Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul
The field of art therapy is discovering that artistic expression can be a powerful means of personal transformation and emotional and spiritual healing. In this book, Shaun McNiff, a leader in expressive arts therapy for more than three decades, reflects on a wide spectrum of activities aimed at reviving art's traditional healing function. In chapters ranging from "Liberating Creativity" and "The Practice of Creativity in the Workplace" to "From Shamanism to Art Therapy," he illuminates some of the most progressive views in the rapidly expanding field of art therapy:

   •  The "practice of imagination" as a powerful force for transformation
   •  A challenge to literal-minded psychological interpretations of artworks ("black colors indicate depression") and the principle that even disturbing images have inherent healing properties
   •  The role of the therapist in promoting an environment conducive to free expression and therapeutic energies
   •  The healing effects of group work, with people creating alongside one another and interacting in the studio
   •  "Total expression," combining arts such as movement, storytelling, and drumming with painting and drawing
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Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul
The field of art therapy is discovering that artistic expression can be a powerful means of personal transformation and emotional and spiritual healing. In this book, Shaun McNiff, a leader in expressive arts therapy for more than three decades, reflects on a wide spectrum of activities aimed at reviving art's traditional healing function. In chapters ranging from "Liberating Creativity" and "The Practice of Creativity in the Workplace" to "From Shamanism to Art Therapy," he illuminates some of the most progressive views in the rapidly expanding field of art therapy:

   •  The "practice of imagination" as a powerful force for transformation
   •  A challenge to literal-minded psychological interpretations of artworks ("black colors indicate depression") and the principle that even disturbing images have inherent healing properties
   •  The role of the therapist in promoting an environment conducive to free expression and therapeutic energies
   •  The healing effects of group work, with people creating alongside one another and interacting in the studio
   •  "Total expression," combining arts such as movement, storytelling, and drumming with painting and drawing
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Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul

Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul

by Shaun McNiff
Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul

Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul

by Shaun McNiff

eBook

$19.99 

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Overview

The field of art therapy is discovering that artistic expression can be a powerful means of personal transformation and emotional and spiritual healing. In this book, Shaun McNiff, a leader in expressive arts therapy for more than three decades, reflects on a wide spectrum of activities aimed at reviving art's traditional healing function. In chapters ranging from "Liberating Creativity" and "The Practice of Creativity in the Workplace" to "From Shamanism to Art Therapy," he illuminates some of the most progressive views in the rapidly expanding field of art therapy:

   •  The "practice of imagination" as a powerful force for transformation
   •  A challenge to literal-minded psychological interpretations of artworks ("black colors indicate depression") and the principle that even disturbing images have inherent healing properties
   •  The role of the therapist in promoting an environment conducive to free expression and therapeutic energies
   •  The healing effects of group work, with people creating alongside one another and interacting in the studio
   •  "Total expression," combining arts such as movement, storytelling, and drumming with painting and drawing

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780834827295
Publisher: Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Publication date: 11/16/2004
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
Sales rank: 329,329
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Shaun McNiff is internationally recognized as a founder and leading figure in the arts and healing field. University Professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is past president of the American Art Therapy Association and the author of several other books including Art As Medicine, Trust the Process, and Creating with Others.

Read an Excerpt

From
Chapter 2

Imperfect
Environments

Often the places where we work generate very unattractive auras and disturbing environmental forces. I have constructed many hundreds of nomadic studios throughout my years of practice. I feel like a Bedouin traveler who keeps putting up and taking down his tent. In my travels I don't think I have ever worked in an ideal studio. There is always something that could be better organized in the space. I have contemplated constructing an ideal place, but maybe I should not. The perfect studio could establish an unrealizable standard for others. It may be better for me to keep working with whatever materials I
find in the different places I visit. In this way I demonstrate to others how the studio can be set up anywhere.

Groups repeatedly teach me how to maintain a spiritual presence amidst the din of a work area. If the keeper of the process relaxes, this helps everyone else do the same. The reverse is also painfully true. Everything depends upon our concentration and faith in the process.

Although
I prefer to work in the best space possible, I have repeatedly discovered that the vitality of a studio has more to do with the creative presence generated than the physical features of rooms. I do not mean to discourage architects and interior designers from becoming involved in the art and healing movement, and especially the important work of "universal design" striving to create environments and technologies of communication that accommodate all people irrespective of their physical abilities. We want to have the best spaces possible, yet we must also work with whatever we have, especially when bringing the arts to places with limited financial resources.

Distractions and imperfections may even perversely feed the creative spirit because they are not unlike our often-disheveled lives. There may be a wondrous medicine released when a group fills an unattractive space with imaginative expressions.
When we creatively transform unappealing places, the change of attitude has a corresponding effect on how we perceive ourselves and the world.

Table of Contents

Preface
ix

Acknowledgements
xv

Part
One


INTRODUCTION
1

1
Liberating Creativity 3

Part
Two

ART
IS SOUL'S MEDICINE 9

2
The Creative Space 15

3
Letting Go in a Safe Place 28

4
Embracing Upheaval 31

5
The Early Work, 1970–1974: Anthony, Bernice, and Christopher 34

6
The Art Therapist as Artist 52

7
Aesthetic Meditation 55

Part
Three

OPENING
TO IMAGES AND MEDIA 69

8
The Interpretation of Imagery 75

9
Treating Images as Persons and Dialoguing with Them 82

10
The Challenge of Disturbing Images 96

11
Images as Angels 100

12
Angels of the Wound 112

13
Artistic Auras and Their Medicines 121

14
The Effects of Different Kinds of Art Experiences 137

Part
Four

TOTAL
EXPRESSION 147

15
Pandora's Gifts: Using All of the Arts in Healing 151

16
A Pantheon of Creative Art Therapies 163

17
Working With Everything We Have 168

18
A Review of
Jung on Active Imagination

by Joan Chodorow 171

Part
Five

CONNECTIONS
TO SHAMANISM 181

19
From Shamanism to Art Therapy 183

20
The Shaman as Archetypal Figure 194

21
The Shaman Within 200

Part
Six

REFLECTIONS
ON THE SOURCE 209

22
The Basis of Energy 211

23
The Healing Powers of Imagination 221

24
Surrender to the Rhythm 230

Part
Seven

USING
NEW MEDIA TO EXPAND CREATIVE EXPRESSION 239

25
Video Enactment in the Expressive Therapies 243

26
A Virtual Studio 255

Part
Eight

ART
HEALING IS FOR EVERYONE 263

27
Art Therapy Is a Big Idea 267

28
An Inclusive Vision of Art Therapy: A Spectrum of Partnerships 271

29
The Way of Empathy: The Practice of Creativity in the Workplace 283

30
The Test of Time 290

Sources and Credits

295

Selected
Publications by Shaun McNiff

299

Index
307

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