Course Syllabus:
Introduction to EXA (Deepening Your Practice: The Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy)

California Institute of Integral Studies

Introduction to EXA for Non-Students
EXA 5000: 2 Units
Fall Semester, 2008

Instructor: Kate T. Donohue, Ph.D., REAT
Office hours by appointment on Fridays
Private Practice Phone: 415-695-1464
Fax: 415-296-7425
CIIS phone: ext. 412 (only available on Fridays)
Email: kate@kate-donohue.com

DESCRIPTION OF COURSE CONTENT:

The psyche is revealed not only through words, but through images, symbols and the body. The Expressive Arts reawaken the language of image, movement, sound, metaphor, drama and poetic utterances, revealing the deepest aspects of the self and expressing what often cannot be put into words. Drawing, painting, sculpture, movement, dance, sandplay and ritual provide access to your client’s inner world Weaving art processes into clinical and counseling work greatly expands the capacity to articulate-with fullness and specificity-what lies buried within us, by using each modality as it called for in the unfolding process. As both therapist and client work with these healing multi-arts processes, the creative spirit is aroused and the therapeutic process itself is experienced as art.

Integrating clinical and expressive arts theory, experiential process with the arts and clinical applications, participants will learn about

• their own creative process and
• their artist within,
• expressive arts trauma approaches,
• applications to different psychic woundings,
• applications to diverse cultural groups and individuals
• growth approaches to consulting and education
• how to begin to deepen and enliven their practice through the expressive arts

PREREQUISITES: None Class size: 18

SUMMARY OF EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE:

Expressive Arts Therapy weaves the arts into healing tapestries. This course will lay the foundation of expressive arts therapy which will allow participants to experience and learn about the power and potential of these multi-arts processes to deepen, enhance and enliven their psychotherapy practices and lives. Participants will learn about the potentials of each art modality, the approaches to Intermodal arts processes and ways to develop a deep personal relationship with their own creative process. Additionally, applications of these processes to clinical, consultation and educational and cross-cultural settings will be explored

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Participants will:
1. Experience expressive arts therapy processes.
2. Develop a theoretical understanding of these processes.
3. Begin to understand the ways to weave arts modalities.
4. Be introduced to paradigms that will aid in comparing and contrasting modalities.
5. Deepen their relationship to their own creative process
6. Be able to apply EXA processes to their life and work

LEARNING ACTIVITIES:

1. Cognitive: discussion, reading assignments, and clinical material 30%
2. Experiential: personal process with the EXA approaches 30%
3. Practical: two assignments 40%

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION:

Attendance and participation in class discussions:
Participation in all classes is required because of the emphasis on process and experience.
Please call if you will miss a class. Only compelling reasons will be accepted. 40%

2. Completion reading and writing assignment: There is one written assignment. Please submit on due date, unless there is a compelling reason. 30%

3. Completion of arts projects: There are two arts projects. Please submit on due date, unless there is a compelling reason. 30%

REQUIRED READINGS:

1. Levine, S., and Levine, E. (eds.). (1999). The Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy. Philadelphia, PA: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
2. Malchiodi, C. A. (ed.) (2005). Expressive Therapies. New York: The Guilford Press.
3. Donohue Selected Readings

Strongly Suggested:
1. Lewis, P. (1993). Creative Transformation: The Healing Power of the Arts.
Wilmette, Illinois: Chiron Publications.
2. McNiff, S, (1987). The Arts and Psychotherapy. Springfield, Illinois: Charles, C. Thomas.
4. Levy, F. (1995). Dance and Other Expressive Art Therapies. Routledge Press: New York.
5. Knill, P.J., Barba, H.N. and Fuchs, M. N. (1995) Minstrels of Soul: Intermodal Expressive Arts Therapy. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Palmerston Press.

Materials Fee: $15.00 due in the first class.

DATES, LOCATIONS, THEME AND READINGS:
First Eight classes scheduled on Monday 3-6 PM. There is one Sunday class on November 8th From 9 AM-6 PM

1. August 25,

Introduction to the class and to the field of EXA:
In this class, we will begin to open the door to the field of expressive arts therapy.
First, we will delve into the three worlds of consciousness active in EXA through an experiential process. Using this process, we will begin to define EXA. We will close with a discussion of syllabus and assignments: weekly arts response and final process exploring the artist within and a clinical application paper

Reading Assignments: Malchiodi, chapter 1, 2
Levine: Introduction and chapter 8
Arts Assignment: With the clay provided, create an image of your Temenos to hold you in this experiential class. See arts assignments for further instructions

2. September 8th, Monday
Creating the Temenos:
Using your clay images, we will begin to create both individual and the group Temenos. This will help us explore the relationship among the therapeutic process, the EXA process and spiritual explorations. This class will help us learn how visual images speak when used singularly and in an integrative arts process or approach. We will focus on individual arts process,

Readings: Levine: chapters 5 & 6
Malchiodi, chapter 7 and 8
Arts Assignment: Explore one of the visual arts processes. Write about your images and memories that surface from exploring this process and what other modalities you might have used in conjunction with visual arts.

3. September 15th, Monday
Creating group life with EXA
In an experiential EXA process, we will explore the life of our group through the arts.
Using this experience, we will delve into the interplay of group dynamics and EXA. In addition, this experience will allow us to start to understand what each modality gives us creatively, therapeutically and spiritually.

Readings: Malchiodi: chapters 3
Levine: Chapters 9 and 13
Arts Assignment: Pick a piece of music and listen to this music, noting the imagery and somatic response you have to this music. After listening to the music, create an abstract drawing about the experience. Map the drawing and dialogue with the part that has the most energy

4. September 22nd, Monday
EXA in Trauma work:
We will begin this class exploring trauma theory and some current brain research on trauma. With this foundation, we discuss somatically-based approaches to trauma by viewing a video on body-oriented work with trauma of Bosnia.
This will expand our view of EXA into cross-cultural realms. Additionally, I will share an expressive arts oriented therapy process with a young girl who was sexually abused. This will help us understand the power of the arts and body in healing trauma.

Readings: Levine: chapters 10, and 11
Malchiodi: chapters 4 and 6
Arts Assignment: Using the imaginal language arts, write a poetic piece or story or myth about what you explored in class today. You may want to combine your poetic piece with another modality to explore it more fully.

5. October 6th, Monday
Experiential process focusing on EXA and Trauma.
Please dress in loose fitting clothes in which you can move and create art. Discussion of the experience and clinical applications.

Readings: Malchiodi: chapters 9
Levine: chapters 12
Arts Assignment: Explore one of the body-oriented processes. Write about your movements, images and memories that emerged, comment on the difference in experience with visual arts and movement. What modalities might you have woven into this experience?

6. October 13th, Monday
Exploring interpersonal intrapsychic relationships through the arts
We will focus on drama based expressive arts processes both group and individual to demonstrate how the arts can illuminate and uncover essential aspects of interpersonal and intrapsychic relationships. Please dress in loose fitting clothes.

Readings: Malchiodi: chapters 5
Levine: chapter 3 and 12
Arts Assignment: Using drama-based processes, explore a dream or interpersonal dilemma and combine this exploration with another arts processes to get the feel of an integrated arts process.

7. October 20th, Monday
The Power of Play:
In this class, we will discuss the power of play, the creative process and the potentials of an image. There will be integrative arts experiential group process to help illuminate these concepts.

Readings: Malchiodi: chapters 7 and 9
Levine: chapters 4 & 1
Arts Assignment: Choose from the handouts provided or create an integrated arts process to explore a dream, a life dilemma or to explore the power of play in healing.

8. October 27th, Monday
Applications of EXA:
We will discuss further applications to healing work:
Exploration of the weaving of the creative arts modalities
Discussion of work with different populations
Cultivating your own creative practice
Discussion of Final Arts Project.

Kate will present actual examples from her work.

Students are encouraged to bring questions and examples from their own work. We will have experiential dyad work on how to use the arts individually. Examples will be explored on how to bring out the artist within in EXA work.

Readings: complete all readings assignments from both books

Arts Assignment: Prepare your presentation for 11/8. See assignments section for more information

9-10. November 8th Sunday 9 AM- 6 PM
Final Class:
Students will present their final arts project. Each student will have 10-20 minutes (depending on the size of the class) to present. We will discuss how to approach your final papers and ideas for further training and development in EXA as well as IEATA
Community Closing Arts Ritual created by class. We will close with arts based closing ritual created by the class.

Assignments: Weekly Arts Journal and Final Arts Project are due to today

Class Assignments:

I. Arts and Written Assignments:

A. Weekly Experiential Art Assignment
In order to keep you close to your creative process, each week you will work with one or more art modality at home/outside of class as assigned each week (see weekly assignments) This is called an artistic response. Please keep the power of play alive. For example, you paint, draw, work with clay, collage, dance, make music, sing, create poetry or write creatively, enact an image, dream or character, role-play or some combination of the arts modality. You may also want to create an artistic response to the class material, readings or your own life issues. Each week suggestions are made for this arts process. Feel free to explore more arts than assigned or to change the arts process suggested if your muses take you elsewhere.

Preparation of your arts journal:
In your arts journal, you will have two entries per modality. The first entry will be a description of the art piece itself. This is called the phenomenon of the image. This paragraph should contain a representation of the art itself (written, audio, video, photo or drawing: any form that will give a glimpse of the image itself). You will also write a second paragraph on your reflections of this image, what it means to you and what associations you have to this image. This is called symbolic function, symbolic meaning or the potentials of the image.

Please submit your seven page written arts journal (already created if you have completed the arts assignment weekly). This journal submission will have two parts:

1.The actual arts images (the phenomena of the image) created which you will submit with your journal-- with photos of images, audio or video presentations and/or description (paragraph one) as well as
2. Paragraph two: your reflections on these images. This is called the symbolic meaning or function of the image. What does it say or mean to you?

Remember there are seven arts assignments and you will have a submission for each: seven in total. Each submission will have two paragraphs as described above. Your Journal can be a creative reflection of your process in this class. So have fun with this as you follow the guidelines.

Due November 8th in class.

B. Final Arts Project
During the semester you have been working with the arts and your own creative process. On November 8th, each person will have 10-20 minutes (depending on the size of the class) to present an art piece that represents you creatively and artistically. One could present one modality or a weaving of modalities. This will be a separate piece from the weekly art work. More details will be presented class.

Or:

One could present an EXA case study from their practicum or work. In this option, we will focus on your creative process as healer and the choices and decisions you made in guiding this work.

Final art projects will be presented in class on November 8th in class.

C. Final Reflection Paper
This will be submitted two weeks after your final arts presentation. In this paper, use reflections from the readings, class discussions, plus the feedback from the class on November 8th. Write a five –eight page paper about your understanding of your arts process, your creative process and how this relates to the field of expressive arts therapy. Include in this, how you might imagine using expressive arts therapy in your personal and professional life.

Or:

If you presented your EXA work with another, this would be a reflection of your creative process as a therapist, discussion of your choices of modalities, and how you wove the arts together and what you learned about the arts and this person from this experience.

Due: November 24th or before. You can either place in my box on the 4th floor or mail to my office:

57 Post Street, Ste. 602, SF, CA 94104

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Course Syllabus: Introduction to EXA (Deepening Your Practice: The Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy)

Suggested Readings:

Course Syllabus:
Introduction to EXA (Deepening Your Practice: The Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy)