DAY FOUR ABSTRACTS

We all have two different types of memory: explicit and implicit memory. Explicit memory comprises semantic, narrative, episodic and autobiographical memories. Implicit memories include procedural memory, sensory, emotional and stimulus-response conditioning (Cozolino, 2014). In creative art therapies we are continually working with both kinds of memories as one of the tenets of the therapeutic process is to uncover implicit memory and integrate it into conscious experience.

This talk is about storytelling in art therapy and how it shapes memories of the past and the present. Different narrative levels in art therapy form the basis for these considerations: verbal statements by patients, narratives in the artistic objects and stories about the therapy itself. Which narrative perspectives and sections are visible? What is the dramaturgy? What is formed as a fantasy of the past in the sense of a screen memory (Freud)? Where can gaps be found? The focus is on the question how stories can be brought up in artistic objects and thus be renegotiated.

Forced displacement presents a major global crisis that must be tackled at all levels: political, socio-economic and psychological. This paper describes the psychological impact of forced displacement on women and explains the significance of dramatherapy intervention (DTI) in treating and empowering trauma-impacted refugee women.

Portrait painting (realistic or abstract) and documenting life story can be beneficial for the painter and the model.

There is a boundary between the practice of an art psychotherapist and an artist. Therapist’s artistic abilities may threaten the patients’ expression and put an emphasis on the quality of the artistic product.

The therapist can be over exposed by his/her art. While painting with patients, their style should lead the process. The following social artistic projects, my artistic abilities were in the service of the models. It was surprising to reveal the powerful impact on both parties.

Exploring Polyvagal theory through movement, embodiment and the ancient science of yogic techniques, while looking for connections between body movements, internal and external influences in these uncertain times.

The various arts therapies bachelor programmes in the Netherlands are constantly adjusting and developing courses to improve the quality of their education. They do this individually, separate from each other. Recently, lectures from five arts therapies programmes, already collaborating within KenVaK (a joint centre for arts therapies research), arrived at a memorable idea to break through this culture, to join forces instead of individually developing education. They decided to work together on education that enhances the ability of students to research (i.e., developing a curious and critical attitude, the ability to handle an evidence-based approach and to conduct practice-based research). This resulted in the initiation of the project MOOV-on, a project financially supported by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.

This study was a component of the Creative Arts Therapy (CAT) Dementia Project of Estonia, which trained new creative arts therapists with the unique skills needed to work with older adults with various types of dementia. Through the students’ experiential learning process, creative arts therapy was launched as a new and cost-effective mental health and social service for older adults with dementia in Tallinn, Estonia. This presentation describes the results of this participatory action research wherein the goal was to impart didactic knowledge needed to understand the theoretical aspects of working with those who have dementia, as well as to develop empathy and understanding of the client’s unique experiences and apply it in practice, initiating change.

Memory is built on narrative-visual discourses that make sense of subjectivity. Art therapists are storytellers: the stories of the people we work with, those of the people we train, the ones we build on from the authors we read, all of them are in the end also our own stories. In training, sessions and supervisions, a scene, an image, or a previous bond is clearly present in our minds to illustrate some relevant aspect of the present.

Memory transforms our body, and accumulated experience generates a constellation of knowing that connects one experience with another, one´s pain with the other´s pain, and, in the end, with one's own pain. They weave an aesthetic and relational resonance and countertransference too, to understand how much of the art therapist's own is present in working with people.

Immigrant children who leave their home country take with them memories of their life "before and there". These memories are mixed with fears, desires, and dreams, which they must reconcile with their experience of “after and here” in the host country to adapt well to their new life. Yet, between learning a new language and becoming familiar with the host society, there is sometimes little space to express these memories and related emotions, which can lead to the development of emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Childhoods are changing. Centuries old cultural traditions, held and passed on through the interconnections of memory and oppressive attitudes are being challenged. These have been seen as unquestioned norms and maintained in ways that range from our individual and collective unconscious to healthcare policies and practices. Memory and beliefs hold and keep alive negative stereotypes of a child as passive, unable to make decisions of worth and needing adults to make decisions or to act in their ‘best interests’ about children's bodies and minds.

What has happened to Pinocchio in his dotage? He used to be a wise old man… a Senex. But now…? He is alone, afraid, and anxious. His mind keeps going back to the days when he was a piece of wood. The days when life was filled with all sorts of adventures. Are these his real memories? Surely not! And what exactly is that thing flickering in the shadows in the corner of the room - that somehow might hold the answers… Is it just another fleeting memory?

For over two years, Intisar Foundation has used dramatherapy techniques to help women escape the memory of war and violence. A workshop inspired by the sessions Intisar Foundation holds for its beneficiaries, this presentation will help attendees of the ECArTE conference better understand how dramatherapy techniques have been used to help women affected by war and violence in refugee camps and low-income neighbourhoods across Lebanon and Jordan.

As UK trained creative arts therapists, we have always understood the pedagogy of education in arts therapies to be sacred, and now, as we have set up various training programmes in India, we award our pedagogy the same stature. However, over the past few years, the conversation around trusting ‘western’ ideas has turned and our syllabi have had to evolve to be inclusive of cultural memory. This shift has meant that we move from set pedagogies to evolve a programme that allows people to connect to the collective unconscious and draw from there to connect with subject matter personally.

In Greek culture, when someone dies there is a ritual of remembrance called a mnemosyno, that is practiced at specific intervals in the first year after death and annually thereafter. The ritual ensures that the deceased lives on in the memory of the living. Part of the ritual involves a dish of pomegranate and boiled wheat grains. This recalls the anamnesis of Demeter and Persephone, but also the goddess Mnemosyne, who is the personification of memory and from whom the name of the ritual is derived.

“Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer, and clearer still. The image is passing through you in a physiological way, into your brain, into your memory – where it stays – it's transmitted by your hands.” David Hockney.

The workshop and presentation are based on a cross-cultural art therapy (McNiff & Barlow, 2009) research study, conducted during covid-19 pandemic’s first lockdown in Israel and India. The initiative connected two countries – a collaboration between Beit Berl College, Israel and St. Xavier’s college, Mumbai, India. The project included guided art, structured by art therapists and based on theories of coping and resiliency in times of crisis (Leykin et al., 2012).

This workshop for both supervisors and experienced therapists will focus on the use of the arts as a source of relational knowledge in the supervision process.

Art-based supervision enables arts therapists to explore and understand essential issues that arise in the therapy room and within the therapeutic relationship. During the supervision process, the supervisee is asked to recall the narrative of the therapeutic relationship. In order to reconstruct and recollect this narrative, the expressive arts can serve as an implicit and multidimensional source of knowledge.

Remembering the implicit aspects of the therapeutic relationships constitutes a transformative and embodied experience during supervision.

While traumatic memory is typically held as a fixed and rigid experience, working creatively with narrative textiles can provide an important sensory and healing response for effective trauma recovery. Across cultures, there is a long-standing tradition of creating story cloth to convey important social, personal and collective narratives. Through simple layering of fabric, incorporating basic stitching and embroidery, the narrative textile or story cloth can help a survivor express, respond to, and manage traumatic experiences.

Every old city – Vilnius / Utrecht – looks back on a long and rich history. The basis for every city is community. Every now and then, the community makes time to reminiscence. And in such times, memories of the past can actually take us back towards a new future!

Women never forget a bad birth; it can haunt them for years to come. This presentation stems from a recently completed project on the experience of birth, the trauma that can follow it, and the role of the arts and creative practices in helping express and, ultimately, mitigate negative consequences. The Birth Project focused on mothers and empowered them to articulate their own experiences. In addition, it has also helped emphasise the impact of the birthing process on all those related to it: partners, midwives and health professionals. As a result, we have managed to elucidate the complex discourses surrounding birth and trauma from a multiplicity of perspectives.

Do autobiographical memories change each time we review them? If so, how could this information support positive therapeutic outcomes and personal happiness and inform expressive arts theory and practices?

Introduction: In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared that COVID-19 was a pandemic with a global impact. Accordingly, containment measures were adopted in many countries, including the obligation for any citizen to avoid unnecessary person-to-person interactions and social gatherings. Hence, mental health care providers, including creative arts therapies (CAT), had to shift from in-person therapy sessions to remote tele-therapy using telecommunication technologies.

Creative arts therapies (CATs) have demonstrated a rapid growth of empirical studies over recent decades. While the findings of these studies substantiate that CATs have positive impact on a range of outcomes, it remains unexplored how and why CATs account for these effects. To gain more insight into why and how CATs impact outcomes, it is important to pinpoint which therapeutic features of CATs are unique and essential (specific factors) and which features are generic (common factors).

Many world mythologies interpret the world as a cloth or web, the universe being created by spinning or weaving. All the goddesses of creation and fertility, of the Aztecs and Mayans, Balts and other nations are described as great weavers. A knot is a cross, it is a bond with someone, it is anchored and locked together, a secret, a protection. The symbolic untying of the knot is inseparable from birth, death and wedding customs. Every mystery or riddle is a knot and finding an answer is an un-knotting. In Buddhism, the term ‘inner knots’ is used. Buddhist monk and teacher

This dance/movement workshop will focus on the interconnected brain-body-mind interface in the experience of individual and collective reminiscence. We will delve into the ongoing formation and re-formation of our memories, through spontaneous movement, in an experiential holistic approach, combining visual art and intuitive writing, incorporating understandings of dynamic brain functions. The artistic perspective, informed by neuroscience, will enable integrative processing of the embodied and relational nature of memory and the inherent link between retrieval of our past, being at the present moment and the envisioning of our future.

Because there was something so powerful in those covers: horror mingling with enchantment, often conjuring up a hearth-rending ambiguity. O loathed, o much-loved monsters, how dear you were to me! And you, freaky perplexed tiny creatures, slimy lemurs, mellow ectoplasms, disintegrated beings, vampiresque lumps of energy, and you crystals, and you jellies, and you mantis philosophers, and you peduncled pods, how plausible were you, how perfect! How well you knew how to be melancholic!
(Michele Mari)

Along their life journey, people collect memories which reshape their character – of significant others, unforgettable places or experiences. Memory also encompasses voice, sound and melody; the voices of our parents, acquaintances, our human surroundings, the playlists of our life – all these become inherent vocal memories in our body and soul. The cultural, historic, political atmosphere also affects both individual and collective memories. Life experiences, encounters, traumas, journeys and passions are all symbolized by various vocal textures, some more accessible than others.

The various arts therapies bachelor programmes in the Netherlands are constantly adjusting and developing courses to improve the quality of their education. They do this individually, separate from each other. Recently, lectures from five arts therapies programmes, already collaborating within KenVaK (a joint centre for arts therapies research), arrived at a memorable idea to break through this culture, to join forces instead of individually developing education. They decided to work together on education that enhances the ability of students to research (i.e., developing a curious and critical attitude, the ability to handle an evidence-based approach and to conduct practice-based research). This resulted in the initiation of the project MOOV-on, a project financially supported by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.

This study was a component of the Creative Arts Therapy (CAT) Dementia Project of Estonia, which trained new creative arts therapists with the unique skills needed to work with older adults with various types of dementia. Through the students’ experiential learning process, creative arts therapy was launched as a new and cost-effective mental health and social service for older adults with dementia in Tallinn, Estonia.

Do we create a narrative in order to gain some kind of coherence in our lives and what is the purpose of our memories existentially? What does it mean to find the correct memory, if such a thing exists, and how does this change the way we relate to being-in-the-world with others? By accepting the facticity of the past can we change our future? Those working and writing about human development are mostly writing from a position of looking back at their childhood and ahead at their old age with life being broken down into three stages, childhood, adulthood and old age (Adams, M. 2020). So how does the perception of our memories change as we travel through our lives and what can that teach us?

Over the past decades, psychological, sociological and cultural research has highlighted the relevance and interplay of individual and collective memory systems, investigating their political, social, psychological and artistic ramifications (Assmann & Czaplicka, 1995; Brockmeyer, 2002; Stancombe Taylor, 2019). Psychoanalysis, in particular, has from the outset been concerned with the subject: how retrieving memories can restore a patient’s health through the act of interpreting and integrating what was forgotten (Freud, 1914; Bohleber, 2007), and how the ability to remember lies at the very heart of symbolization (Beres, 1970).

The basic defining criterion of autobiographical memory is the connection between the content of this memory and one’s own past, thus the narrator can be a witness, an observer, or an object of a particular memory (Barzykowski 2017).

The categorial analysis of the autobiographical interview conducted with Joanna demonstrated the role music had played in her life and the role played by music therapy studies and her work as music therapist. The technique used in the study consists in identifying and reflecting on such categories as: actors, places, time, values, and expectations, and in specifying entities within each category. The relationships between the entities and particular categories which are discovered in the process of interpretation lead to the formulation of pedagogical/andragogic implications, through which one can indicate, in the manner that is typical of qualitative studies, what is unique in the person’s experiences (Marek, Walulik, 2019).

Many parameters contribute to the creation of a memory: psychological, neurodramatic, mental as well as somatic. We often speak of the psychosomatic ground of a memory. It seems, though, as if it is a multi-collective and multi-faceted phenomenon.

The goal of every psychotherapeutic method is to bring the memory to the ‘here and now’ and to create the necessary connections and differentiations for us to understand the effect of memories in the everyday life of our clients.

Government guidelines recommend that patients should be involved in making decisions about their treatment as often as possible (1–3). Shared decision-making involves collaboration between patients and clinicians (4) and is an essential aspect of mental healthcare (5,6). It incorporates the patient’s values and preferences as well as the clinician’s knowledge of treatment options (7), and previous research implies that receipt of a preferred treatment is associated with improved engagement and outcomes (8–10).

We all have two different types of memory: explicit and implicit memory. Explicit memory comprises semantic, narrative, episodic and autobiographical memories. Implicit memories include procedural memory, sensory, emotional and stimulus-response conditioning (Cozolino, 2014). In creative art therapies we are continually working with both kinds of memories as one of the tenets of the therapeutic process is to uncover implicit memory and integrate it into conscious experience.

Since the inception of art therapy, the political, socio-economic, and scientific climate has changed. In our current climate, we must demonstrate our impact by providing goals, applications, therapeutic mechanisms, and outcomes using substantive and credible forms of evidence. Over the past year, we have been identifying and implementing the steps towards developing a multi-phasic plan to actualize and formalize a proposed strategy for art therapy research. Currently our multi-phasic plan includes collecting, analysing, and synthesizing data from multiple critical sources.

This paper derives from the author’s work as an art therapist in the Department of Fetal Medicine at the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin, Ireland. This role centres on providing therapeutic support to women and couples who receive a diagnosis of a severe/fatal fetal anomaly during pregnancy. These diagnoses often bring complex dilemmas about whether to continue or to terminate what are usually much-wanted pregnancies. The therapeutic work takes as its focus supporting women/couples through their decision-making process and along their subsequent trajectory, whether that means an elective termination, continuing the pregnancy (awaiting an uncertain outcome), navigating in-utero demise or bearing the delivery of a baby whose lifespan may be brief (hours to days). Meaning-making and memory-making in the aftermath of these losses is a key part of the work.

Women never forget a bad birth; it can haunt them for years to come. This presentation stems from a recently completed project on the experience of birth, the trauma that can follow it, and the role of the arts and creative practices in helping express and, ultimately, mitigate negative consequences. The Birth Project focused on mothers and empowered them to articulate their own experiences. In addition, it has also helped emphasise the impact of the birthing process on all those related to it: partners, midwives and health professionals. As a result, we have managed to elucidate the complex discourses surrounding birth and trauma from a multiplicity of perspectives.

This talk is about storytelling in art therapy and how it shapes memories of the past and the present. Different narrative levels in art therapy form the basis for these considerations: verbal statements by patients, narratives in the artistic objects and stories about the therapy itself. Which narrative perspectives and sections are visible? What is the dramaturgy? What is formed as a fantasy of the past in the sense of a screen memory (Freud)? Where can gaps be found? The focus is on the question how stories can be brought up in artistic objects and thus be renegotiated.

Forced displacement presents a major global crisis that must be tackled at all levels: political, socio-economic and psychological. This paper describes the psychological impact of forced displacement on women and explains the significance of dramatherapy intervention (DTI) in treating and empowering trauma-impacted refugee women.

Therapeutic theater is the intentional use of playmaking and performance with specific therapeutic goals for an identified population. The CoActive Therapeutic Theater (CoATT) model is the first manualized form of therapeutic theater, creating a unique opportunity for replicability and measurement for the fields of drama therapy, creativity in counseling, arts in health, and other collaborating disciplines. With the international rise of theater in the arts in health movement the need for manualization and clarification of professional roles help provide clear pathways for cross-disciplinary collaboration and protection of participants. CoATT provides a straightforward way for professional collaboration that honors the unique scope of practice of various disciplines.

Exploring Polyvagal theory through movement, embodiment and the ancient science of yogic techniques, while looking for connections between body movements, internal and external influences in these uncertain times.

Scientist Stephen Porges, in his Polyvagal theory, discovered a third nervous system (dorsal vagal parasympathetic nervous system) responsible for experiential trauma that promotes isolation. He described how the autonomic nervous system affects our social relationships, emotions, responses to everyday situations: through fight, flight or freeze modes, depending on the injuries suffered. His theory clarifies why knowing that we are seen and heard by the important people in our lives can make us feel calm and safe, and why being ignored or dismissed can precipitate rage reactions or mental collapse. It helps us to understand why attuning with another person can shift us out of disorganized and fearful states. In short, Porges' theory makes us look beyond the effects of fight or flight and put social relationships front and centre in our understanding of trauma.

In Greek culture, when someone dies there is a ritual of remembrance called a mnemosyno, that is practiced at specific intervals in the first year after death and annually thereafter. The ritual ensures that the deceased lives on in the memory of the living. Part of the ritual involves a dish of pomegranate and boiled wheat grains. This recalls the anamnesis of Demeter and Persephone, but also the goddess Mnemosyne, who is the personification of memory and from whom the name of the ritual is derived.

In the context of the research effort of the Ancient Orchesis Study Group to reconstitute the philosophical and wider cultural presuppositions that define the ancient Greek dance culture (from which the Greek-speaking and Roman world was removed to return with the Renaissance in a new European context), and with the recognition of, on the one hand, the basic anthropological and, on the other, the aesthetic criteria and principles of art and, in particular, of dance expression, we attempt a review of certain concepts like θεραπεία, κάθαρσις, έρως and finally χορεία & όρχησις – which stand for characteristic phenomena of ancient Greek culture.

This experiential workshop aims at exploring the centrality of the body in the expression and working through of unresolved traumatic memories. It will explore ways of working somatically with psychological trauma in dramatherapy by focusing on one specific part of the body: the hands. In this workshop, hands and hand movements will be privileged to explore how trauma is imprinted in body memory, and how the body can also effectively assist its healing. As the psychoanalyst Darian Leader suggests, ‘hands are sites of exchange’ (2017, p.25) between different psychological states that can facilitate the integration of traumatic memory.

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