Tag: Psychotherapy

New Regular Friday Group

Lisa Snook

I was hoping that I might be able to run these groups in person but our current climate is what it is and for the now, all groups, including the Guided Drawing workshops coming up, will be held online. With this in mind, I have altered the schedule slightly, no tea and cake sadly! As well as being virtual, they will now be one and half hours long, starting at 11 and finishing at 12.30 and at a reduced cost of £45.

As a continuation of these groups, I will begin running a regular Friday group, again, to be held online. These groups will have a similar feel and structure. We’ll begin with a guided meditation and check-in, then move into making/playing/experimenting with your chosen art media, which may be Guided Drawing should you choose. We’ll have time at the end to share our experiences with one another. Groups will be for an hour, from 11am – 12 midday, price £35.

Please use the contact page if you would like to join one, or if you have any questions.

New Workshop Dates-1st, 8th, 15th August

Lisa Snook

I have three new dates for a course of Kintsugi inspired workshops this coming August. I’ll be running them with my partner Mandy Bruce at the Exchange in Twickenham.

If you’d like to know some more about them, please let me know and I’d be happy to answer any questions or queries.

The workshops can be booked as a course or individually.

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Healing Through Creativity

Lisa Snook

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I ran a Kintsugi inspired workshop with my partner, Mandy Bruce and wanted to share some thoughts and images of the beautiful work made by the participants (all of whom have given permission for me to do so).

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The workshop was an amazing affirmation of how powerful the combination of the arts and shared story can be.

We began by everyone saying something about the object they had brought in to mend and from the very outset it was clear that the objects held both meaning and memory, both loss and longing and both attachment and tenderness. The conversation ebbed and flowed throughout the making/repairing process and what struck me was how embodied this process was.

 

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Whilst the hands were busy in their tasks of non-verbal expression through art-making, the cognitive function was active in the talking through of what it was they were experiencing. This embodied process shed light on how the making, playing and experimenting with art, supports feeling and shared empathy. It was really a joy to be a part of.

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Kintsugi Inspired Workshop

Lisa Snook

Since writing my last post, I have been developing a series of workshops that draw from the philosophy of Kintsugi and invited friend and fellow art psychotherapist to help me run them.

Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art of mending a broken piece of pottery with lacquered gold.  The tradition began as an aesthetically pleasing solution to mending a precious tea bowl in the 15th century.  Its philosophy however, is rooted in the idea that an object’s history becomes the very thing that makes the object more precious and by enhancing its ‘brokenness’, which becomes part of its ‘story’,  it becomes that much more beautiful. 

As I mentioned before, Peter Levine compared Kintsugi to how we might view someone who has been through any number of life’s challenges such as; trauma, bereavement or loss and see that person as more beautiful with the marks of their experience as visible signs of their life’s journey. 

How wonderful then to embrace our imperfections, our fragility, our tender hearts and celebrate these as part of our humanity, particularly in a time where culture not only encourages the opposite but rewards it. 

So the aim of these workshops are to bring a little bit of Kintsugi into your life.  

I will post dates, times and more details soon.

Refugees & War Trauma: A Day with Peter Levine

Lisa Snook

Last week I attended a day’s symposium with the trauma expert Peter Levine.  I have followed and admired Peter’s work for several years.  His theories on how the body holds trauma, how it can become trapped within viscera and muscles and lead to chronic pain, and mental health issues, have inspired me to explore further how listening to the body in psychotherapy, can offer insight and understanding to a persons experience.

Within this capacity, my aim is to slow things down in a session, to notice sensations, movements, small nuances that manifest in the body.  This is a first step in creating a closer, more respectful relationship with our bodies, so that we can be receptive to what it might be telling us.

Peter talked about the Japanese tradition of Wabi Sabi, the art of imperfection. He spoke about human beings as being more beautiful with wounds that have been healed, like the Japanese art of Kintsugi, which is that of repairing pottery with gold.

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I am looking to do a creative making workshop that incorporates this idea of repair and mending. I will post further details in the following weeks.