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.

Somatic Experiencing: Emotional First Aid for Traumatic Times

When traumatic events happen, they challenge our sense of safety and predictability and this may trigger strong physical and emotional reactions. These reactions are normal. Emotional First Aid gives you information on how to help yourself, your family and friends in response to witnessing, hearing or living through the traumatic events.

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: The Spiral

The spiral pattern of growth is found throughout nature as rolled-in fern, in shells on the beach, in the shape of an ear, in a fingerprint, the umbilical cord and how an embryo is curled up in the womb.

“Both the winding forms of the intestines and the brain have been depicted in religious and symbolic art as the labyrinth of spiral path, which creates, protects, and lays the foundation of the new town or centre”. (Purce 1992)

The Primary Shapes in Guided Drawing Series: The Bowl

The largest bowl we experience in our body is the pelvis, and while there are other places in the body that can be drawn as a bowl such as the diaphragm or the back of the head, the most common association with this shape is the pelvic floor. The pelvic bowl is the space in which we settle down to relax or which we dissociate, when we are ‘upset’. It is where our spine is anchored

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 Bottom-up Approach

Implicit memory is stored in the brainstem, which is the seat of our ancient survival system. This is the part of our brain that deals with trauma, however, it does this in a predominantly body-based way. The brainstem is strongly influenced by attraction and repulsion. It is being informed through repeated action patterns, such as learning to walk, to ride a bike, or to put a spoon into our mouth. Once we have mastered an action pattern, it becomes part of our implicit memory system and we do not ever think about it, unless someone pushes us into a pool of water when we never had learnt to swim, or an accident no longer allows us to move a limb. In the same way we do not think about breathing, making our heart beat or our muscles to contract and relax.

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.

The Importance of Art Materials

My recent experience at the International Art Therapy Practice/Research Inaugural Conference in London has highlighted how instrumental good quality art materials are for the outcomes of our work. When working with a focus on the body, Sensorimotor Art Therapy requires tables and chairs. Even the height of the table is important, ideally at or approximately 5 cm below the navel of the client. Chairs should be high enough that the knees are slightly lower than the pelvis, and the feet touch the ground. It is important that one sits comfortably upright while drawing, as it is an exercise of body awareness. A starting position that allows a relaxed upright body posture is important, which is not possible when crouched on the floor.

Haptic Perception: As I Touch the Clay, the Clay Touches Me

Haptic perception is the perception through touch. Our hands are superbly fine-tuned perceptual instruments. They play a far more important role for art therapy than has been acknowledged so far.

Clay Field Therapy: Work at the Clay Field®

The Clay Field is a flat rectangular wooden box that holds 10 – 15 kg of clay. A bowl of water is supplied. This simple setting offers a symbolic “world” for the hands to explore. There will be no art work to be taken home. The hands enter the Clay Field and move in it; in their ability or inability to “handle” the material they tell the client's life story.

Clay Field Therapy as a Sensorimotor Art Therapy

Work at the Clay Field is a sensorimotor, body-focused, trauma-informed art therapy approach. It is not necessarily concerned with an image-making process, but supports the awareness of body memories.

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