Art Psychotherapy Quotes

The science of psychotherapy is knowing what to say, the art is knowing when to say it. (36)

if it weren’t for errant passion, death, despair, and loss, the great bulk of art would never have been born.

Mind thinks in images but, to communicate with another, must transform image into thought and then thought into language. That march, from image to thought to language, is treacherous. Casualties occur: the rich, fleecy texture of image, its extraordinary plasticity and flexibility, its private nostalgic emotional hues - all are lost when image is crammed into language.

Psychotherapy is the art of finding the angel of hope in the midst of terror, despair and madness.

I'd been trained in the art of psychotherapy, the excavation of the past as a means of untangling the present and rendering it livable. It's detective work, of sorts, crouching stealthily in the blind alleys of the unconscious. (179)

First, psychotherapy is an art. It is not a science (the human-beings-are-laboratory-rats mentality of the behaviorist notwithstanding). A friend of mine, a philosopher of esthetics, defines art as: anything that people treat as art. So it is with psychotherapy. Any mad school that springs up and gets people to call it "psychotherapy" then becomes a "psychotherapy." But is it good psychotherapy or just mad?

We need art, Nietzsche said, lest we perish from the truth.

Psychotherapy is an art enlightened by wisdom, theory and research.

Psychotherapy is more than technique in that it is art, and goes beyond pure science in that it is wisdom. [...] Wisdom requires the human touch.

One of the obvious implications is that a person will have to face the fact that she cannot meet other people’s expectations. This signals the end of what might be called the “camel” phase of human development. I believe it was Nietschze who suggested that for the first part of life, we are camels, trudging through the desert, accepting on our backs everybody’s “shoulds” and “don’ts.” Camels only know how to spit; they don’t think for themselves or talk back. As the camel dies, a lion is born in its place. Lions discover both their roar and the art of preening. The lion may be a little shaky at first, so support and encouragement are vital. But once the camel begins to die (e.g., signaled by depression), there is no turning back. Symptoms occupy the space between the death of the camel and the birth of the lion. A therapist can be a good midwife during this liminal phase.

All psychotherapy is ultimately something of an art. There is always an irrational element in psychotherapy. The doctor's artistic intuition and sensitivity is of considerable importance. The patient, too, brings an irrational element into the relationship: his individuality.

That is the marvel of true art, that no one has yet found a way to commercialize it. Man, when he achieves an adequate level of consciousness, feels the sacred in everything around him, and the world takes on this essence. The plants, the rocks, the joke: they are sacred; these things are consecrated.

Mind thinks in images but, to communicate with another, must transform image into thought and then thought into language. That march, from image to thought to language, is treacherous. Casualties occur: the rich, fleecy texture of image, its extraordinary plasticity and flexibility, its private nostalgic emotional hues - all are lost when image in crammed into language.

People do meditation to find psychic alignment. That’s why people do psychotherapy and analysis. That’s why people analyze their dreams and make art. That is why some contemplate tarot cards, cast I Ching, dance, drum, make theater, pry out the poem, and fire up their prayers. That’s why we do all the things we do. It is the work of gathering all the bones together. Then we must sit at the fire and think about which song we will use to sing over the bones, which creation hymn, which re-creation hymn. And the truths we tell will make the song.

While irrational faith is rooted in submission to a power which is felt to be overwhelmingly strong, omniscient and omnipotent, and in the abdication of one's own power and strength, rational faith is based upon the opposite experience. We have this faith in a thought because it is the result of our own observation and thinking. We have faith in the potentialities of others, of ourselves, and of mankind because, and only to the degree to which, we have experienced the growth of our own potentialities, the reality of growth in ourselves, the strength of our own power of reason and of love. The basis of rational faith is productiveness; to live by our faith means to live productively. It follows that the belief in power (in the sense of domination) and the use of power are the reverse of faith. To believe in power that exists is identical with disbelief in the growth of potentialities which are as yet unrealized. It is a prediction of the future based solely on the manifest present; but it turns out to be a grave miscalculation, profoundly irrational in its oversight of the human potentialities and human growth. There is no rational faith in power. There is submission to it or, on the part of those who have it, the wish to keep it. While to many power seems to be the most real of all things, the history of man has proved it to be the most unstable of all human achievements. Because of the fact that faith and power are mutually exclusive, all religions and political systems which originally are built on rational faith become corrupt and eventually lose what strength they have, if they rely on power or ally themselves with it. To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern—and to take the jump and stake everything on these values.

guidelines, then, we may need to look beyond the textbooks

The British Association of Art Therapists defines art therapy as: ...a form of psychotherapy that uses art media as its primary mode of communication. It is practised by qualified, registered Art Therapists who work with children, young people, adults and the elderly.[4] Clients who can use art therapy may have a wide range of difficulties, disabilities or diagnoses. These include, for example, emotional, behavioral or mental health problems, learning or physical disabilities, life-limiting conditions, brain-injury or neurological conditions and physical illness.

Where the psychological reduction of religious or esoteric doctrines shifts direction and becomes the reductive psychologization of the same doctrines is in the reinterpretation of psychological reductive theories of esoteric discourse by esotericists. The paramount example of this reinterpretative process is Crowley’s essay ‘The Initiated Interpretation of Ceremonial Magic’ (1903), wherein he poses the question as to ‘the cause of my illusion of seeing a spirit in the triangle of Art,’ and answers himself: ‘That cause lies in your brain.’ In this way, we see Crowley begin with a psychologically reduced interpretation of the magical practice of evocation, and then reinterpret this as something to be applied to magical practice—acting as a practicing magician rather than as a psychologist. For, although the magical practice is reduced to psychological terms, Crowley still advocates for the performance of the ritual itself, rather than utilizing the psychological reduction as a means to advocate for conventional psychotherapy in ritual’s stead.

Being able not to know means not having to pretend understanding when it's not yet there; it means not having to force connections before they fit; it means enjoying a relief from feeling insecure if one doesn't have "the answer". Often, the art of crafting previously unasked questions and generating methods of inquiry opens up vaster expanses of landscape to see into than scrambling for answers does. And answers are more complete if nourished by curiosity and unpressured exploration.

But we simply can’t attune to another in ways that no one has attuned to us. We can’t open in another what is closed in ourselves.

One famous Japanese haiku illustrates the state that Sid managed to discover in himself. It is one that Joseph Goldstein has long used to describe the unique attentional posture of bare attention:                                          The old pond.                                          A frog jumps in.                                          Plop!2 Like so much else in Japanese art, the poem expresses the Buddhist emphasis on naked attention to the often overlooked details of everyday life. Yet, there is another level at which the poem may be read. Just as in the parable of the raft, the waters of the pond can represent the mind and the emotions. The frog jumping in becomes a thought or feeling arising in the mind or body, while “Plop!” represents the reverberations of that thought or feeling, unelaborated by the forces of reactivity. The entire poem comes to evoke the state of bare attention in its utter simplicity.

Religion allies itself with auto-suggestion and psychotherapy to help man in his business activities. In the twenties one had not yet called upon God for purposes of “improving one's personality.” The best-seller in the year 1938, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, remained on a strictly secular level. What was the function of Carnegie's book at that time is the function of our greatest bestseller today, The Power of Positive Thinking by the Reverend N. V. Peale. In this religious book it is not even questioned whether our dominant concern with success is in itself in accordance with the spirit of monotheistic religion. On the contrary, this supreme aim is never doubted, but belief in God and prayer is recommended as a means to increase one's ability to be successful. Just as modern psychiatrists recommend happiness of the employee, in order to be more appealing to the customers, some ministers recommend love of God in order to be more successful. “Make God your partner”, means to make God a partner in business, rather than to become one with Him in love, justice and truth. Just as brotherly love has been replaced by impersonal fairness, God has been transformed into a remote General Director of Universe, Inc.; you know that he is there, he runs the show (although it would probably run without him too), you never see him, but you acknowledge his leadership while you are “doing your part.

The fewer unknown spaces, the less fear. The less fear, the more we can allow the porousness necessary for listening.

Being able not to kow means not having to pretend understanding when it's not yet there; it means not having to force connections before they fit; it means enjoying a relief from feeling insecure if one doesn't have "the answer". Often, the art of crafting previously unasked questions and generating methods of inquiry opens up vaster expanses of landscape to see into than scrambling for answers does. And answers are more complete if nourished by curiosity and unpressured exploration.

As therapists, we are in the business of listening to people's stories, and listening for their feelings. We somehow know intuitively, or are taught along the way, that the medium of "the talking cure" involves having people move awareness along a gradient within them from unthought/unknown, to barely detectable, to feelable, to speakable, to elaborate-able, linkable, and ultimately transformable; from unconscious to conscious, if you will. We are taught and probably know from our own experience that there is something powerfully freeing about birthing a formerly unworded feeling into words. When we're truly scared, or aggrieved, or angered or even surprised, it helps to name the thing. It helps because an emotional experience seems to hold part of our being hostage in some kind of way until we've been able to move it into worded symbols for ourselves, usually by talking to another human being about the experience.

Also by Alan Watts The Spirit of Zen (1936) The Legacy of Asia and Western Man (1937) The Meaning of Happiness (1940) The Theologica Mystica of St. Dionysius (1944) (translation) Behold the Spirit (1948) Easter: Its Story and Meaning (1950) The Supreme Identity (1950) The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951) Myth and Ritual in Christianity (1953) The Way of Zen (1957) Nature, Man, and Woman (1958) “This Is It” and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience (1960) Psychotherapy East and West (1961) The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness (1962) The Two Hands of God: The Myths of Polarity (1963) Beyond Theology: The Art of Godmanship (1964) The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966) Nonsense (1967) Does It Matter?: Essays on Man’s Relation to Materiality (1970) Erotic Spirituality: The Vision of Konarak (1971) The Art of Contemplation (1972) In My Own Way: An Autobiography 1915–1965 (1972) Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal (1973) Posthumous Publications Tao: The Watercourse Way (unfinished at the time of his death in 1973, published in 1975) The Essence of Alan Watts (1974) Essential Alan Watts (1976) Uncarved Block, Unbleached Silk: The Mystery of Life (1978) Om: Creative Meditations (1979) Play to Live (1982) Way of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of the Self (1983) Out of the Trap (1985) Diamond Web (1986) The Early Writings of Alan Watts (1987) The Modern Mystic: A New Collection of Early Writings (1990) Talking Zen (1994) Become Who You Are (1995) Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion (1995) The Philosophies of Asia (1995) The Tao of Philosophy (1995) Myth and Religion (1996) Taoism: Way Beyond Seeking (1997) Zen and the Beat Way (1997) Culture of Counterculture (1998) Eastern Wisdom: What Is Zen?, What Is Tao?, An Introduction to Meditation (2000) Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960–1969 (2006)

the skills of good listening are generally not taught to trainees in the art of psychotherapy. The would-be therapist learns to theorize and analyze, to diagnose and prognosticate, to interpret and interrogate. But not to listen.

Types of Degrees for Professionals When you begin to investigate therapists, you will probably see a wide array of initials following their names. That alphabet soup indicates academic degrees, licenses, and/or certifications. Remember that just because the professional has a lot of impressive degrees, that doesn’t mean that he or she is the right therapist for you. The most important thing is to feel completely comfortable with the person so you can speak honestly about your feelings. If you are uncomfortable or intimidated, your time with the therapist will not be effective. When finding a therapist, you should look for one with a master’s degree or a doctorate in a mental-health field. This shows that he or she has had advanced training in dealing with psychological problems. Therapists’ academic degrees include: M.D. (Doctor of Medicine): This means that the doctor received his or her medical degree and has had four years of clinical residency. M.D.s can prescribe medication. Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) and Psy.D. (Doctor of Psychology): These professionals have had four to six years of graduate study. They frequently work in businesses, schools, mental-health centers, and hospitals. M.A. (Master of Arts degree in psychology): An M.A. is basically a counseling degree. Therapists with this degree emphasize clinical experience and psychotherapy. M.S. (Master of Science degree in psychology): Professionals with this degree are more inclined toward research and usually have a specific area of focus. Ed.D. (Doctor of Education): This degree indicates a background in education, child development, and general psychology. M.S.W. (Master of Social Work): An M.S.W. is a social-work degree that prepares an individual to diagnose and treat psychological problems and provide mental health resources. Psychiatric social workers make up the single largest group of mental health professionals. In addition to the various degrees therapists may hold, there are also a number of licenses that may be obtained. These include: M.F.C.C.: Marriage, Family, and Child Counselor M.F.T. Marriage and Family Therapist L.C.S.W.: Licensed Clinical Social Worker L.I.S.W.: Licensed Independent Social Worker L.S.W.: Licensed Social Worker

Freud made the observation that cognition and affect are often found to be shorn from one another—in either direction—sometimes with emotion overtaking reason; sometimes with cognition becoming emotionless (Breuer & Freud, 1999). When affect takes over, emotional dysregulation ensues, often wreaking devastating interpersonal damage. Sometimes, intrapersonally, such dysregulation requires extraordinary measures to quell its demands: sometimes spawning addictions or violence; sometimes dangerous risk-taking activities; sometimes self-injury, etc. (Cloitre et al., 2009).

Those whose (experience-dependent) orbitofrontal cortex is under-developed (due to neglect) or damaged (due to physical compromise) are unable to experience accurate empathy for the emotions of another (Gerhardt, 2004).

All these systems I've described—the brainstem, the limbic system, the hypothalamically-mediated autonomic nervous system, our “neurological” stomachs and hearts, our bodies, our five senses—all of these are neurologically connected to, and feed their information to our right brain, our right hemisphere's cortex. That is their destination point. The right brain, then, makes sense of and integrates all of these inputs. Its outputs within our minds are largely non-verbal, but register in our experience as internal mental pictures, feelings, bodily sensations, intuitions, reveries, songs, etc. Simultaneously, the right brain deposits outputs into the intersubjective space between two humans (through our facial expressions, eyes, tone and prosody of voice, body posture, etc.) without our consciously directing these expressions. Finally, the right brain hands a distillation of all this information to its left-brain counterpart, so that, finally, we are allowed to “know” (in words) what we're thinking and experiencing.

Attuned listening listens for the emotions at the bottom of the verbal (or non-verbal) pile, so to speak. Why? Because emotion and cognition are meant to be complementary. It's a design feature of humanness. When they are disconnected, as they so often are in modern culture, we become, neurologically and psychologically speaking, a house divided against itself.

These deeply-imbedded emotional centers—down in the periaqueductal gray and midbrain regions of our brainstem—respond to a myriad of internal and external stimuli on a moment by moment basis (Panksepp & Biven, 2012). Current neuro-imaging studies have identified seven separate but intertwined emotional brainstem-based systems that play the affective “background music” of our experiencing selves all the time. They are making moment by moment emotional evaluations for us, giving us instantaneous promptings about all of the following: our safety; our desires to engage in the activities of life; our attractions; our angers; our drives to attach and nurture; our feelings of sadness and grief; even our urges to play. Panksepp puts it this way: “When we do an accurate archaeology of the mind, we find affective experience at the mind's foundation” (Panksepp & Biven, 2012: p. 423). This is big. Neurologically, affect precedes cognition. Down at the bottom of things, at our brains’ deepest and most life-critical centers, we have emotional brain structures that are quickly, quietly and constantly monitoring things for us outside our conscious awareness. We feel first; we think later.

By elegant design, then, our emotional-cognitive architecture is meant to be nested and integrated.

As infants, we gradually build our advanced cognitive capacities—language, forethought, imagination, etc.,—on top of and (when all goes well) integrated with a solid foundation of emotional experience, mediated through our interactions with our primary attachment figures. Schore points out that the first eighteen months of our brain's life are spent predominantly on the task of wiring up our right brain's emotional circuitry, only then to be followed by the dendritic explosion of our more cognitive and verbal selves (Schore, 2009, 2012). Developmentally, our affective foundation precedes and provides the essential grounding for our cognitive superstructure. And this is also big. All of our most basic emotional systems—even at the level of our brainstems—are experience-dependent (Gerhardt, 2004; Siegel, 2012). From bottom to top, our genetic emotional systems are trained and trimmed by emotional experience. As infants and toddlers, sectors of our emotional brains become more dendritically proliferated, or less; made more prominent or less; up-regulated or down-regulated; made more or less sensitive to neurotransmissions. Our early experience inclines us to be more trustful of others, or less. It makes our emotional warning systems more apt to trigger action, amplified emotion, heightened or distorted perception, or less. So sculpted, our basic emotional systems remain within us, all the time, doing their silent, vigilant, life-preserving and life-promoting work. In other words, our experience-trained emotional brains constantly provide to us—without our “thinking” about it—the foundational affective data for our encounters with the world beyond us (Panksepp & Biven, 2012).