Through our art based activities, we can have a heightened awareness of our embodied experience in the present moment, through which we cultivate presence to ourselves, others and the material world.
In this training work-shop we practice, explore and deepen our understandings of:
• phenomenological presence, therapeutic presence, the presence of imagination and improvisation, and the presence that artworks can exert.
• therapeutic presence as a necessary foundation for the practice of unconditional positive regard, empathy and congruence in therapy, as well as a facilitator of relational depth and mediator of feeling safe.
• how cultivating and practising therapeutic presence involves being mindfully attentive of the here and now, a state of being open, receptive, curious, and having attuned responsiveness in relation to others, while being inwardly connected to our own experiencing.
• the role of artworks as embodiers of experiencing, qualities, ideas and information within the socio-cultural shaping of normative ideas and the impact of these on our embodied experiencing.
• Presence and embodiment as qualities indigenous to the art based methods we use in therapeutic arts practice. These ways of experiencing are linked with traditional wisdom practices and are significant, life-enhancing and important for health, development, well-being, meaning-making and culture.
Presence and Embodiment in Art Therapy
Comments are closed.