Body Mind Art Therapy

Abstract

THE EFFECTS OF EXPRESSIVE ARTS ON DECISION-MAKING:
SENSEMAKING IN SITUATIONS OF COMPLEXITY AND AMBIGUITY

The increase in personal and global interdependence, interconnectedness, and diversity is compelling individuals and organizations to make decisions in situations of escalating complexity and ambiguity. There is a need to find methods that allow individuals to make sense of complex situations where no clear way of proceeding is evident. In this dissertation, this researcher focuses on expressive arts methods to facilitate sensemaking and decision-making in situations of high complexity and ambiguity. This qualitative research is an exploration of the questions: What can we learn from high functioning people about the value of their artistic practices in helping them to make good decisions? and How can this knowledge be integrated with expressive arts coaching to help individuals and groups strengthen their own decision-making processes? The first part of this study included interviews with a diverse group of high functioning, well-adapted, successful individuals, who consistently practiced the arts. They were interviewed about how making art functioned in their lives from childhood up to the moment of the interview. The second part of this study included one group expressive arts workshop and individual expressive arts sessions designed to facilitate decision-making about specific questions brought in by the participants. All of the questions were about situations of high ambiguity where no clear path was readily identifiable, such as: (a) What is my role in the community?, (b) How can I fit more on my plate without taking anything off?, (c) What should I do next professionally?, (d) What should I look for in a future mate? and (e) How can I move forward in my art career? The research resulted in a number of important findings. From the interviews, it was found that practicing the arts played a role in five domains of the interviewees' lives. These domains were: The Self, Emotional Management, Connection to People, Connection to the World, and Creative Visualization. These five domains were visualized as a network to understand their relationships in accordance with ideas from the complex adaptive system metaphor. The issue of resistance to expressive arts methods from people unfamiliar with them was linked to the relation between the exploration of new possibilities and the exploitation of old certainties, which is a concern for all complex adaptive systems including individuals and organizations. In this study, the researcher helped to identify ways in which expressive arts can contribute to decision making: (a) it was observed that expressive arts allowed individuals to turn ambiguous situations into comprehended ones, explicitly in words, which permitted them to take action: either deciding something mentally and/or implementing a decision, (b) Expressive arts allowed people to manage emotions while making decisions, and (c) to manage emotions while implementing decisions. The use of expressive arts highlighted personal and environmental unfolding, emergence, agency, flow, and transience that could have been obscured by using exclusively analytical methods for sensemaking and decision-making. The encouraging findings obtained in this research call for further, extensive, and in-depth explorations of the use of expressive arts as a tool for sensemaking and decision-making—for individuals and groups—in situations of high complexity, ambiguity and emotionality.

The Great Art Nude Survey is a life-model led research initiative aimed at assessing the current state of nude arts working in British Arts and Education. It is an independent Public Arts and Community Education project from Cast-Off Drama and consults with a range of partners. The first phase of open consultation will last from Sept 2014 - 30 June 2015. The second phase lasts from 1st August 2015 - 31st March 2017. The attached powerpoint presentation was launched at the Engage Show and Tell event, Leeds Art Gallery, Tuesday 11th November 2014. For further information, please see Cast-Off Drama - [email protected]

Com este volume, inauguramos a coletânea Práticas Somáticas em Dança, um espaço para a reflexão sobre a íntima relação entre a arte da dança e a transdisciplinaridade do campo de práticas e estudos somáticos. Este primeiro livro remete diretamente aos conteúdos compartilhados por algumas das pesquisadoras convidadas do I Encontro Internacional de Práticas Somáticas e Dança, cujo tema se debruçou sobre o Body-Mind Centering™ (BMC) em criação, pesquisa e performance.
Evento realizado de 13 a 17 de março de 2018.
ISBN: 978-85-64124-64-6

The perception of the Victorian asylum is dominated by images of manacles, leeches and padded cells. Yet this obfuscates a very different side of these institutions; throughout the nineteenth century a vast array of entertainment was offered in line with new treatment options. This paper will shed light on these activities by discussing Charles Dickens’s article ‘A Curious Dance Round a Curious Tree’ (Household Words, 17 January 1852) alongside an illustration of Christmas celebrations at St Luke’s Hospital (Illustrated Times, 19 January 1861) to investigate whether these embodied a real opportunity to exercise agency or whether they merely represented another tool of social control.

RESUMEN:
En el presente trabajo se realiza una reflexión en torno a la moda, al fenómeno Fashion que, a través de la estética del vestir, evidencia los contextos sociológicos y antropológicos de una época. Ya que, a partir de la creación de necesidades artificiales, la sociedad de consumo se estereotipa, transformando el vestir en un asunto político.
Así el vestir, se hace parte de la constitución de una identidad, como teatralidad de la vida social, la propia consistencia responde a las exigencias del otro. A su vez, se produce un proceso de desiconización del símbolo en respuesta a la estereotipación e imposibilidad de reconocerse a sí mismo fuera de la sociedad de los medios de comunicación masivos.
La moda como espectáculo. Relaciones entre individualismo, frivolidad y poder
La gente siempre está buscando un cambio hacia lo nuevo pero manteniendo su individualidad. Lipovetsky dice que no hay moda sin una desestimación a lo antiguo; esto es que al cambiar una moda, lo que se uso antes puede verse mal si ya no está in.
Los nuevos gurús de la moda (ejemplos: Gaultier, Mcqueen, Galliano, Vivienne Westwood, etc.) han creado un fenómeno de los estrenos de cada colección. Siendo la sociedad constantemente bombardeada con imágenes de modelos anoréxicas, bandas de rock, y super estrellas andróginas. Guy Debord expresa que estos eventos “ponen en juego esa tensión radical entre un aparente individualismo, y una sutil masificación y alienación”.
Dr. Adolfo Vásquez Rocca

Artist-led doctorates are flourishing across academia, challenging traditional thesis forms.

My project involved creating a vinyl record trilogy with a reflective guide/exegesis. It is an idiosyncratic ethnography of the self, rooted in artistic interventions to chronic health problems.

The work was placed in the growing academic field of ‘autoethnography’.

In the lecture, I unpick my doctorate –The Fragmented Filmmaker - Emancipating The Exhausted Artist, in order to investigate why autoethnography is not only a useful tool in constructing a PhD, but also a framework for practical, political and personal development.

Related Workshop:

The Reflexive Selfie: Create your own ‘Idioholism’

The ‘engine’ of my doctorate was compacted into an artist’s manifesto. Essentially it aimed to assist any practitioner towards ‘triangulating’ accessible art projects in order to have a more fulfilling existence. It was initially created for me, but I always wanted to expand it to others.

I’d like to try something I’ve not done before in the workshop, that is, have participants attempt to apply principles of my framework to their own lives and share the results.

Using elements of the manifesto, this workshop will trial out some of the more accessible techniques. Bring an open mind and construct the beginnings of your own ‘idio-holistic’ map.