Power of Expressive Arts

Overview

As we create our healing tapestry as expressive arts professionals, it is important to recognise the need to deepen our understanding of the practice of this approach as well as the mystery of the therapeutic relationship. The Expressive Body has been designed to delve into the deeper cords of the foundation of the therapeutic relationship and explore poignant themes and topics in the current world of Expressive Arts therapy.

Created by Dr. Kate Donohue and Brinda Jacob-Janvrin, and titled Expressive Body: Through Wounding, Trauma, Healing, and Well-Being, the program invites participants to engage deeply with their personal process while grounding the same in EXA theories. Held in a Jungian expressive arts framework, trainees will begin by exploring their relationship to the archetype of the feminine. Starting with their own Motherline, trainees will learn about their personal, cultural, and archetypal cords to the sacred feminine. With this archetypal thread lacing the year, participants will become fluent in these two imagistic approaches as well as receive relevant supervision on their work.

With a background in the language of therapy, participants will penetrate the clinical relationship in order to understand the co-transference as it is created by the therapist and client(s). Within this framework, participants will investigate neuro-typical and neuro-atypical individuals and groups. As they probe these levels of relationship, they learn how to conceptualize their client and what their story offers in terms of trauma and resiliency. This conceptualization helps trainees develop a flexible plan of guiding them through the arts and psychologically so that their Tapestry demonstrates numerous healing cords. Being mindful of the backdrop of a global pandemic and the trauma that is currently experienced in the collective, participants will have opportunities to process and begin to heal their personal trauma to create the shift that is so needed to spark transformation both in the personal as well as the collective.

In addition, trainers will introduce current research and teach on how to evaluate and assess participants as a critical thinker. Trainees will learn how to write more professionally and be able to translate one theory into another so that their colleagues with different backgrounds will understand.

Participants will also learn how to build a private practice, grasping some of the practical skills as well as how to dive into core issues through the arts. Those working in an agency will learn how to contribute in a way that intensifies the group’s understanding of their client. This program will guide trainees in ways of being a team member and an independent thinker.

The program is conceived as both a fully online module as well as part online and part on-site module and has onboard a highly experienced and diverse team of national and international EXA trainers.

Pre-requisites

• The FECAT program or an equivalent – All participants must have an understanding and an ability to work with the expressive arts in therapeutic settings
• The intensity of this program will be triggering for many, if not all participants, and will include an investigation of sometimes difficult emotional states originating in childhood. This program is designed to train therapists and health professionals. It is not meant to be a container for personal therapy. Due to the depth of the work, we require that all participants be simultaneously engaged in regular personal therapy with a therapist of their choice
• The applicant should be currently working with clients and in supervision for the same
• A minimum of 50 hours of client work is a pre-requisite

Dates

• The program starts in June and ends in Nov of the following year (16 months)
• The program follows a hybrid model – part in-person, part residential, part online
• In-person sessions will be conducted at the SMArT studio in Ulsoor, Bangalore, in July and Dec
• The residential module will be conducted at a resort on the outskirts of Bangalore in Feb
• Participants residing outside Bangalore will have to make their own travel and stay arrangements during the in-person training and travel to the venue during the residential training

Refer to the tentative training calendar below to get an idea of the scheduling
Calendar starts in Jun 2025. Dates are tentative and subject to change

Assessment

• Attendance, participation, and engagement in the various art forms account for 20% of the assessment

• Placement and supervision account for 20% of the assessment. Trainees have to complete a minimum of 200 client hours with at least 8 different clients

• Personal development profile accounts for 30% of the assessment

• Professional development profile accounts for 30% of the assessment

Fee