Category: BA Psychology

MA in Psychology and Counseling student Tamara Liaschenko presents the expressive movement piece she created as a component of her individually designed course in Social and Cultural Foundations integrating Expressive Arts Therapy content. In her words: “This piece represents the resilience and love gained from growing up in my family, the gifts my grandmother shared,… Continue reading Student Tamara Liaschenko’s Expressive Movement Creation and Reflection

  Here, I continue to tell the story of my experience at the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association Regional Conference in Antigua, Guatemala. We attended a lunch presentation at a developing residential program for children who have terminal illnesses and their families. The complex of traditional rustic buildings was situated in a rural setting.. The… Continue reading International Expressive Arts Therapy Association Latin America Regional Conference Part 2

When I prepared to travel to my first residency at Goddard five years ago, a colleague who would become a good friend told me that Goddard was like “summer camp for psychologists.”  Now, as I reflect on my residency experiences, I realize that he was absolutely right. The Expressive Arts aspect of residency reminds me… Continue reading A Glimpse into the Experience of an Expressive Arts Emphasis Residency

In February, 2014 I was very fortunate to attend the International Expressive Arts Therapy  Association (IEATA) Regional Conference in Antigua, Guatemala. I sought the opportunity to experience Expressive Arts practices in a region from which many of my clients originate and to improve my ability to offer culturally relevant psychotherapy. The experience was transformative for… Continue reading International Expressive Arts Therapy Association Latin America Regional Conference

Faced with writing what seemed like an endless number of papers when I was in graduate school many years ago, I stumbled across a method for overcoming procrastination.  Much more recently, in the November-December 2013 issue of The Psychotherapy Networker I came across an article that grounded my method in physiology. Eureka! I cried. (Well,… Continue reading The Mediocre Meditator: Brain Science and Procrastination

  Even though you can’t fail at meditating, meditating is all about failure. What I mean is this: Since you have this goal of focusing on the breath (or the sense of the whole body or whatever you’ve chosen) and since focused attention is, as the psychologist Steven Stosny says, “the most easily exhaustible and… Continue reading Self-Compassion at the First

Last October, my Jungian Seminar in New Orleans coincided with Halloween. So you can imagine the metaphysical and celebratory possibilities there were in NOLA at that time. Among the offerings was the Voodoo Music Festival with rock music, art, and of course food! Our hotel, the Best Western in Metairie hosted the Tattoo VooDoo Expo. I… Continue reading Expressive Arts and the Body

  These first images were produced for the course Trauma and Addiction. The first panel represents trauma. The images convey the different causes of trauma, childhood abuse, natural disasters, violence, war. The idea that I want to convey is that trauma shatters the inner world. Reality looks like a broken mirror, the images don’t fit,… Continue reading Expressive Arts Reflection from Student Mushkan Defilippo

  As it turns out, if you meditate long enough the devils of self-criticism and fear may decide to make an appearance.  In my reading about meditation I had come across allusions to this but I didn’t pay attention, in part because I couldn’t imagine it.  Meditation had either offered me some gifts of clarity… Continue reading When Bad Things Happen to Good Meditators

If mindfulness was last year’s most popular phrase in psychology and self-help, this year’s word is bound to be neuroplasticity.  Neuroplasticity means that the brain and nervous system can change.  Of course psychotherapists have always believed this, else what have we been doing all these years.  Meditation teachers have known this, as have experienced members… Continue reading The Mediocre Meditator Says: The Word for 2014 Will Be Neuroplasticity

One of my favorite parts of the Expressive Arts Opening of the Psychology and Counseling Program is the student artists’ presentation of their own work as “Performance Art”. At our opening during Fall 2013 Residency, Nicole Grubman read from her book, “I Left My Sole in Vermont: A Walker’s Journey and Guide through Central Vermont… Continue reading Performance Art at the Fall 2013 Expressive Arts Opening

I have returned to Goddard for fall residency and am immediately inspired. Students have shared their work at our Psychology and Counseling Expressive Arts Opening and the principles of Expressive Arts Therapy are embodied by the works created as well as by the creators. Students have engaged with varied mediums including clay, photography, written narrative,… Continue reading Fall 2013 Expressive Arts Opening