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  #11  
Old May 16th, 2005, 06:33 PM
hmazloomian hmazloomian is offline
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Default Re: Working together as art therapists

I think you are coming from the “individual initiative “perspective. I have a lot of respect for that and personally try and improve myself as a person, artist and art therapist everyday. I also try to learn as much as I can about the business and, marketing side of being an art therapist. We are, however, missing the “community” perspective and that is the notion that working together as a team, very much like the way members of a musical ensemble relate; their cooperation enriches all and diminishes none. We are all taking individual imitative to improve our lot but for some reason, my experience has been, that we are reluctant to relate to others as a community
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  #12  
Old June 23rd, 2005, 08:33 PM
Martin Perdoux Martin Perdoux is offline
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Smile Re: Working together as art therapists

Hi Hoda!

You make a good observation. The sense of community is increasingly absent from the world, and therefore from the practice of art therapy. Many things in our society seem to discourage us from practicing the art of relating to one another. Look at reality TV for example: It gives the illusion of emotional depth but is in fact very shallow. We have become remarkably defficient in our ability to relate to each other and to the world around us. In fact, tribal people whose direct experience with community is recent, or even current, can recognize westerners instantly by that characteristic impairement.

It is also relevant to art therapy, not just because it makes your work harder to have to toil in relative obscurity, but also because community is a necessary ingredient for healing. True community, which I distinguish from the buzzword of community often bantered about by opportunistic corporations, is something like a theatre play. The play is successful only if the cast is whole and if every role is filled. True community invites variety, diversity, an ecclectic peanut gallery that creates wholeness. And wholeness, the antidote to division and disease, restores balance and invites healing.

So for a brutal transition. Go buy my book, Havens: Stories of True Community Healing (Praeger Publishers, 2004, co-authored with Leonard Jason, Ph.D.). How is that for opportunism!

http://greenwood.com/books/BookDetai...id=1&sku=C8320

All kidding aside, Hoda, your observation touches on something very important. I hope you encounter community, recognize it, maybe even create it. One way I know when I find it: I make one friend and suddenly I have 100 friends.

Last edited by Martin Perdoux; June 23rd, 2005 at 08:46 PM..
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  #13  
Old June 24th, 2005, 08:30 PM
hmazloomian hmazloomian is offline
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Default Re: Working together as art therapists

Martin, Thanks for your observations. The fact that this thread has been the longest and most people have visited it seems to show that there is a desire for a feeling of relatedness. At the same time most of the about 1400 people who hit this segment did not involve themselves by trying to create a community. It seems that we have become afraid of commitment and in this fear we deprive al of us of the diversity of which you speak.

Best wishes Hoda
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