Date of Award

Winter 1-8-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

PHD - Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Expressive Therapies

First Advisor

Jason Butler, PhD

Second Advisor

Valeria Blanc, PhD

Third Advisor

Dr. Johanna Czmanski-Cohen

Abstract

This phenomenological and arts-based study engaged art therapists in dialogue about experiences of embodiment and touch. Dialogue was centered on lived experience of their bodies during art making with clients and themselves. Attention was given to in vivo experiences of self-touch and art materials. Data were collected through focus groups with a purposive sample of art therapists

(N = 14) in-person and online. Groups included experientials with self-touch, body sensing, and body mapping. Data were collected from multiple sources including video, interview transcripts, and art work created in the groups. As participants shared their experiences of embodiment through the data, numerous findings were identified. These included that art therapists did have experiences of embodiment, many had body-based training external to art therapy, and they promoted embodiment in their art therapy sessions through mindfulness, breathwork, and choice with materials. Other findings supported research that embodiment can include sound, movement, and touch. Limitations to embodiment included trauma, lack of understanding by other clinicians, and lack of a common language. Touch was experienced as both taboo and integral to embodied art therapy. In vivo artmaking with touch and body mapping promoted insight and an expanded sense of the participants’ bodies. These findings introduced dialogue about lived experiences of embodiment among art therapists to the literature and have implications for clinical practice, theory, and education.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Language

English

Number of Pages

302

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The author owns the copyright to this work.