The last couple of years have left the vast majority of people with a sense of turbulence, insecurity and a dysregulated central nervous system. People in general, and also helping professionals responsible for maintaining emotional well-being, are challenged with central nervous systems that feel overwhelmed and dysregulated, pendulating between overactivation and experiences of collapse. Enabling helping professionals to manage their own central nervous system responses creatively, empowers them to apply mindsight in order to utilize the ‘gifts’ their clients possess in an ethical manner.

 

As mental wellness practitioners, the challenge is to render support that initiates containing movement, in order to explore Ego States, as a neurophysiological and psychological manifestation of the autonomic nervous system response. Utilising the ‘gifts’ implicit to the symptom presented by the client, greater compassionate connection is established which enhances the sense of safety and stabilisation.  Using the ladder of activation (as described by Deb Dana) different degrees of activation will be explored and ideas shared as to how connection between the energy parts can be established through a variety of expressive arts activities requiring low skill high sensitivity.

 

This workshop will therefore make use of Expressive Arts applied therapeutically, referring to art creation, sound and voice, movement/dance, creative writing/poetry, and playfulness as a bottom-up approach within various contexts such as psychotherapy and counselling (Malchiodi, 2005). Expressive arts utilised in therapy have specific characteristics that are not always found in the more traditional talk therapies. Four such characteristics are: “self-expression”, “active participation”, “imagination” and “mind-body connections” (Malchiodi, 2005, p. 8-9). In order to name the feeling which can assist in taming it (Siegel,2012), a person needs to be able to sense the feeling first. By engaging in expressive arts, movement is initiated which enable people in a state of dissociation, to connect with their senses in a contained manner. Delegates will be provided with the opportunity to engage actively with a variety of arts modalities, that can soothe ánd activate the autonomic nervous system, being mindful of the Window of Tolerance (Siegel, 1999) or social engagement system. Reference will be made to Levine’s somatic dissociation, Van der Kolk’s somatic memory and Scaer’s procedural memory. Ethical considerations will be emphasized seeing as engaging in bodily sensations can evoke unexpected experiences of discomfort which can trigger dysregulation.

​

On completion of the training participants will be empowered:

 

• Utilizing breathing through creative engagement to bring awareness to the body. 

• Creating a sense of safety to enable containment in the face of activation using sensory awareness through connection with the external and internal world.

• To engage with bodily sensations related to the ladder of activation for self- and co-regulation.

• To explore Ego States in relation to ANS activation and dysregulation.

• Engaging with expressive movement for grounding, stabilization and inter-and intrapersonal connection.