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As children, our means of expression through the arts (play, painting, creating, story-telling, dramatic play, etc.) are an indivisible part of our development. We create without being prevented by judgment, competition, or achievement orientation. Intuitively, arts serve us as therapeutic tools that aid us in coping with emotions such as pain, fear, frustration and so forth.
Intermodal Expressive Arts Therapy draws its inspiration from this point and offers an experience that creates trust and confidence and invites the use of imagination, dreams and the inner world as a source of new possibilities and options, discovery, mental strength and the making of new inter-personal relationships.
This therapy does not offer solutions for the removal of negative emotions or pain, rather, it gives them a voice, a form, color, and stage by means of arts (drawing, sculpture, dance, movement, music, drama, poetry and story) in order to investigate, discover and enable their expression in a direct or indirect way and to allow for a breakthrough, release of emotional blocks and healing. The Guiding Principle: Suiting the therapy to the person, not the person to the therapy.
This approach does not distinguish between one form of expression and another. The distinction, or attempt to lead the therapy in one medium in the therapeutic process or to lead it to a place that is comfortable for us is likely (particularly with children) to create open or hidden resistance to this medium. It can also lead to anger, frustration, obstruction and damaging the trust of the child/client, and will keep him from feeling free and released to express his emotions openly.
This is why there is not an emphasis on the artistic ability or talent of the student, rather first and foremost on his personal emotional development as a person. The artistic tool is a means only though which emotions are able to be expressed and do not necessarily take a central place in the therapy. We place an emphasis on the development of creativity, spontaneity, and listening, the ability to contain and be sensitive to others, in addition to theoretic training. The basic psychology courses and the courses in the theory of Intermodal expressive arts therapy are combined one with another throughout the length of the program in order to create an overlap, congruence and direct connection between the theoretical and the practical.
In addition, we are aware of the fact that the student may have a natural tendency toward a central art form, in which he/she will feel more comfortable working during the therapeutic process. Our main role is to impart tools that will develop his emotional ability as a person and as a therapist through the acquiring of different experiences of different art forms that are only a means for the purpose of building the process.
In conclusion, Intermodal expressive arts therapy is not a collection of techniques. It is a creative approach to the therapeutic process. The study program imparts to the students tools for finding the creative process within themselves. The therapist’s central work tool is he himself, therefore the more the student deepens his investigation of his own soul and mind, he will serve as a better therapist to others. |
