A Visual Meditation: The Higher Consciousness

One of the core tools in my practice is a visualisation exercise I learnt in the nineteen seventies from Jungian analyst Phyllis Krystal (Krystal 1995). It is a visual prayer that can communicate a profound sense of safety flowing from a spiritual core that remains undefined or as you like to imagine it. I apply the exercise consistently as a visual aide to picture the client-therapist relationship and how both relate to what she called the ‘Higher Consciousness’. I introduce it to almost all groups I facilitate, and frequently meditate like this on my own.

The Primary Shapes in Guided Drawing: The Lemniscate

Lemniscate is the term for a horizontal figure eight. Of all the primary shapes this is the least threatening. It is without exception experienced as positive rhythmic flow without any threat of overwhelm.

The Primary Shapes in Guided Drawing Series: The Arch

Over the next few months, I will share insights about a couple of the main shapes that characterize this approach but for now we shall take a more in-depth insights of the Arch. The structure of Guided Drawing is based on a number of primary shapes, which all have a universal, archetypal quality.

The Significance of Colour

There are many different ways to approach the subject of the meaning and significance of colour. In art therapy sessions I encourage clients to honour colour in so far as to choose it according to the felt sense.

Masterclass: Work at the Clay Field® Workshop

In February 2019 Prof Heinz Deuser came to Australia to offer a Masterclass on his Work at the Clay Field® at Claerwen Retreat. For over 20 years Prof Deuser was the course coordinator of the first BA in Art Therapy at the Kunsthochschule in Nürtingen, Germany. Today he is the director of the Institut für Gestaltbildung in Hinterzarten, Germany. Work at the Clay Field is a unique Sensorimotor Art Therapy modality Prof Deuser has developed over the past five decades.

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