DAY TWO ABSTRACTS

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?

As therapists, are we there to help decipher the client’s autobiography and how can this be done with the client at the forefront of this discovery?

The connection between brainwaves (periodic electrical signals from the brain) and the state of a subject’s consciousness has been widely investigated and established. Methods like targeted neurofeedback, the hemi-sync method, meditation, and breathing exercises have been shown to induce certain brainwave frequency patterns which can have a positive impact on important aspects of mental health, such as stress, depression and anxiety. These aspects can be significantly disturbed during substance addiction and constitute significant therapeutic targets due to their strong association with craving and relapse.

I'm a Proin sit amet leo nunc. Nulla rutrum erat id nulla elementum vulputate. Nulla at consequat nulla. Sed porttitor a leo at porta. Sed sodales tempor ex. Nullam sodales nibh erat, a ullamcorper orci gravida sed. Phasellus blandit lorem libero, sed placerat sapien placerat et. Nam lacus neque, efficitur sit amet diam quis, euismod lobortis augue. Donec mauris felis, aliquet ac aliquet id, euismod ac erat. Nunc eget diam suscipit lacus egestas pharetra. Pellentesque ut orci a lorem rhoncus consectetur et in magna. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Phasellus eu blandit nibh. Morbi porta semper orci sed porttitor. Mauris eu ultrices erat.

We invite you to join us in an un-remembered world where shadows, voice and embodiment meet. Drawing on our cultural, artistic and therapeutic backgrounds, interweaving notions of shadow theatre, opera and Greek philosophy, participants will have the opportunity to cast a light on their ‘un-lived’ memories.

The first 16 weeks of self-isolation in the UK saw at-risk primary aged children unable to come into school and the Art Therapy at Home Project was begun. Circumstances were unprecedented and references were few. The impact of arts, culture and therapeutic art interventions promotes mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing: helping children and adults respond adaptively to trauma, enhancing community cohesion and supporting children's home schooling at a time in history when these are jeopardized by the Covid–19 virus (Gupta, 2020; Johnson, 2020).

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 Thich Nhat Hanh says that in order to protect each other’s happiness, we need to know and report our inner knots as soon as they appear, talk about them and unravel them.

In Lithuania, the use of dance-movement therapy (DMT) has increased since 2011 when the DMT Association was established by Raimonda Duff (MA Dance-Movement Psychotherapy, Christ Church University, Canterbury). In 2018, the first doctoral thesis on DMT – Education and Therapy of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Using Lithuanian Folk Dances –was defended by Solveiga Zvicevičienė.

The paper presentation illustrates the findings from my current PhD research, ‘Developing Dramatherapy Approaches for Thai Adult Patients with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)’. The research design is a phenomenological mixed-methods case study aiming to investigate the clinical benefits and the specific cultural issues that affect the outcomes of dramatherapy.

Parent-child art psychotherapy focuses on parent-child relationships in the presence of art materials (Regev & Snir, 2018). This workshop will deal with the unique model developed in the State of Israel for parent-child art psychotherapy. This model is a mentalization-based model (Fonagy & Target, 1997) with a psychoanalytical-relational orientation, for the treatment of childhood relationship disturbances. The therapeutic objective according to this model is "to encourage changes in the dyads' experiences and in their typical interaction patterns, which are based on existing representations. Such changes in interactions will lead to changes in the representations themselves" (Kaplan, Harel & Avimeir-Patt, 2010, p. 34). The parent-child art psychotherapy model, like other family art psychotherapy models, invites the parent and child to engage in a visual creative experience that uses imagination and enables non-verbal symbolic expression. In this model (Regev & Snir, 2018), spontaneous art-making allows parent and child to express feelings, unconscious fears, desires, fantasies, and memories, thus reinforcing the bond between parent and child. The work process and the artistic product in parent-child art psychotherapy are treated as elements that encourage meaningful mental processes (Gavron, 2013; Regev & Snir, 2015).

Covid-19 pandemic caught the whole world by surprise and changed our lives in profound ways, urging physical, social and psychological changes. As governments all over the world struggle to manage the virus and minimise deaths, people across cultures are finding ways to cope with this new reality.

Crises such as man-made and natural disasters, and epidemics such as corona create a complex ‘shared reality’ situation where both therapists and clients are dealing with the same stressors at the same time. Issues such as loneliness, fear, uncertainty, poverty, boredom, emptiness, loss of routines, loss of hope as to when it will be over, loss of professional identity and loss of loved ones all pose strong challenges to communities on the most external ecological level of the community.

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.

Past memories are fluid: their intersection with day-to-day life is a source of constant change, awakening numb parts of our consciousness and encouraging us to revisit them.

Voice and vocal expression can be a great tool for exploring and expressing memories, alongside bodily sensations related to them. Yet for some clients this is not a simple task: some are facing traumas preventing them from vocally expressing feelings of pain or loss; while others were told their voice is not important enough to be heard and are ashamed expressing it, fearing criticism.

"The past is never dead. It’s not even past", William Faulkner famously wrote in Requiem for a Nun. The persistence of embodied memory is both a crucial moment of trauma and trauma therapy and in the development of artistic works.

We live with patterns of interpretation. Resilience can be understood as a delicate balance between these patterns of interpretation, which, according to Henningsen (1981), never change, and embodied memory, which changes as a result of empathic encounters with the significant Other. To navigate successfully through their complex social environment, humans need both empathic skills and stable patterns of interpreting this environment and themselves.

An artist's style, as it were, lays a trace both to self-interpretations via patterns of interpretation and to embodied metaphors. The artistic style can thus be understood as an incarnated metaphor of the artist's empathic relationship to the human and non-human world.

Over the course of the 30 years I have practised music therapy, writing therapeutic songs has been an essential part of my tool-box as a therapist. Throughout these years, Israeli residents have been through wars, terror, missiles, financial hardships and coronavirus. Throughout all these years, as a music therapist I try to help patients express and process feelings through words that receive a musical cover that can offer a container to the content. Writing songs is a way of expressing the unconscious in a less threatening way, so we could look at it fearless. Through the therapeutic model I've built, the patient is freed from the need to write in rhymes, from context between lines and for the need for beauty. The musical improvisation binds sentences together and adds extra meaning. Thus, parts of nightmares, fears and thoughts can be voiced and processed. Throughout corona times, patients write songs about their feelings and said it made them feel better.

"Speaking and writing have a function to express a thought coherently. As words themselves are symbols of certain objects, subjects and actions…It is understandable that a text can get more meaning through the music.” (Jaap Orp, 2006)

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!

I'm a Proin sit amet leo nunc. Nulla rutrum erat id nulla elementum vulputate. Nulla at consequat nulla. Sed porttitor a leo at porta. Sed sodales tempor ex. Nullam sodales nibh erat, a ullamcorper orci gravida sed. Phasellus blandit lorem libero, sed placerat sapien placerat et. Nam lacus neque, efficitur sit amet diam quis, euismod lobortis augue. Donec mauris felis, aliquet ac aliquet id, euismod ac erat. Nunc eget diam suscipit lacus egestas pharetra. Pellentesque ut orci a lorem rhoncus consectetur et in magna. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Phasellus eu blandit nibh. Morbi porta semper orci sed porttitor. Mauris eu ultrices erat.

The workshop is a crossroads where dance, movement and drama meet. It is directed by two course leaders from different countries and languages. What connections may arise from the encounter of these cultural differences? How to find links and common ground?

Perhaps through childhood games, many of them existing in several countries, some, however, quite specific to certain cultural groups. These childhood games belong as much to the collective memory as to one’s personal history, a more intimate kind of memory.

Weaving through our collective and intimate memory, we may become aware of certain gaps or holes, missing connections or voids. Perhaps we are not all and at all times interconnected: sometimes pieces are missing, parts are lacking, and holes become apparent.

Proin sit amet leo nunc. Nulla rutrum erat id nulla elementum vulputate. Nulla at consequat nulla. Sed porttitor a leo at porta. Sed sodales tempor ex. Nullam sodales nibh erat, a ullamcorper orci gravida sed. Phasellus blandit lorem libero, sed placerat sapien placerat et. Nam lacus neque, efficitur sit amet diam quis, euismod lobortis augue. Donec mauris felis, aliquet ac aliquet id, euismod ac erat. Nunc eget diam suscipit lacus egestas pharetra. Pellentesque ut orci a lorem rhoncus consectetur et in magna. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Phasellus eu blandit nibh. Morbi porta semper orci sed porttitor. Mauris eu ultrices erat.

This workshop will involve participants in three immersive elements over the course of a two-hour facilitation.

The first element is a screening of a drama-in-education project filmed in Lithuania in the late 1990’s, facilitated by Henri Seebohm, involving teenage participants from two previously separated school communities, as part of a collaboration between the Vilnius Jewish Museum and an international non-governmental organisation’s attempt to establish and empower young people to make new connections and recognition of a common humanity.

I'm a Proin sit amet leo nunc. Nulla rutrum erat id nulla elementum vulputate. Nulla at consequat nulla. Sed porttitor a leo at porta. Sed sodales tempor ex. Nullam sodales nibh erat, a ullamcorper orci gravida sed. Phasellus blandit lorem libero, sed placerat sapien placerat et. Nam lacus neque, efficitur sit amet diam quis, euismod lobortis augue. Donec mauris felis, aliquet ac aliquet id, euismod ac erat. Nunc eget diam suscipit lacus egestas pharetra. Pellentesque ut orci a lorem rhoncus consectetur et in magna. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Phasellus eu blandit nibh. Morbi porta semper orci sed porttitor. Mauris eu ultrices erat.

In the non-verbal realm conflicting, shameful and painful experiences often dwell that may oppose our longings for creative expression and playful interaction with ourselves and others.

In the workshop Playing with Memory Strips the participants will be invited to create black and white collages (silhouettes) of a memory evoked from a meditative state that will be the starting point of the workshop.

Background

Suffering from the drastic socio-political unrest (e.g. debate over Extradition Law) and the coronavirus epidemic, Hong Kong has seen a soaring demand for psychological support especially for youngsters, with an estimated 9.1% of population probably having depression (HKUMed, 2019). The citywide lockdown measures including shutdown of schools owing to the ongoing epidemic has severely interrupted the provision of long-term, face-to-face counselling. Alternative and short-term therapeutic methods therefore become crucial for addressing the corresponding psychosocial crises.

Adopted children's’ earliest lived experiences of loss remain embedded in their deepest cell memory. Infant adoptees absorb overwhelming sensations of abandonment, whilst not yet possessing language to process and assimilate such experience (Roberts 2018). Embodied states therefore hold an internalized knowledge of early trauma. Unconscious pre-adoption experiences remain unknown to an adoptee, but carry an instantly recognizable present feeling tone that is often “a meld of helplessness, rage, terror and dread” (Wilkinson 2010). Memory governs problematic ways of being and behaving, manifest in what Wilkinson describes as “the old, present”, which often lead to referrals to music therapy.

What happens when violence against the body causes loss. As in the intimate history of women, in which their position of the non-existent manifests. This is why women in this (social) imaginary are silent and give their body, so that power, meaning, the life of another might be inscribed in it, as though they themselves are inscribed in the position of the non-existent and the invisible. What happens when your body is no longer yours? As non-existent in and of itself, as a state when it belongs to someone or something else (to some other meaning). The development of the body is endangered, as movement and contact with the outside world is prohibited. What can the uneasiness of restraint cause? The body becomes the property of someone else. Is there an alternative – a resistance to this condition? Girls use their bodies in several phases for the safe surroundings of their stay: a body that does not dwell, a body that emerges, a body that grows, and a body that expands and takes up the space that belongs to it. It is all about embodied memory.

Although art has been subject to research for some time, in quantitative research the artwork itself received little attention. This is probably in part due to the lack of objective, reliable and validated measurements in this field. The rating instrument for two-dimensional pictorial works (RizbA) fills this gap by providing a tool for formal picture analysis. It covers aspects such as shaping, spatiality, representation, colour intensity, pictorial elements and composition.

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.

Memory plays a crucial role in understanding trauma symptoms and trauma treatment. Remembering, reliving or avoiding the memories of atrocities are sometimes lively elements that people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have to cope with. In recent decades, neurological research suggests that clients with PTSD experience these symptoms more as sensory sensations than explanatory verbal memories.

Art therapy (AT) is frequently offered to children and adolescents with psychosocial problems. AT is an experiential form of treatment in which the use of art materials, the process of creation in the presence and guidance of an art therapist and the resulting artwork are assumed to contribute to the reduction of psychosocial problems. Although previous research reports positive effects, there is a lack of knowledge on which (combination of) art therapeutic components contribute to the reduction of psychosocial problems in children and adolescents.

The expressive therapies continuum (ETC) provides a theoretical structure for understanding the ways in which people interact with art media to process information and form images (Kagin & Lusebrink, 1978; Lusebrink, 2010). Understanding the ETC framework can enhance accuracy of assessment and increase treatment efficacy (Hinz, 2020). Although this significant theory is foundational and applicable across all expressive therapies (Kagin & Lusebrink, 1978), student feedback demonstrates it is a multifaceted concept to learn. Therefore, the instructors of this workshop have designed an embodied method of teaching the theory that utilizes personally relevant objects, imbued with personal memories, to engage students and professionals in the learning experience. Art making will be deepened by a poetic narrative approach to solidify learning (e.g., Kaimal, Mesinger, Carroll-Haskins, 2020) and to provide guidelines for using embodied experiences to explain, clarify, and amplify the ETC theory.

This paper will examine how knitting holds cultural memories with contemporary relevance. It looks at needlework as a ‘feminine’ challenge to ‘masculine ideals. It considers knitting as a form of movement meditation and meaning-making and as a way to incorporate art into the everyday. Supported by personal reflection, case study and written theory, I show how all these aspects have therapeutic potential.

As part of the research process, we observed 4 young girls how they respond to demanding artistic research such as: the embodiment of memory. We were interested in how many years of dance experience would help them in this and how young girls, performers aged between 14 and 16 respond to problems without their own experience of this kind. What happens when violence against the body causes loss? What can cause anxiety? Katja Goričan's poetry was the script for the performance. We observed how the performers and co-creators of the show enter the process and how they deal with the performative traumatic body, and what are the therapeutic effects of the creative process that took place during Covid-19?

We choose our own way into the arts therapy field but are we really aware of our deep motives for making this choice? Our experience, our memories shape our identity as therapists and shape our understanding of the potency and power of arts and creativity. Often, those who enter the therapeutic profession are seeking their own healing – a phenomenon common amongst therapists. In their clinical practice, they may go on to use those parts of themselves that have been hurt or damaged in order to connect with their client, whether consciously or unconsciously.

I'm a Proin sit amet leo nunc. Nulla rutrum erat id nulla elementum vulputate. Nulla at consequat nulla. Sed porttitor a leo at porta. Sed sodales tempor ex. Nullam sodales nibh erat, a ullamcorper orci gravida sed. Phasellus blandit lorem libero, sed placerat sapien placerat et. Nam lacus neque, efficitur sit amet diam quis, euismod lobortis augue. Donec mauris felis, aliquet ac aliquet id, euismod ac erat. Nunc eget diam suscipit lacus egestas pharetra. Pellentesque ut orci a lorem rhoncus consectetur et in magna. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Phasellus eu blandit nibh. Morbi porta semper orci sed porttitor. Mauris eu ultrices erat.

Are we what we remember? Everything we remember is an act of imagination. We are actively reconstructing the way it was then in the here and now. Memory is sensory, iconic, and haptic. It consists of images, sounds, tastes, and smells to which we add a story to create meaning. These stories are neurophysiologically, socially, and technologically encoded, performed through daily habits and rituals, transmitted through artistic representation, and traced throughout cultural objects and architecture. Memories offer us continuity, a sense of place and identity. Therefore, the loss of memory presents an ontological dilemma for those whose memories are no longer accessible and for those who care with and for them.

Is it possible for any form of arts therapy to align itself to the needs of people with profound communication difficulties e.g. profound Autism, profound and multiple learning difficulties, or pre and post verbal groups. Where is the art form if the client communicates pre-symbolically? What must we forget in order to find our way back to our pre-verbal synchrony?
Can we look to the most radical art practices that embrace more abstract approaches and multimodal forms for inspiration? Can experimenting with these themes as core processes in arts therapies illuminate and enhance the relational dimensions with all client groups?

There are moments in history when collective memory is radically transformed. The year 2020 is one of those moments when our sense of being at home in our world will never be the same.

Body Memory is a major source of joy or pain in human beings. It is mostly implicit and one of the therapeutic factors of CATs. To access it brings embodied knowledge and wisdom to the therapy process.

According to theories of art therapy, there is a complex relationship between the three components of the therapist-client, client-artwork and therapist-artwork relationship triangle that simultaneously affect each other and the development of each one (Schaverien, 2000). This workshop will present the participatory research (Cargo & Mercer, 2008) which led to the development of an observational tool called the Observation in Art Therapy Relationships (OATR) that assesses the interaction between client and artwork and between the client and the therapist.

COVID-19 has forced us to often have therapies take place online. Mental health treatments have been delayed or have even been stopped. This also applied to arts therapies.

A survey of 281 arts and psychomotor therapists showed that 91% of them have ‘no’ or ‘almost no’ experience with working online and digital resources. People are positive about it, but they do not feel competent in it. There is a great need for knowledge.

In response, a project has been started in which practice, education and research worked together. The aim of this project was that arts and psychomotor therapists become more skilled in the use of digital resources and that these tools become better suited to our therapy.

Starting with a reflection on the connection between her own memory work and handicraft, the author considers the influence of her New Orleanian family history of tailoring, sewing and crocheting on her own artistic practice. In observing that, especially in times of change, needle and thread often stabilized and enabled a re-collection of Self, she derives further thoughts on the symbolism and psychodynamics of this activity.

Quantitative and qualitative research on ‘Memory Drawing’ will be reviewed in this presentation. Research will be reviewed about the effectiveness of drawing compared to writing when facilitating memory over differing time frames. When drawing/writing was recalled three weeks after the original memorisation, the median number of recalled words/drawings was two written words and five drawn. The research findings also showed that drawing is generally as much as five times more effective then writing for longer-term memory or when the drawings/words were recalled nine weeks after the original memorisation, without any recall within the nine-week period. To my knowledge, research of this sort into this long-term memory of drawings had not previously been conducted.

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).

In our era dominated by technologies and online communication, we sense a sharp need for activities engaging our hands, for crafts and for food, which we can make on our own and then share with others in order to regain our self-confidence, self-esteem, to better understand how much we need one another and to learn to better communicate with each other. Bread making is a unique creative activity in which metaphors of life, problem-solving and coping with difficulties can be successfully applied. It involves different stages in a certain sequence and teaches different social and cognitive skills, patience and cooperation.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of therapists and patients in order to draw a composite picture of single-session improvisational group music therapy. This phenomenological study included ten therapist participants and nine patient participants.