Person Centered Expressive Arts Therapy

Person Centered Expressive Arts Therapy

By: Ashley Hobby

Person Centered

Expressive Arts Therapy

• The person centerd aspect of expressive arts therapy is the basic philosophy behind the work.
• the client-centered or person centered approach is developed by Carl Rogers (Natalie Roger's father).
• Emphasizes the therapist role in being empathetic, open, honest, congruent, and caring as he/she listens in depth and facilitates the growth of the individual/group.
• The philosphy encorporates the belief that each individual has worth, dignity, and is capable of self direction.

Expressive Art Cont.

Summarizing

• Expressive Arts Therapy uses various arts such as movement, painting, sculpting, music, writing, sound and improvisation in a supportive setting to facilitate growth and healing.
• It is a process of “discovering ourselves” through any art form that comes from an emotional path. It is not a pretty picture that’s painted, a dance ready for the big stage nor a poem written to perfection.
• We Express inner feelings by creating outer forms. Expressive art deals with using the emotional, intuitive aspects of ourselves in various media.

Personal Growth and self-empowerment can be achieved through the expressive Arts. Our visual Art is changed by our body rhythms and our movements. It is also influenced when we meditate and become receptive, allowing intuition to be active. Likewise, our movement can be influenced by visual arts, writing and so forth. All of these creative processes help us find our inner essence or source. When we do find that inner source we tap into the universal energy source, or the collective unconcious, or the transcendental experience.

Principles of Person-Centered Creative Arts Therapy:

All people have an innate ability to be creative.

• The creative process is healing. The expressive product supplies important messages to the

individual. However, it is the process of creation that is profoundly transformative.

• Personal growth and higher states of consciousness are achieved through self-awareness,

self-understanding, and insight.

• Self-awareness, understanding, and insight are achieved 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 the other side—to self-awareness, understanding, and wholeness.

• Our feelings and emotions are an energy source. That energy can be channeled into the

expressive arts to be released and transformed.

• The expressive arts—movement, art, writing, sounding, music, meditation, and imagery—

lead us into the unconscious. This often allows 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. The

Creative Connection® is a process that brings us to an inner core or essence which is our

life force energy.

• 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.

• Most of us actually have discovered some aspect of expressive art as being helpful in our daily lives
• You may doodle on the phone as you speak and find it soothing. You may write in a personal journal and find that as you write your feelings and ideas change. Perhaps you write your dreams down and look for symbolic connections. Some may paint or sculpt as a hobby and realize the intensity of the experiences takes you away from thinking about your everyday patters. Or even something as simple as going for a walk or taking a drive.
• This process is therapeutic. These various forms of movement sound, writing, and art alter your state of being. The serve as a way of releasing feelings, clearing your mind, raising your spirits and bringing yourself into higher states of conciousness.

THE PROCESS

References

Natalie Rogers, PhD, REAT

Video

The Creative Connection:

Personal View:

Actually having experienced person-centered expressive arts therapy I found that dealing with personal matters that seemed difficult to convey through words of conversation, seemed to work on paper and through writing. Sitting back and thinkng about it now I was able to take my stresses and issues out on papers and let the paper serve as my life where I visually saw what I was dealing with in front of me. So it is very coincidental that I did this topic and actually therapeutic to write about.

Roger's Approach

• Daughter of Carl Rogers (Father of Psychotherapy Research
• Faculty at Saybrook Graduate School
• Been on the faculty of the California Insitute of Integral Studies & the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology
• 1984 founded the Person-Centered Expressive Arts Therapy Institue and it's parent Organization, Resources for Creativity and Conciousness where she served as a teacher, facilitator and board Member Until it's closing in 2005
• Dr. Rogers' practices in California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts combining expressive arts with person-centered therapy with children, adults, families and groups
• Works include two books: The Creative Connection: Expressive Arts as Healing and Emerging Woman: A Decade of Midlife Transitions

• rogers, N. (1993, March). Person-centered expressive arts therapy. , 1-3. Retrieved October 14, 2013
• Yalom, V. (1993, March). Maria Gonzalez-Blue on Person-Centered Expressive Arts Therapy. In Psychotherapy.net. Retrieved 2012
• Rogers, N. (1993). The Creative Connection: Expressive Arts as healing
• Rogers, N. The Path to Wholeness: Person-Centered Expressive Arts Therapy. Psychotherapy.net, 1-6. Retrieved October 11, 2013, from http://www.psychotherapy.net/article/expressive-art-therapy
• (2008). In Person-Centered Expressive Arts. Retrieved October 11, 2013, from http://www.personcenteredexpresivearts.com/aboutexpressivearts.html
• Rogers, N. Rogers, N. (Narrator). (2012). Expressive Arts Therapy in Action [Online video]. Psychotherapy.net. Retrieved October 10, 2013, from http://www.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd62Al_NsYU.com

The enhancing inter play among movement, art, writing and sound.

Moving with awareness for example opens us to profound feelings which can be expressed in color, line or form.

When we write immediately after the movement and art there is this idea of "free flow" sometimes poetry emerges stimulating self exploration

Natalie Rogers uses the metaphor saying that: "It's like unfolding petals of a lotus blossom on a summer day. In a warm accepting environment the petals begin to open to reveal the blossoms' inner essence.

Allowing ourselves to reach our inner core and awaken to new possibilities and thus with each opening we deepen our experience.

• Personal Growth takes place in a safe supportive environment
• This environment is created by having facilitators (teachers, group leaders, parents, colleagues) who are genuine, warm, empathic ,open honest congruent & caring
• These qualities can be learned best by first being experienced
• A client/ therapist, teacher/student, parent/child, wife/husband, or intimate-partners relationship can be a place to experience these qualities
• Pesonal integration of the intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual occurs by taking time to reflect, critique , and evaluate these experiences.