Explore Expressive Arts Therapy
Expressive arts therapy (EXA) is a way of using the arts to help people with a variety of challenges; whether they be psychological, emotional, behavioural, or associated with life traumas, relationships or transitions. EXA assumes that everyone has the capacity to respond creatively to the situations that they find themselves in.
By engaging in play and the arts, we are taken into the world of the imagination, where possibilities can be seen that are not evident in our daily lives. We can find resources that we did not know we had and possible solutions that were previously hidden from us. Instead of focusing on deficiencies and dwelling on problems, the EXA approach is resource-based and solution-focused.
The practice of the arts is an activity that involves the senses and the emotions. In an EXA session, we not only talk about our difficulties, we actively engage in artistic practices that give us a bodily and emotional relationship to what we are going through. The EXA therapist helps their clients by setting challenges within the arts that they can meet; clients thereby gain a sense of the abilities they have that can be used to solve their problems in daily life.
The practice of the arts is an activity that involves the senses and the emotions. In an EXA session, we not only talk about our difficulties, we actively engage in artistic practices that give us a bodily and emotional relationship to what we are going through. The EXA therapist helps their clients by setting challenges within the arts that they can meet; clients thereby gain a sense of the abilities they have that can be used to solve their problems in daily life.
Theory
EXA therapists use a “low-skill high-sensitivity” approach. This means that clients do not have to be artists or have any particular artistic ability; they can be helped to become sensitive to whatever they are experiencing, whether they are engaged in play, movement, vocal expression, sound-making, work with colours and shapes, dramatic action and other forms of expression. The EXA therapist sensitizes their clients to the materials they are using and helps them to engage creatively in whatever medium they choose.
EXA is an interdisciplinary or “intermodal” form of art therapy. All the modalities of the senses may be involved and all the artistic disciplines can be drawn upon – music, dance, drama, visual art, writing, etc. Beginning with a playful attitude, the EXA therapist helps their clients find a way of working with their chosen materials that feels “just right” to them.
EXA sessions are collaborative; client and therapist work together to find solutions that are helpful. The relationship of the therapist and client is crucial. We sometimes say that the client is the “expert,” since they know their own life and their own problems better than we ever can, and that the therapist is the “companion,” since they are there to be with the client, not to diagnose or fix them.
Expressive arts therapy is a new and exciting field of therapeutic practice. It emphasizes creative expression in all its forms within a collaborative process in which both therapist and client are engaged. People who engage in EXA can become aware of abilities that they did not know they had, and gain a renewed sense of their own vitality. They can then face the difficulties of living with confidence and hope.
EXA is an interdisciplinary or “intermodal” form of art therapy. All the modalities of the senses may be involved and all the artistic disciplines can be drawn upon – music, dance, drama, visual art, writing, etc. Beginning with a playful attitude, the EXA therapist helps their clients find a way of working with their chosen materials that feels “just right” to them.
EXA sessions are collaborative; client and therapist work together to find solutions that are helpful. The relationship of the therapist and client is crucial. We sometimes say that the client is the “expert,” since they know their own life and their own problems better than we ever can, and that the therapist is the “companion,” since they are there to be with the client, not to diagnose or fix them.
Expressive arts therapy is a new and exciting field of therapeutic practice. It emphasizes creative expression in all its forms within a collaborative process in which both therapist and client are engaged. People who engage in EXA can become aware of abilities that they did not know they had, and gain a renewed sense of their own vitality. They can then face the difficulties of living with confidence and hope.
Who can benefit from Expressive Arts Therapy?
Expressive arts therapy can be applied in a broad range of settings and with a variety of people and their difficulties. EXA therapists work in many different contexts. They may work in private practice with individuals and groups, in hospitals and agencies that focus on mental health, in shelters for women and children, in old-age homes, in hospice care and in schools. All kinds of people can engage in EXA – for example, individuals interested in personal growth work, individuals with mental health issues, the elderly, children with autism, parents, victims of abuse and those with terminal illnesses. At CREATE, students do their practicum work in a wide variety of settings. After graduation, some students continue as paid employees in those same settings. They can also apply the skills they have developed to engage in other kinds of work, which may involve community organization, conflict transformation, consulting, coaching and social change.
What is expressive arts therapy? A personal statement.
Stephen K. Levine
What is expressive arts therapy? I see it as a therapeutic approach that puts creativity at the center of human experience. In this approach, we conceive of human being as essentially creative, as capable of bringing something new into being. Perhaps all life has this capacity on the biological level – to constantly renew and regenerate itself – but in humans, the creative capacity also manifests itself in art. Art-making or poiesis not only enables us to bring something forth but also to bring it forth as something that is created – to exhibit its createdness itself in the form of beauty.
We experience beauty also in the face of nature, but this beauty is mute. It does not signify or lead beyond itself to the world. In this sense, poiesis completes the work of nature – it lends significance to life, showing us new possibilities in what is given. It leads us beyond ourselves and thus gives meaning to our existence.
Suffering, then, occurs when the creative impulse is stifled. When we are stuck and unable to go beyond the actuality of what exists, we lose our sense of vitality. We become “dead” to the world and to ourselves. Creativity always exists in the face of death – it represents the fragility of life itself. In spite of the inevitability of loss, we go on to build new forms of life, knowing that they too will pass away. As the poet Elizabeth McKim says, “We are scared and sacred/in the hoop of the world.”
In the therapeutic relationship, we try to help the other person to find the possibilities that are present in her way of being, even though she cannot see them or actualize them on her own. We do this by recourse to the alternative world of the imagination: helping the person to step out of the closed-off world of their experience and instead to open to what may come. The experience of poiesis in therapy can become a guide to its experience in life. If I have a sense of my creative capacity in the therapeutic space, I can more easily become aware of it in my daily existence, my work and relationships.
As the therapist, I must be there for the client, not imposing my own sense of what is best for her, but facilitating her ability to grasp a new conception of her life. I must affirm her experience through empathic attunement, but at the same time encourage her to go beyond her experience of suffering toward that of creative growth. Thus the therapeutic relationship is the ground which provides a base for the client to go forward, but it is not itself the goal. Empathy is not enough – we also need the encouragement to create a new world and self.
This is true not only for the individual but for the social group. When society blocks its creative capacities, it affects the individuals directly. Meaningless routine and conformity to rules that are experienced as outside of the self characterize daily life. There is such a thing as the social imaginary – the capacity of a society to envision the possibilities that lie within it for a more creative life for all. Thus it is possible to bring the approach of expressive arts therapy into a broader social sphere – to work toward social change that will create a world in which everyone is able to live more fully by accessing their own creative potential.
Whether working with the individual or the community, the same principle holds true: the facilitator can only help those with whom she works to bring out what is possible for them. She cannot impose her own sense of what should happen upon them. This way of helping requires an attitude of receptivity and responsiveness. In fact, this is the same attitude that makes the creative act possible. We cannot force something new to arrive; we can only prepare the way by being attentive to the possibilities in what is there. Whether it is through the making of an art-work or through the therapeutic act, we must let go of the need to control what is happening. Instead we need to allow something to emerge without knowing in advance what that will be. Here is where the “courage to create” comes in – it takes courage to go forward into unknown territory, guided only by our confidence that somehow together we will find a way through.
This confidence is based on our own experience of trail-blazing. Unless we have faced the abyss ourselves and found the courage to go on, we cannot presume to serve as a guide for others. Our own skills can then be put at the service of the other person: “It takes an agile guide/to cross a fragile bridge” (McKim). This agility is not based on pre-exiting frameworks, whether psychological or social, but on our own capacity to create in the face of emptiness. We have been through the wilderness ourselves, and have learned that we can survive and find new pathways to go on.
Expressive arts therapy is the re-discovery of something we have know throughout history: we are not only determined by outside forces (economic, political, psychological, even neurological), but are capable of responding to what is given and to actualize possibilities that may have lain hidden until now. We are in the service of new life. Let us celebrate it in all that we do.
Stephen K. Levine
What is expressive arts therapy? I see it as a therapeutic approach that puts creativity at the center of human experience. In this approach, we conceive of human being as essentially creative, as capable of bringing something new into being. Perhaps all life has this capacity on the biological level – to constantly renew and regenerate itself – but in humans, the creative capacity also manifests itself in art. Art-making or poiesis not only enables us to bring something forth but also to bring it forth as something that is created – to exhibit its createdness itself in the form of beauty.
We experience beauty also in the face of nature, but this beauty is mute. It does not signify or lead beyond itself to the world. In this sense, poiesis completes the work of nature – it lends significance to life, showing us new possibilities in what is given. It leads us beyond ourselves and thus gives meaning to our existence.
Suffering, then, occurs when the creative impulse is stifled. When we are stuck and unable to go beyond the actuality of what exists, we lose our sense of vitality. We become “dead” to the world and to ourselves. Creativity always exists in the face of death – it represents the fragility of life itself. In spite of the inevitability of loss, we go on to build new forms of life, knowing that they too will pass away. As the poet Elizabeth McKim says, “We are scared and sacred/in the hoop of the world.”
In the therapeutic relationship, we try to help the other person to find the possibilities that are present in her way of being, even though she cannot see them or actualize them on her own. We do this by recourse to the alternative world of the imagination: helping the person to step out of the closed-off world of their experience and instead to open to what may come. The experience of poiesis in therapy can become a guide to its experience in life. If I have a sense of my creative capacity in the therapeutic space, I can more easily become aware of it in my daily existence, my work and relationships.
As the therapist, I must be there for the client, not imposing my own sense of what is best for her, but facilitating her ability to grasp a new conception of her life. I must affirm her experience through empathic attunement, but at the same time encourage her to go beyond her experience of suffering toward that of creative growth. Thus the therapeutic relationship is the ground which provides a base for the client to go forward, but it is not itself the goal. Empathy is not enough – we also need the encouragement to create a new world and self.
This is true not only for the individual but for the social group. When society blocks its creative capacities, it affects the individuals directly. Meaningless routine and conformity to rules that are experienced as outside of the self characterize daily life. There is such a thing as the social imaginary – the capacity of a society to envision the possibilities that lie within it for a more creative life for all. Thus it is possible to bring the approach of expressive arts therapy into a broader social sphere – to work toward social change that will create a world in which everyone is able to live more fully by accessing their own creative potential.
Whether working with the individual or the community, the same principle holds true: the facilitator can only help those with whom she works to bring out what is possible for them. She cannot impose her own sense of what should happen upon them. This way of helping requires an attitude of receptivity and responsiveness. In fact, this is the same attitude that makes the creative act possible. We cannot force something new to arrive; we can only prepare the way by being attentive to the possibilities in what is there. Whether it is through the making of an art-work or through the therapeutic act, we must let go of the need to control what is happening. Instead we need to allow something to emerge without knowing in advance what that will be. Here is where the “courage to create” comes in – it takes courage to go forward into unknown territory, guided only by our confidence that somehow together we will find a way through.
This confidence is based on our own experience of trail-blazing. Unless we have faced the abyss ourselves and found the courage to go on, we cannot presume to serve as a guide for others. Our own skills can then be put at the service of the other person: “It takes an agile guide/to cross a fragile bridge” (McKim). This agility is not based on pre-exiting frameworks, whether psychological or social, but on our own capacity to create in the face of emptiness. We have been through the wilderness ourselves, and have learned that we can survive and find new pathways to go on.
Expressive arts therapy is the re-discovery of something we have know throughout history: we are not only determined by outside forces (economic, political, psychological, even neurological), but are capable of responding to what is given and to actualize possibilities that may have lain hidden until now. We are in the service of new life. Let us celebrate it in all that we do.
EXA in Practice
EXA at Work
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