Expressive Art in Cross-Cultural Group Supervision: Applying the Mmogo-Method™

Academic mobility has increased the tendency of students to study in foreign countries, which poses various personal, interpersonal and contextual challenges to the cross-cultural supervision relationship. This study explored the themes that emerged in a cross-cultural supervision relationship through the application of expressive art, referred to as the Mmogo-Method?, in cross-cultural group supervision. Fourteen individuals participated in the research, thirteen Tswana-speaking women from Botswana and a Tshivenda-speaking man from Venda (age range: 25 to 45 years). Participants were asked to create visual representations illustrating any aspect of their growth since the beginning of the year. Thereafter, the participants engaged in focus group discussions. Data were analysed by means of semiotic data analysis. Central themes suggest that the transfer of culturally embedded values and norms takes place between environments. The data further elicited valuable information regarding aspects that could play an integral role in personal and professional development. It appears that expressive art such as the Mmogo-Method? could serve as a valuable tool in enhancing the quality of supervision.     

TheoArtistry: practical perspectives on ‘theologically informed art’

ABSTRACT

This article reviews the TheoArtistry Composers’ Scheme (2016–2018), in light of the developing concept of ‘theologically informed art’. Based at the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts (ITIA) (University of St Andrews), the scheme partnered emerging theologians and composers to create six new choral settings of Hebrew Bible ‘annunciations’. In addition to producing new music, the project became a practical touchstone for reinvigorating dialogues between theologians and practising artists, as well as Christians and non-Christians. First, the author assesses the scheme’s contributions to the study and practice of theologically informed art in the future. Second, she outlines some methodological issues associated with the scheme’s unique breadth of participants. Finally, she assesses ecclesiological and theological ambiguities within the scheme. The author argues that clarifying these ambiguities expands horizons for future collaborations in theologically informed art.     

Addicts to artists: The ‘good enough mother’ in the substance abuse clinic

Psychodynamic psychotherapy has had a bad reputation in substance abuse circles. Despite widespread use of behavioral interventions, outcomes remain relatively poor. The emerging trend is to incorporate relational and other psychodynamic approaches into addiction treatment. The article describes use of Winnicott's concepts of the ‘good enough mother’ and ‘play space’ in an outpatient ‘art group’.     

Make New Friends but Keep the Old: The Sisterhood Bonds that Have Shaped Me

The relationships in an Asian American psychologist's life have helped to shape her as a person as well as a professional. Specifically, a review of significant female relationships indicates that they have contributed to the author's therapeutic style. In this article, the author explores some of the relationships with other women in her life and illustrates how they have informed her role as a therapist. She concludes with a case vignette illustrating how some of these concepts were applied to a long-term therapy client.     

The Inter-Life project: researching the potential of art,design and virtual worlds as a vehicle for assisting young people with key life changes and transitions

ABSTRACT

Careers work in the twenty-first century faces a key challenge in terms of digital technologies: to evaluate their potential for careers work in challenging settings. Given the rapidity of developments, technologies require evaluation in research innovations and naturalistic settings. Virtual worlds offer potential for careers and guidance work, and the therapeutic domain. To illustrate this, we present examples in which young people explore their feelings and ideas, plans and difficulties, while preparing for film-making. During this they develop important life transition skills. We argue that the power of virtual worlds – to support emotional and cognitive engagement – could be utilised in practice settings. We conclude that they are serious candidates as digital tools in the careers and guidance domain.     

On the Emotions

Art historians and philosophers often talk about the interpretive significance of titles, but few have bothered with their historical origins. This omission has led to the assumption that an artwork's title is its proper name, since names and titles share the essential function of facilitating reference to their bearers. But a closer look at the development of our titling practices shows a significant point of divergence from standard analyses of proper names: the semantic content of a title is often crucial to the identification, individuation, and interpretation of its associated artwork. This paper represents a first step towards an empirically centred study of our titling practices. I argue that, in order to accept titles as proper names, we must first recognize the social, rather than the referential, function of naming.     

The theme of love in Henrik Pontoppidan's Nattevagt (Night watch) and other short novels

The subject of love may not seem an appropriate topic of scientific discourse, for we prefer turning to poetry to learn something meaningful about love. Nonetheless, we find three texts on the subject in Freud's work, all of which underline an internal division in love. He discussed the contrast between the affectionate and sensual aspects of love, while Lacanian writers have supplemented by pointing to the division between pleasure and desire. This article illustrates these concepts with cases taken from the Danish author Henrik Pontoppidan, one of the most prominent Danish writers from the turn of the 19^th century. He is well-known for his novels and for his short novels. One of these, Nattevagt, from 1894, has been read by critics as a marital conflict between the painter Jørgen Hallager and his fragile wife Ursula Branth, who succumbs to the brutality of her husband. The author supplements this simple version of the story with aspects made visible through the idea of an internal division in sexuality, which Freud elaborated into his theory of the death drive around 1920. By way of introduction, a few words are said about Pontoppidan, focusing on the theme of love in his short novels. Following is a brief summary of the plot of Nattevagt. Finally a more detailed reading of the dialogue between the two protagonists, Jorgen and Ursula, opens the way for a psychoanalytic interpretation of the tragic outcome of their love.     

Focusing and Expressive Arts Therapy as a Complementary Treatment for Women with Breast Cancer

Abstract

This pilot study (N = 18) explored the effectiveness of focusing and expressive arts therapies intervention on the quality of life of women with breast cancer. The format was a 2-day (7 hours per day) retreat/support group in which complementary treatments (focusing, writing, art, and movement) were provided in an intensive format. Our hypothesis was that an integrated approach of multimodal expressive arts therapy would result in improvements in several measures of the participants' qualities of life. There was a 6-week post-group follow-up telephone interview, during which several participants reported positive results. This suggests that the intervention was beneficial.     

Psychoanalysis as a creative shaping process2

The author first explains the concepts of creativity, play and aesthetic experience. He then outlines the psychoanalytic process as a creative one that shapes reality. Making a link between psychoanalysis and the humanities, he demonstrates that creative play is a fundamental aspect of the human experience of reality. Aesthetic experiences during the psychoanalytic process are comparable to the play by which children structure their world and artists' activity in following their urge to shape. Furthermore it is shown that creative actualisation testifies to a quasi‐biological need for coherence and structure. Through modern hermeneutics, the truth claims of aesthetic shaping can be established in epistemological terms. The basic principles of hermeneutics‐historicity, linguisticity and communicative experience‐find their psychoanalytic counterparts in memory, representational shaping and transference‐countertransference. Psychoanalysis is demonstrated to be simultaneously a science and an art. On the basis of a case history, aesthetic experience is shown to constitute a specific and unique form of access to psychic reality. Aesthetic experience and creativity do not only aid recovery from ‘bad psychological states’, they are also indispensable for the entire understanding of internal and external reality. It is possible to develop this understanding through a creative psychoanalytic attitude.     

Dreaming woman: Image,place, and the aesthetics of exile

Looking closely at an Argentine dream interpretation column published in a popular women's magazine from 1948 to 1951, this article examines the role of the dream image in shaping psychoanalytic discourse on femininity and national identity. The column, ‘Psychoanalysis Will Help You,’ emerged during Juan Domingo Perón's first presidency, featuring verbal interpretations written under the pen name ‘Richard Rest,’ as well as surreal photomontages by Grete Stern, a German‐born, Bauhaus‐trained photographer living in exile since 1936. While the column's Jungian text encourages readers’ adaptation to the external reality of their social situation, Stern's droll images emphasize the disjuncture between subject and environment, exposing tensions between the experience of exile and the Peronist mission to consolidate an Argentine national identity. Experimenting formally with European avant‐garde techniques, Stern presents femininity and nation as conflictive imaginary configurations. This theme resurfaces at the 2013 Venice Biennale, where Nicola Costantino's multimedia installation Eva – Argentina: A Contemporary Metaphor was exhibited alongside Carl Jung's Red Book. Formal contrasts between Stern's use of photomontage, Costantino's projection technique, and Jung's theory of mandala symbolism indicate the divergent ways in which their artwork posits the therapeutic function of the dream image, as well as the role of aesthetic production in psychoanalytic care.