Terapia prin arte expresive reprezint o abordare interdisciplinar, interactiv, artistic a consilierii i psihoterapiei.

Cunoscut i sub numele de terapie expresiv, terapie expresiv intermodal sau art-terapie creativ, terapia prin arte expresive presupune valorificarea experienei artistice n folosul sntii, vindecrii, a creterii i dezvoltrii umane. Terapia prin arte expresive reprezint o combinaie de imagistic, simbolistic, naraiune, rit, muzic, dans, dram, poezie, micare, imaginaie sau art vizual, folosite deopotriv cu scopul de a da contur i form experienei umane, de a reine i exprima trirea emoional i reflectiv, precum i de a amplifica i adncii nivelul personal de nelegere i semnificaie. While expressive arts therapy is a relatively new and emerging field within modern therapeutic practice, it represents a reclaiming of ancient traditions of healing and celebration.

In ancient societies (as well as in many contemporary earth based cultures and indigenous societies) the arts were used together, in an integrated way, to celebrate and to mourn the passages of human life and to honor the daily and monthly cycles of nature, the seasons of the year, and the movement of celestial bodies across the sky. Ancient peoples sang and danced and drummed, made paintings in sand, and created objects of beauty for use in daily life. They crafted artifacts of their spiritual beliefs in order to remember and honor their relationship with each other and with the nonhuman world. In such cultures scientific, philosophical and spiritual aspects of human experience were not separated from each other, and all aspects of experience were integral to healing practices. In the practice of expressive arts therapy, we are remembering this old knowledge and reclaiming our innate capacity for the creative expression of our individual and collective human experience in artistic form. We are experiencing the capacity of art making as a way of knowing who we are as human beings in the world and for the healing of both individuals and communities. Today we live in a time and in a culture in which the arts have been separated from each other, separated from crafts, and often separated from the day-to-day lives of ordinary people. In this cultural context, musicians, dancers, writers and artists of all kinds often are seen as an elite few who have received highly specialized training or those who are successful economically in the sale of their artistic productions. Yet the creative spirit, imagination, and the capacity to express oneself in artistic form are the birthright of all human beings. Poet and potter, M. C. Richards (1973), who taught at the legendary Black Mountain College in

the mountains of North Carolina, emphasized the centrality of the artistic experience for human beings. She urged that when this capacity is sleeping, it should be awakened, and she said that in this awakening of the artistic spirit the person will be strengthened and helped in his or her personal growth. Existential psychotherapist, Rollo May (1975), said that imagination and the arts are the fundamentals of human experience. Work in expressive arts therapy is about the reawakening and strengthening of the artistic spirit and the human imagination. The arts therapies, too, have developed separately from each other. Each modality based arts therapy has developed its own rigorous formal clinical training, usually at the graduate level, and a tradition of individual apprenticeship training and credentialing. Fields such as art therapy, music therapy, dance/movement therapy, poetry therapy and psychodrama have existed for some time. Most have their own professional journals and organizations, such as the American Art Therapy Association, the American Association of Music Therapists, the American Dance Therapy Association, the National Association for Drama Therapy and the National Association of Poetry Therapists. Each has ethical guidelines, standards of practice, and professional registration or certification procedures. Expressive arts therapy, while rooted in ancient healing practices, is the newcomer to this modern professional scene of arts-based therapies. In this time of separation, expressive arts therapy calls for the re-integration of all the arts into therapeutic practice and into daily life. As a therapeutic practice, the field was begun during the mid 1970s through the interdisciplinary collaboration of Paolo Knill, Shaun McNiff, Norma Canner, Elizabeth McKim and others at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their pioneering efforts to use the arts together in an integrated way in therapy formed the foundation of what would become a new field of therapy. The establishment in the mid 1990s of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association with rigorous professional standards for registration as a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT) has been a major step in defining the field. The recent creation of the Association for Creativity in Counseling, a new division within the American Counseling Association, brings the creative and expressive arts to the attention of the general body of counselors and other human service professionals. The work of Sam Gladding (2005) also has been significant in bringing the creative arts to the attention of the counseling

profession. In writing about the counseling process as an art in itself, Gladding points out that the arts are helpful in counseling because by their very nature they offer new perspectives and possibilities and differing ways of experiencing the world. Some of the specific arts therapies have operated within the traditional medical model of illness and cure and within psychodynamic models of psychotherapy. By contrast, expressive arts therapy is grounded more in theories of existential phenomenology, depth psychology, humanistic psychotherapy, and systems theories. Expressive arts therapy is a resource based approach to helping. Expressive arts therapy also looks to the arts themselves for grounding, toward an aesthetic theory of practice (Knill, Levine, & Levine, 2005). A number of theoretical viewpoints are shaping the emerging field. Karen Estrella (2005) summarizes three theoretical perspectives that provide prominent orientations to expressive arts therapy work today. These three include those of Paolo Knill and his associates of The European Graduate School in Switzerland and Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Shaun McNiff of Lesley University, and Natalie Rogers of the Person Centered Expressive Therapy Institute in California. Knills intermodal theory emphasizes the inherent interdisciplinarity of the arts. He points out that all of the arts have a sensory basis and a tradition of intermodality. The arts exist within each other. Each arts discipline involves multiple aspects of sensory experience, such as hearing, sight, touch, movement, feeling and sound. Furthermore, imagination is in itself multi-sensory and intermodal. Creating arts-based experiences that are low-skill/high sensitivity and using intermodal transfer from one art form to another, the therapist is able to integrate the properties of the various art forms to serve the goals of the therapeutic work. Using arts experiences to decenter from a presenting problem, the client is then able to refocus his or her attention, to recognize internal and external resources, to imagine new possibilities and to bring new learning to bear on the life situation at hand. Knill places strong emphasis on the arts based nature of the work, grounded in aesthetics and philosophical phenomenology. He believes that art should not be subservient to psychological theory. Knill says that art is a human existential, that humans cannot live without it, and that it provides soul nourishment for the human experience (Knill,

Levine, & Levine, 2005). McNiff s theory of art as medicine proposes a therapy of the imagination. McNiff emphasizes that all the elements of creative experience are aspects of the human imagination and thus cannot be separated from one another. He urges trusting the process of creating and reflecting in art making, and he sees the artistic process both as a way of knowing and as a way of soul healing. He suggests creating artistic experiences in which images can become messengers of healing. Artistic images may reveal their messages though a process of dialogic participation with them. McNiff acknowledges the connection between expressive arts therapy and ancient shamanic healing practices which utilized the arts together in a ritual container for healing (McNiff, 1992, 2005). Natalie Rogerss theory of creative connection emphasizes the inherent interconnectedness that exists among all of the arts. Her approach is related to the Person-centered Therapy developed by her father, Carl Rogers. This approach places major emphasis on the therapist creating a supportive environment for healing and personal growth by means of congruence, empathy, and unconditional positive regard for the client. Within this context of a supportive therapeutic relationship, Rogers suggests moving from one art form to another in a journey inward to the self. Her method is a process oriented approach, with an emphasis on the premise that understanding and meaning making are left to the client (Rogers, 1993). Expressive Arts Therapy: The Appalachian Approach The Appalachian approach to expressive arts therapy, from which this book arises, is a more recent addition to the emerging ideas about and practice of expressive arts therapy. Since the 1980's, faculty from counseling, psychology, interdisciplinary studies, art, music, and music therapy at Appalachian State University have been involved in a collaborative process of teaching, writing, and curriculum development in expressive arts therapy. Their work has given rise to a number of articles and professional presentations and to their collectively written text, Expressive Arts Therapy, Creative Process in Art and Life (Atkins, S.; Adams, M.; McKinney, C; McKinney, H., Rose, E.; Wentworth, J. & Woodworth, J., 2003). From this ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration several distinguishing features of expressive arts therapy at Appalachian have emerged. These include an emphasis on each student and practitioner developing her or his own personal theoretical and practical approach to the work, grounded in relevant psychological and philosophical theory, as well as in personal experience. A further feature of this approach is an emphasis upon the importance of the natural world as the model for creativity, with particular emphasis upon the cyclical nature of the creative process as it occurs in nature and in human life. The significance of dreamwork and imagination in expressive arts is also an emphasis at Appalachian, with particular respect for the resonance between the outer landscape of the world and the inner landscape of the psyche. Finally, the Appalachian program emphasizes the

importance of community building in the arts and the potential role of the arts in society. While these emphases are not exclusive to the Appalachian approach, the combination of these features provides a unique perspective on the emerging work of expressive arts.