11th European Arts Therapies Conference
21-24 September 2011, Lucca, Italy
Art Therapies and the Intelligence of Feeling
PAPER: Passions, reason and imagination in Blake’s myth: a guide for arts therapists
William Blake (1757-1827) was the last of the myth-makers. He created a visionary universe in which, as in ancient myths, the epic narrative, the spiritual, the psychological, the philosophical and the historical dimensions of knowledge are joined in a unique, powerful gesture.
In this paper, I will investigate Blake’s lifelong belief in human nature as inherently creative. Since his first works, he stated, “Poetic Genius is the true man”. I will also show how Blake’s myth can be connected with the notion of healing through creativity, which is at the roots of arts therapies practice, in particular the dynamics between energy and reason, and the role of imagination as a mediator.
In Blake’s major unfinished work, the long poem The Four Zoas, the fall and the resurrection of Albion, the primeval man, through the separation and the rejoining of his four vital principles, are celebrated. I came to know it intimately while translating it into Italian. In the course of such an engaging exploration, my study on creativity was getting to the heart, and soon it was clear to me that those characters, in spite of (or by virtue of) their relentless warfare, identity shifting and arduous rebalancing, could be elected as the four patron deities of the elements of the creative process.
Urthona, blacksmith and poet, is, in Blake’s own words, imagination. Urizen, the reasoning principle, ploughman and architect, represents productiveness. Tharmas, the instinctual energy, connected with body and senses, shepherd and painter, represents spontaneity. Luvah, the emotions and the passions, weaver and musician, represents inner listening.
In creative processes, these elements must be kept in balance, but it is not a static equilibrium. It is rather a continuous state of change, through which one or another element takes command in turn, to the detriment of the others, causing a provisional imbalance which keeps the creative process in motion.
I maintain that Blake’s myth not only mirrors the dynamics of creativity, but can also be a guide for arts therapists to enhance their awareness of the creative processes in which they are involved, and a help in guiding them toward healing.
The fourfold model of the creative process, expounded in my book on the topic, has given rise to many practical outcomes, including the design of an arts therapies handbook, published in Italy in 2009, and some field research done by my dramatherapy students.
2011 BADth CONFERENCE
Measure for Measures: Re-searching, re-viewing and re-framing Dramatherapy in practice
Saturday 10th, Sunday 11th and Monday 12th September 2011
SCARBOROUGH CAMPUS (University of Hull)
PAPER: THE HALF-REMARKABLE QUESTION
Challenges and limits of measuring dramatherapy
People comes to dramatherapy looking for a help in bearing life; we offer them no less than a radical rebalancing of their soul. Such a matter is hard to assess: it is a complex and shifting process, implying the intersection of visible and invisible levels, moving in and out the person’s psyche.
Inquiring such a process requires a reflection upon the very nature of understanding, which is an epistemological as well as an ethical challenge.
In the first part of this paper, I will use Gregory Bateson’s ‘metalogue’ style in order to outline a series of questions, aimed at framing the fields within which any attempt of approaching a complex process, being either qualitative or quantitative, nomothetic or idiographic, may find its reasons and acknowledge its limits.
The second part will move into one of the possible frames, expounding a simple observation tool, the DAAG (Dramatic Abilities Assessment Tool). I have devised it in order to share remarks on our clients’ therapeutic journey with my colleagues at the day centre for young people with personality disorders, where I have been working for many years. I will discuss its value in monitoring people’s visible transformations along the dramatic process, stressing at the same time the necessity to compare the frame within which it can be effectual, with other co-existing frames, needing other kind of tools to be acknowledged, which may include qualities to be developed, as empathy, sensitivity and imagination.
Lastly, I will sketch two short vignettes, in which the visible and the visible of the process may either harmonize or clash.