

Art as disciplined play

The work-oriented approach to expressive arts therapy

When we look for the continuities displayed in a historical-comparative

rituals of play in painting, sculpturing, acting, dancing, making music,

Understanding of process and oeuvre in expressive arts therapy

from contemporary or ethnological forms of art that emphasize the

paintings. However, the imagined act may want to be actualized

elucidation does not slip back into reductionistic or generalized

can be witnessed as a real sensory experience, a quality that cannot

Soul nourishment, or the metabolism of psyche

extended again to specific corrective substances of a psychic nature necessary

Expressive arts therapy as a dietary and medical practice in the psychic

the dance performance scoring developed at Tamalpa Institute, the

3 Information available: Tamalpa Institute, Daria Halprin-Kalighi, Director, PO Box