26 NATURE-BASED EXPRESSIVE ARTS THERAPY
The intrusion and constriction of Western medical and behavioral
models into my work with children and families inspired me to return
to graduate school in counseling and expressive arts at Appalachian
State University. I wanted to bring the old ways of being human into
my professional life in a way that could provide an alternative to the
broken status quo systems in which I kept finding myself. I saw that
the medical model of health care, authoritarian behavioral schemes
and evidence-based practice lacked the depth to respond to the needs
of the human psyche and soul. Under the mentorship of Dr. Sally
Atkins and the Appalachian Expressive Arts Collective, I continued
exploring what I already experientially knew—that we are most well
when we are connected with the natural world and with our creative
selves. Through my doctoral work and in private practice and agency
work, I practiced this way of being in my teaching, research and
counseling. I continue following this thread today as the director of
Appalachian’s Expressive Arts Program. Daily my students teach me
that this way of being matters. Daily I see them take it into their lives
as sustenance and into the world as medicine for our time.
The challenges we currently face as a people and a planet call for
our active engagement. As I move forward in this field, I am reminded
of the words of Toni Morrison: “This is precisely the time when artists
go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no
need for silence, no room for fear” (2015, para.10). The world needs
us alive, awake and well, and so we do our own work, but we don’t
stop there. We sing and dance and tell stories of what is and what
can be. We paint, pinch clay, play and create in collaboration with the
stones and bones around us. We use our voice, our bodies, our hands
and hearts to draw attention to both beauty and despair. We imagine
our way forward, and then we get to work.