INTRODUCTION 33
about pathology, about diagnosing and fixing what is broken. In our
view therapy is salutogenic, focusing on health by cultivating and
nurturing the innate creative and imaginative processes within each
person. As one client put it, traditional psychotherapy looks at what
is wrong and tries to fix it while expressive arts therapy looks for the
treasure (Atkins and Williams 2007). Artist, poet and philosopher
Mary Caroline Richards (1973) tells us that the word therapy comes
from the same root as throne, and in its deepest sense means to care
for and support. Thus therapy is the art of holding one another and
holding space for sacred work.
Earth
In this book we are sensitive to the need for language that breathes
life back into our human experience within the Earth. We use
the word earth to mean the element of soil. We use Earth to mean the
planet Earth, our home.
Soul
James Hillman (1996, 1999) reminds us that psychology literally means
the study of the soul, from psyche , Greek, meaning mind or soul. The
word soul appears frequently in this book, as it does in many writings
in the fields of expressive arts and ecotherapy, and it carries many
different connotations. We claim no precise reductive definition for
this word. We choose to follow the writings of Hillman, who speaks
of the imaginative possibilities of a being, an active intelligence
shaping the story of one’s life, associated with character, calling and
integrity, not a substance, but a perspective (1996). We also use the
words sacred and holy to refer to matters of soul.
Stories: The rootlets of our work
Humans have always turned to stories in order understand the meaning
of our lives. In her novel Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko speaks of
the potency of language and the importance of storytelling: “I will