Roberto Assagioli, “Father of Pyschosynthesis,” noted the great importance of "artistic, scientific or technical" creativity, and it is true that human beings have always found meaning in their lives through the arts. Here are some of my experiences in the use of the arts and psychosynthesis.
The creative arts (art, music, drama, poetry/literature, dance, film) bypass the psychological function of thinking in "talk therapy" as the primary way of resolving issues, relying instead on the other five functions: feeling, sensation, imagination/image, impulse/desire and intuition.
People who "think too much" can drive themselves to distraction. They can also consciously or unconsciously mislead a therapist who only wants to help. While talk therapy definitely has its place, clients can filter out what they do not wish to admit to or share, but the other functions can compensate for that.
I have used the arts in my counseling and coaching work with diverse populations for many years. For example, with my group of homeless pregnant teens we took photo field trips around the city and to various parks. Their favorite subjects were each others' growing bellies, and dogs in the local dog park. With the prints they created collages or shadow boxes of their safe spaces where they could feel the comfort and unconditional love they expected from their babies, and from "their" dogs.
Bellies and Puppies
I facilitated another group for young men returning from prison without job skills, an education or a home. They were angry, depressed, and hopeless in their expectation, per statistics, to return to prison within a few years.
As their art specialist, I guided them to develop social skills like sharing materials or disagreeing without fighting -- skills they had never been taught as children. Several of them also accessed their untapped spirituality through their creations, which was clear through their comments, or the reverence towards their materials and finished products.
They created dream catchers from wire coat hangers, stained glass "windows" from corn syrup, origami from their own decorated papers, and many other projects. They took pride in their works, showing them off to staff, other program participants and their girlfriends.
The highlight however came whenever I brought my camera and created portraits of them.
"Hey, Ms. D! Your boy is lookin' fly today and ready for a picture now!"
It was a time of fun, relaxation, and self-expression. They loved choosing their settings and their poses. The agency printed, framed and displayed the photos in prominent spaces throughout the building, which definitely boosted their self-esteem.
These were young men who had transformed from destructive street-fighting gang members with little to no chance at success into productive, contributing citizens with a future, and the portraits reflected their new self-confidence and pride.
Plank
Photography is my own go-to form of creative, technical, and emotional expression. All the psychological functions come into play at the moment of pressing the shutter (sensation, thinking, feeling, image, desire, and intution). I explore this in detail elsewhere, but I should at least mention that here.
Not only does photography afford me the chance to put my technical and artistic skills to work, but it also motivates me to get out into the fresh air, get some exercise and to record the things that attract me.
Resting Dragonfly
It also lets me share my vision with others. I have created a series of slide shows for my local Naturalists Club. Maybe my favorite of these was The Art of Nature. It emphasizes the ready-made art that I can find in nature right in front of me. All I have to do is put the frame in the right place, often using my intuition for the best choice. Oh, yes -- and what lens to use, and what exposure to use. There are many technical decisions to make (thinking) in order to recreate the image I had in my mind, and to reproduce the feeling I had when I first saw my subject.
Soul of the Iris
Photography is also my outlet and guide for the grief process. Another slide show honored the life of my beloved aunt, 98 years old when she passed. I included photos from her albums in the presentation, which ran during the memorial her many friends held for her.
Photos used in the healing process don’t have to be created by me. Spending time choosing special images from Auntie’s photo albums gave me the chance to, think about her life, my relationship with her and to deeply join with her. The photo below triggered my admiration for her strength, determination and independence when she sued her boss for sexual harassment forty years before the Me Too movement encouraged many women to do the same.
She won her case!
GISELA JULY 1959
Photographer Unknown
I produced another presentation for family and friends as a celebration of my father's life. It included photos of his childhood, some of his favorite places in nature, and his love of cloud-watching. I also talked about his contribution to the environment through his teamwork in preventing MIttineague Park from being developed into yet another golf course.
Again, in creating this visual celebration, I was able to join with my father, to think about what his life was like for him, surviving his WWII POW camp, organizing the Big Move from Germany to the US, and all the grief I probably gave him as a teenager.
Sunset in Mittineague Park
Conversation with
Dr. Seuss and
the Cat in the Hat
Creating these presentations helped me to mourn, to honor, to remember, to learn about my lost loved ones, and to carry a legacy forward to my descendants.
The Fam
Another way that photography serves me is as a form of meditation.
I am always relaxed and calm and I take slow deep breaths to avoid camera shake (sensation). I am laser-focused on only the task in front of me. It is a very intimate thing. When I look through the lens, what is there is all there is in the universe. Nothing else matters at that moment. I have chosen to frame the image in a certain way, and nothing exists beyond that frame. I've left things out, and I may have had to move my physical location to get the exact right composition from as little as an inch to a foot or even a completely different angle.
A crazy example:
I wanted to capture a certain hill in the desert with a large cactus in the foreground. I felt reverence for this hill’s unwavering presence and hoped to pass this emotion on to others. Words would simply not do. I backed up step by step until the image was in the frame the way I envisioned it in my mind (imagination). Several different exposures helped to make sure I had at least one good photo, i.e. quality of composition, focus, color, lighting, lead lines, shapes, etc, all coming together correctly to fulfill the purpose of the photo (thinking).
Then I stepped forward to collect my belongings, and, checking behind me, realized that one of my feet had been exactly on the edge of a 50-foot cliff. Talk about sensation ! Stomach in my throat! My professor's voice: "Do whatever it takes to get that picture -- hang from the chandelier if you have to." But hanging from a cliff is another matter. Having been completely absorbed in getting the image I was determined to capture (desire/impulse), I had forgotten to attend to my immediate surroundings. Had I moved back one step more, no one would ever have seen me again -- I was in an isolated area and no one knew where I had gone except "into the desert."
Photography taps into emotions on two levels: images are created by the feelings of the creator, and they evoke feelings in the viewer. This was the case one day at sunset on a lakeshore. Several people stood still as the sky evolved into one of the most spectacular sunsets we had ever seen. We looked at each other speechlessly, sensing the spiritual reverence of the moment. While staying in this mood, I impulsively took as many photos as I could -- sunsets only last around 10 minutes. When the magic began to fade, we returned to our normal day-to-day awareness levels, gathered our belongings and started leaving.
As I approached my car, a woman was just arriving. I commented to her that she had just missed a beyond-belief vision, and she regretted that she was too late. I showed her the photos in my camera's playback, and even from these tiny thumbnail images, she was able to experience some of the emotion the sunset had elicited in me.
I impulsively took as many photos as I could.
Heading to Shore