Are you looking for new ways to move through blocks or resistance with clients or supervisees?
Are you looking for new ways to move through blocks or resistance with clients or supervisees?
Do creativity and art and inspiration sound interesting in relation to therapy?
Would you like to add an extra dimension to your therapy practice?
Could focused attention on imagery give new perspectives on recurring human themes in your therapy work?
Does a different approach interest you as your next CPD?
Clients can find it hard to find the words to make sense of their current situation and imagine their futures, especially through the pandemic. Art provides a language that enables clients to connect with their emotions and experiences – providing a language for the intangible, the complex and paradoxical, and that which is just outside of awareness.
There’s no need for you to draw or paint during this course! Even if your false self or inner critic says you’re useless at drawing – you can absolutely benefit from this workshop. Art inspiration isn’t about being able to paint. It’s the practice of giving focused awareness to a piece of art; just as you already bring high-quality attention when being with your clients or supervisees.
Art appreciation is not about creating a masterpiece yourself. It is about self-expression through ideas and awareness through looking at colour, form, shape, texture, imagery, symbolism and emotion. It is something we can all do and appreciate in our own way. Creative exploration and attention can unfold a rich tapestry depicting the inner world of the client or supervisee. The course is about accessing your own inspiration. The relevance of this workshop to your therapy setting is appreciating how to facilitate a client in exploring theirs too. This course equips you with greater confidence to facilitate a client’s ability to access their inner world through creative expression. This could encompass a client bringing to a session something they have created: a drawing, painting, a collage or sculpture, or piece of creative writing.
This Foundation course will introduce you to accessible ways of using art and inspiration in your therapy practice. Mary and Sarah will share with you this powerful approach, enabling you to start to experience it for yourself and see new possibilities emerging as opportunities for your clients as well as for yourself as a therapist or supervisor.
Open internationally at times designed to suit European and North American time zones, this programme is suitable if you are working with people or clients across a broad spectrum including:
– guiding and mentoring
– coaching
– therapeutic practitioners
– leadership and management
– educational or dance/ art movement
– working within a prison setting.
Works of art are intended to evoke an emotional response. Their themes are often intensely human: love, distress, family, relationships, politics, money, and power.
The word “Renaissance” means a rebirth or re-emerging of ideas. Renaissance art in particular focused on societal changes in science and religion and society. Those themes are massively relevant in therapy conversations today. How imagery is used to communicate and stimulate still remains relevant for all of us, in a world of intrusive media with the potential to distribute ideas worldwide in a single click.
Renaissance of Art and Inspiration in therapy is a unique course founded on the importance of recovering our sense of what it means to be human in an increasingly mechanical world. With so much emphasis on machines, systems and checklists, we urgently need to reintegrate creativity and inspiration into our lives while also deepening our own skills when working with clients. Learning and discovering how to look, read and listen to the language of art is one of the most practical, direct ways (proven neuro-scientifically) that we can help others return to a sense of meaning, and to a sense of human betweenness: that is, how and what it means to be in the world, between our reality ‘out there’ and our internal world ‘in here’, and much of that is based on our sense of perception.
As so much of our attention is now drawn away from direct engagement with each other, people are becoming increasingly isolated and are losing natural human capacities; the ability to notice subtle changes in facial expressions and gestures, or to have a sense of self esteem or trying to move beyond limiting behavioural patterns. Remembering how to read, respond and be with each other is essential for it is the basis of our communication and therefore connection. Soft skills which include intuition, empathy, compassion and imagination as well as an ability to really look, listen and respond in the most appropriate ways, are proven to be enhanced after engaging our different perceptions through art. Blood flow increases to the brain when we engage with a great work of art, increasing states of inspiration, creativity and compassion. Deepening our understanding of human nature, and developing the art of dialogue, of opening the lines of communication also benefits our clients – and us – in a multitude of ways. Art has an immediate way of reaching into the world of the psyche, which depth psychologist Dr Carl Jung said, was made up essentially of images, and it is from this world of the image that Art is able to help facilitate the understanding in us and others, the complexity and depth of being, returning your client to a sense meaning, of connection and of what it means to be human.
This course will show you how to:
These skills are applicable for therapists who are facilitating clients as individuals or pairs or groups, along with supervisors working with individual supervisees or leading group supervision.
There will be a range of tutor inputs and opportunities for discussion among the attendees. Mary will guide you in how to appreciate a work of art, such as a painting or a sculpture – working with mind and emotion and somatic responses, while using mindful attention drawing a wider awareness.
We will support your learning through:
You will receive:
Mary and Sarah will combine their love of art and creativity with a passion for therapy as a transformational agent of change, where intuition and awareness are hugely valuable assets for any therapist or supervisor.
By attending this 2-day workshop, participants will receive a CPD certificate of 12 hours towards their annual CPD log. But more than this, they will become more equipped to add new perspectives to therapy for clients who are stuck or lacking inspiration or who want to find new meaning in life.
It’s easy to participate – to benefit from this workshop, all you need is attention and observation – which you already have inside yourself.
This is a chance for therapists and supervisors to give their busy minds and caseloads some reflective respite.
This 2-day workshop is an introductory step towards a new relationship with creativity through arts and inspiration.
There is no requirement to draw or paint or write anything during the course, or to share anything necessarily. Although we always welcome any sharing of thoughts, ideas, or creative work with a warm heart and open mind.
Dates for 2023 are yet to be announced. Please contact us to register your interest for 2023.
This course ran in 2022 on 3 consecutive days 4pm-7pm on 1st, 2nd, 3rd July in UK time zone. Applicants from locations in USA or Europe are most welcome.
£250 + VAT = £300. To secure a place on this course, the full fee must be paid by 20 May 2022. The workshop fee can be paid by instalments as long as the total balance is paid by the due date on the invoice.
The course fee includes all training materials and the CPD certificate.
The course fee can also be invoiced fully or partially to an employer or funding organisation. Please contact us for details.
Mary Attwood is an art historian, author, lecturer and teacher.
Sarah has extensive experience bringing creativity into therapy practice.
This course was originally designed as CPD for mental health professionals. However, wider interest has been received. So applications are also welcomed from people who have an interest in creativity for their work setting – just fill in the application form and let us know about your interest in this course and its relevance to your work context. Applicants from a mental health or helping profession are expected to be qualified professionals who are established in their practice and who are members of a professional body with a code of ethics and complaint procedure for public protection. However, this workshop is at foundation level, so the application form for each person will be viewed sympathetically.
The Grove Practice is accredited by NCIP (National Council for Integrative Psychotherapists) as a CPD training centre. As such, all The Grove’s courses are awarded NCIP accreditation for CPD (Continuous Professional Development).
This accreditation provides reassurance regarding high standards of teaching and course content.
The Grove’s courses have been successfully recognised as CPD for members of the following membership bodies: BACP, UKCP, COSRT, NCIP, NCPS, AHPP, BPS, among others. Organisations such as Relate and MIND and Place2B have also supported their therapists in taking training with The Grove. This is a mark of unofficial validation of our courses as worthy of being listed on the CPD logs for these members and organisations.