Art Therapy Without Borders

I enjoy following ATWB posts on Facebook. The colourful and energetic images that appear in my timeline on a regular basis are a welcome reminder that amidst all the policy, research, evidence, standards, ethics, interventions, models, tools (standard and non standard), assessments and evaluations is the need to play. Within us all there is a force which begins at birth, and in the often cruel world of the adult human, this force can become distorted and mishapen, but it is our role as creative practitioners to release the constraints on this vibrant spirit, to remove the barriers to imagination, which are so often held in place by trauma, pain and isolation.

What are we but stories? We are an ever developing web of narratives which cross and merge, diverge and multiply. All of these stories are connected to a collective imagination which is the human condition. Science, Theatre, Visual Arts and so on, are all manifestations of the interaction between our senses, minds and environs.

In the river, the constant flow and interaction between water, channel and rocks and boulders, conceptualises this narrative process. We are the shared experience of all, expressed through a variety of collective and individual media. My former theatre lecturer and director of my first stageplay, once remarked that “theatre is a human need.” Art Therapy Without Borders understand this fully.

Creativity should never be considered an ‘add on’ or a luxury. Creativity is fundamental to human survival. When ancient man donned an animal skin and “became” the essence of that animal in order to hunt, he engaged in a form of theatre which we now call mask work. It may seem a tenuous link, but the fact of the matter is that creativity has been a part of human evolution since we came out of the swamps. In Papua New Guinea, there is a tradition of re-enacting ancient tribal wars in the form of dance, as the two tribes – once enemies – now engage in celebrations and festivals. In western society, we see disaffected areas transformed by well directed urban arts projects. The creative process is transformative by its very nature.

The origins of the arts are embedded deep within our evolution, and extend far beyond the boundaries of state funding, corporate value or social status. The rise of the Arts for Health movement is a call to all practitioners to embrace the power of the creative process as guiding principle for rehabilitation and recovery.  

So thankyou to ATWB for reminding us all that the most fundamental element to healthy development (social, emotional and physical), healthy living and happiness is to be creative, engage in new experiences, and above all, to be the child and play.

Narrative Inquiry – a response

This short piece started out as a reply to Kirsty Stanley’s blog on Narrative Inquiry.

English: Screenshot from Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The river tells a story and the Kawa approach is very much about narrative and lived experience. It is only through narrative that we can attain a true understanding of the experience of others. We are nothing but stories – our history, our identity, our learning, our government, culture, beliefs, upbringing, environments are all stories. Our interactions with one another generate further stories which ebb and flow around the landscape of our perceptions.

 

“Science without art is a tea bag without water” is very true. And the reverse is also true, after all, in a creative role I use technologies and applications which have come from scientific endeavour. Science gives us the resources to explore our creativity to greater and greater levels. What art gives science is the opportunity to integrate itself more fully with humanity.

 

I think one of the biggest problems we face is the way that both science and art are represented by the media. Science is often seen as some kind of eggheaded netherworld where the man in the street is not welcome; and art can be portrayed as either wacky and off the wall or or entirely elite and inaccessible. What is worse, our conflict obsessed media, will always pitch one against the other, and when these two disciplines do converge it is seen as ground-breaking – even though the likes of Da Vinci, Aristotle had been combining both the scientific and creative arts in their thinking long before our profession was even conceived of.

 

Occupational Therapists are (or should be in my eyes) curators and analysts of the stories which we are presented with. We make sense of the narratives we encounter through the application of the processes we are trained in and the experience we accumulate. More than this, we need to be pattern recognisers and meta-theorists who see the connections between multiple systems and can understand the cultural relevance in a situation no matter what the lived experience of the individual or group.

 

If you are in any doubt regarding the importance of narrative, then think about a time when you have been asked to tell your story – how did it feel? How often do we get the opportunity to tell our story, or even a part of it? Taking a narrative approach demands that we listen, which promotes concentration and compassion, from this emerges understanding and relevance. Only through truly engaging with the lived experience of the client can we fully apply our professional skills, values and core beliefs.

 

What are we but stories?

 

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