Do the Expressive Arts Therapies Aid In Identity Formation and Authenticity in the Latina Community? A Community Engagement Project

Author

Amanda Bravo, Lesley UniversityFollow

Date of Award

Spring 5-19-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MA - Master of Arts

Department

Expressive Therapies

Advisor

Elizabeth Kellogg

Abstract

Identity reflections lie at the core of empowerment and take place in a variety of settings. Unfortunately, many of these settings are tailored to serve the majority group, as well as the individual running the exploration, leaving “others” left out. So how do we transform the “others” from a state of questioning “Who am I?” to an empowered state of declaring “Who I am!”?

This project explored how the use of art, dance movement, narrative, and the uniting of a group of ones can promote identity explorations and empowerment of self and others so that the state of “Who I am!” can be achieved. In adapting a multimodal approach to a Latina (Latin and Female) oriented cultural model, strategies for overcoming this population's internal bias to mental health counseling can be examined with the goal of diminishing negative assumptions of what therapy “looks and “feels” like. Additionally, the appendices below can be utilized in their presented order to run a project like the one described in this paper.

Creative Commons License

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

Recommended Citation

Bravo, Amanda, "Do the Expressive Arts Therapies Aid In Identity Formation and Authenticity in the Latina Community? A Community Engagement Project" (2018). Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses. 95.
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/expressive_theses/95