SNAPSHOTS OF A BEREAVED MOTHER’S HEART – RESEARCH
In Carla’s 2001 Master’s research project, she investigated her own lived experience of being a bereaved Mother using arts based and narrative methods.
Through this research, findings were generated that illuminated aspects of Maternal bereavement that had previously been taboo subjects in bereavement literature.
The methodology of the research revealed ways in which arts based and creative processes can have narrative and discursive functions such as performing subjugated stories, authoring new and preferred stories, challenging dominant narratives and cultivating new cultural stories that are reflective of lived experience, and empowering for experiencing persons to live within.
van Laar, C. (2001). Snapshots of a bereaved mother’s heart: An heuristic arts inquiry into being a bereaved mother. (Unpublished master’s thesis). RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
ART THERAPY FIRST AID
– CHAPTER
With contributions from a range of expert voices within the field, this book explores the use of art therapy as a response to traumatic events. Offering rare insight into ways in which art therapists have responded to recent crises, this is a unique resource for art therapists looking to coordinate interventions for large-scale disaster and resulting trauma.
Carla’s chapter, describes the “Art Therapy First Aid” approach she developed in response to Australia’s 2019/20 bush fires.
The first book to focus on disaster response in art therapy, this will be an invaluable contribution to the field in an increasingly vital area.
van Laar, C. (2021). Art Therapy First Aid. In J.Scarce (Ed.), Art Therapy in Response to Natural Disasters, Mass Violence, and Crises. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
READ FOR FREE ONLINE HERE
CREATIVE MENTAL HEALTH 2021
– 12 MINUTE DOCUMENTARY VIDEO
PRODUCED BY DR CARLA VAN LAAR
What is Creative Arts Therapy?
This 12 minute documentary illustrates the diversity of practice within the Australian Arts Therapies, and showcases how creative approaches in mental health and wellbeing are holistic, person centred, inclusive and value lived experience.
Filmed onsite in Boon Wurrung Country, South Eastern Victoria, and featuring presenters and guests at the 2021 Creative Mental Health Forum and Self Care Retreat. This event supported the goals of the ACTivate Arts Therapy Campaign to gain recognition of Creative Arts Therapists as valued members of Victoria’s Mental Health and Well Being workforce.
van Laar, C. (2021) Creative Mental Health 2021, retrieved from https://vimeo.com/578978435
VIEW NOW HERE
THE GODS IN A TIME OF CORONA: BERNIE NEVILLE
– PUBLISHED BY CARLA VAN LAAR
Bernie Neville gifts us this gem of a book complete with wit, wisdom and scholarship. Neville’s own intimate relationship with the Greek gods is revealed in his narrative depicting 2020 as a grand stage on which the gods continue to play out their ancient dramas in response to a global pandemic.
In this drama, the gods’ faces are unmasked, recognisable and disconcertingly familIar.
Bernie Neville, after he retired, was an Honorary Professor at Swinburne University, and formerly Associate Professor of Education at La Trobe University. He taught, researched, wrote and consulted widely on educational practice, communication and organisational change for over 30 years. He is the author of ‘Educating Psyche’ and ‘The Life of Things’, and has edited many books, authored and co-authored numerous chapters and articles. This book is Bernie’s last work, written in the months before he died during the COVID pandemic in 2021. Bernie was well loved and is deeply missed by his family, friends and those who were fortunate enough to be his students.
Neville, B. (2020). The Gods in a Time of Corona. Carla van Laar Publishing.
ORDER A COPY HERE
THE BALANCING ACT:
PERFORMING STORIES OF OUR PRACTICE WITHIN SYSTEMS OF THE STATE
– ARTICLE
Co-authored by Carla van Laar and Alisoun Neville:
“We invite arts therapists to… resist the influence of institutional and systemic practices that can disempower and stigmatise.
We offer the possibility of humanising, collaborative and empowering approaches that are more in keeping with the values underpinning arts therapy practice.”
Neville, A., & van Laar, C. (2020). The balancing act: Performing stories of our practice within systems of the state. JOCAT, 15(1), 64 – 73
DOWNLOAD HERE
SEEING HER STORIES: AN ART BASED INQUIRY
– THE BOOK
“Carla has enacted fully, in all its complexity, a woman’s way of knowing and by doing so has given us all permission to do the same.
This is a radical act, that, as she points out, destabilizes well, pretty much everything we’ve come to believe in the institutional and professional realm.” – Pat B. Allen, Ph.D., ATR. Author of Art is a way of knowing; Art is a spiritual path and Cronation.
“The thesis is an excellent and inspired work that has many threads of significance, all of which can be seminal sources for the growth and development of the arts and therapy.
The excellence of the art made and shown, and the clarity of the thesis vision, give me great confidence in terms of its ongoing impact on the world and Carla van Laar’s ability to transform art therapy.” – Shaun McNiff, Ph.D., ATR. Author of Art Heals; Art as Medicine; Integrating the Arts in Therapy; Art-Based Research; Art as Research and other books.
van Laar, C. (2020). Seeing her stories: An art based inquiry. Carlavanlaar.com. Brunswick, Australia.
READ FOR FREE ONLINE HERE
ORDER A HARD COPY HERE
ART THERAPY FIRST AID
– EXPERIENTIAL VIDEO WORKSHOP
A Professional Development training resource for Art Therapists and friends of Art Therapy.
– Adapt the core principles of psychological first aid into art therapeutic responses.
– Engage in ELEVEN CREATIVE EXPERIENTIAL ART ACTIVITIES.
– Imagine the possibilities for working with your own community.
– Watch with a friend or small group to make it more fun and interpersonal!
– Allow 2.5 – 3 hours for viewing and activities.
van Laar, C. (2020) Art Therapy First Aid: Experiential Video Workshop, retrieved from https://youtu.be/3e3zsrL2Pqc
VIEW HERE NOW
SEEING HER STORIES: FINDING A PLACE IN THE LANDSCAPE OF ART THERAPY LITERATURE
– ARTICLE
Viewing artworks is a way of seeing other people’s stories. This article discusses the concepts of ‘seeing’, ‘story’ and ‘her stories’, and the ways they have been navigated by art therapists. I map art therapy’s landscape of ideas about ‘seeing her stories’, locate my place within this landscape, and consider how understanding this territory has implications for our field.
van Laar, C. (2019). Seeing her stories: Finding a place in the landscape of art therapy literature. ANZJAT, 14(1), 15-25.
MOVING ART THERAPY ONLINE
– HALF HOUR VIDEO TUTORIAL
I made this video early in 2020 when COVID restrictions first started impacting how Arts Therapists could continue working to support people in online environments. Our practices have come a long way since then! However, this brief presentation still has the core of how to make online Arts Therapy work. Please enjoy 🙂
van Laar, C. (2020) Moving Art Therapy Online. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/su6tCER9Nho
VIEW ONLINE HERE
THE ART OF RECOVERY: ONE DAY AT A TIME
– ARTICLE
During the last week of June 2017, Melbourne train commuters, cyclists and pedestrians witnessed a group of community members create a colorful multi-media mural at Jewell Station, in Brunswick, Melbourne. This was the outcome of a therapeutic street art project, carried out by men who have accessed support services at VincentCare Victoria’s Quin House and RLAD program. They are on journeys of recovery, from homelessness and dependence into clean living and independence. Their artwork tells a story about these journeys from despair and ‘lost-ness’ to hope and connection.
van Laar, C. (2017). The art of recovery: One day at a time. ANZJAT, 12(1), 46-49.
NICOLA SINGS A RESPONSE
– CREATIVE WORK
This artwork was painted as part of my Doctoral research into sharing women’s stories through art, and was published in ANZJAT in 2013.
van Laar, C. (2013). Nicola sings a response. ANZJAT, 8(1), 56-57.
DOWNLOAD HERE
CHILL SKILLS:
AN EIGHT SESSION PROGRAM FOR SUPPORTING STUDENTS TO BUILD SKILLS IN MANAGING ANXIETY
– MANUAL
This manual is designed to be a user-friendly resource for teachers, school welfare coordinators, school nurses, health promoters, social workers, youth workers and other staff working with young people in schools. Chill Skills is a series of eight workshops that, through a combination of educational and therapeutic group work, helps young people to build skills in managing anxiety.
As well as the session outlines with easy to follow step by step instructions and tips for facilitators, we have included information about anxiety, how to prepare for the sessions and resources for you to use. The information in this manual is based on evidence-based research, project evaluations and my experience working with colleagues at headspace and in partner schools to design and deliver two School Focused Youth Services funded pilot Chill Skills projects.
van Laar, C. (2012). Chill skills: an eight session program for supporting students to build skills in managing anxiety. Melbourne, Australia: School Focused Youth Services and headspace Western Melbourne.
KNOWING TOGETHER DIFFERENTLY: INTERSUBJECTIVE RESPONDING
– CHAPTER
This book explores the experiential research methods (arts-based, reflexative, collaborative) that allow researchers to access their own and their participants’ knowing in richer ways. It comprises chapters on innovative methods of research and analysis using literary forms, performance and visual arts, and through collaborative and interdisciplinary inquiry. It offers methodological discussions and first-person accounts of experiences in using these methods in order to fire the imagination of students and researchers. Writers are drawn from various disciplines in the health and social sciences, and the methodologies they discuss can be applied across these fields.
Carla was honoured to collaborate with the other co-authors who include her Doctoral research supervisor Jan Allen. Their chapter includes examples of arts based collaborations and intersubjective responses as ways of generating knowledge together.
Rumbold, J., Allen, J., Alexander, L., & van Laar, C. (2008). Knowing together differently- Intersubjective responding. In P. Liamputtong & J. Rumbold (Eds.), Knowing differently: Arts-based and collaborative research methods (pp. 297-325). New York, NY: Nova Science.
ACCESS THE EBOOK HERE
BEREAVED MOTHER’S HEART
– BOOK
“The journey I have documented is one of personal grief, creativity and transformation. The story of transforming loss, however, is relevant not only to bereaved mothers, but to people learning to live with other life-changing losses and trauma. I encourage you, the reader, to engage with the images, text and reflective notes in this book – guided by your own creativity, courage and compassion.”
In the form of a visual and written journal, Carla’s exploration of her own grief is saturated with honesty, and a depth of feeling that will generate new understandings of maternal bereavement. The book includes reflective notes that provide practical suggestions for using the book in classrooms, workshops and groups to create soulful conversations and activities about trauma and loss.
van Laar, C. (2008). Bereaved mother’s heart. Bendigo, Australia: St Luke’s Innovative resources.
SEE MORE HERE
REQUEST A COPY FROM CARLA HERE
A SAFE DISTANCE: AN INTERMODAL APPROACH TO CREATING A COUNTRY RETREAT FOR CITY GIRLS WHO HAVE BEEN ABUSED
– CHAPTER
This co-authored chapter uses the story of one real life retreat to illustrate how interdisciplinary therapists work together to create healing experiences for a group of girls from the city over a weekend country retreat.
Healing the Inner City Child presents a diverse collection of creative arts therapies approaches to meeting the specific mental health needs of inner city children, who are disproportionately likely to experience violence, crime and family pressures and are at risk of depression and behavioural disorders as a result.
The contributors draw on their professional experience in school and community settings to describe a wide variety of suitable therapeutic interventions, including music, play and art therapy as well as psychodrama and dance/movement approaches, that enable children to deal with experiences of trauma, loss, abuse, and other risk factors that may affect their ability to reach their full academic and personal potentials. The contributors examine current research and psychoeducational trends and build a compelling case for the use of creative arts therapies with inner city populations.
Lacy, J., Michaelson, R., & van Laar, C. (2007). A safe distance: An intermodal approach to creating a country retreat for city girls who have been abused. In V. A. Camilleri (Ed.), Healing the inner city child: Creative arts therapies with at-risk youth (pp. 282-300). London, England: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.