EXPRESSIVE ARTS AND ECOTHERAPY 49
IN EXPRESSIVE ARTS WORK THE ARTS
BECOME METHODS OF INQUIRY.
The word poiesis comes from the Greek, meaning to know by creating.
This is a fundamental concept of expressive arts work (Levine 1997,
2005). Levine expands the concept of poiesis , suggesting that the
process of creating is inherently reciprocal and interdependent—
we are both shaping and shaped by the world in which we live.
In expressive arts both the process of art making and the works of
art created, if approached with attitudes of openness, non-judgment
and appreciative curiosity, offer possibilities for surprises and new
learning. We ask not what does the art mean but what does it do
to us and how does it touch us. Training and practice in expressive
arts uphold creative imagination and embodied experience as valid
sources of knowing (Eberhart and Atkins 2014; Kossack 2012).
Within expressive arts work, decentering with the arts is a
primary method of artistic inquiry. Decentering refers to a structured
process within the architecture or framework of a professional session
(Eberhart 2014; Knill 2005). In decentering, the client leaves the
presenting issues and enters into a liminal space of art making before
returning to the original issues with new possibilities of resources
discovered in the art making. The term liminal space is used here in the
understanding of the anthropologist Victor Turner’s (1995 [1969])
discussion of the altered state of consciousness achieved within a
ritual process. The decentering method is elaborated in detail in
Appendix A in Presence and Process in Expressive Arts Work (Eberhart
and Atkins 2014).
EXPRESSIVE ARTS WORK IS A
RESOURCE-BASED APPROACH
A basic premise in expressive arts work is that each human being is
unique, with unique challenges and gifts. Each person experiences
problems in living, and each has access to multiple inner resources,
including imagination, courage and integrity, as well as to resources in
the environment such as colleagues, information or nature. The
role of the professional is not to diagnose and fix problems but to