Member | Forum | Blog | Email Us |

EGS

(Interview of Paolo by Steve, on his 80th birthday)


Well, there are wishes and there are fantasies about that. Mine is, that Expressive Arts claims its own philosophical and theoretical perspective congruent with its non-reductionist conversation about art, while fostering a mutual respect for other disciplines whose conversations focus on the psyche or, depending on their traditions, on “soul.” When I sometimes hear people in our field saying, “We are not psychological,” it makes me nervous. Does this mean we do not converse about psyche? It cannot be meant like that. Of course we have such a discourse, and it will increase with all the new fields Expressive Arts is expanding into – moving out into social change, into peace-making, coaching, consulting and supervision. Change agents in these fields may find conversations about the psychological process more philosophical and the psychological discourse much less clinical. Our method of Intermodal Decentering may lead a path into the future where the arts-based understanding of the work of art and the process of shaping become the stepping stone to a psychological conversation that helps the competency of the change agent to give responses, not explanation or answers.”

Poiesis
Offer spaces to shape and hold individuals and communities, to expand their range of action in their world. Awakening and stimulating imagination and creativity through different art expressions.
We are to recognize, acknowledge and honoring any kind of poiesis worldwide: play, art and ritual.

Art-making in an EXA way is always resource-oriented. A client without education in any of the different art modalities never will reach a “work” without having, or being led by, a resource-oriented attitude. The client needs to trust themselves, to trust the process, the evolving something, the pleasure of the unexpected. And this needs the professional companionship of a witness and faciliators.

~ Herbert Eberhart

http://expressivearts.egs.edu/masters-programs-ma