"The Imperative in Containing Trauma: Metaphor as Heroic Mediator"

This weekend, I attended the Institute for Drama Therapy's workshop on working with trauma and the use of metaphor. It was an incredible day and we used Drama and Art therapy, and we were also in the company of a Music therapist. It was great having all modalities represented! Although I can't reveal some of the personal material that went on with other group members, I can say that I had a tremendous experience using art and metaphor. Using metaphor allowed me to live and breathe more easily while focusing on the concept of trauma. We were asked to sculpt feeling loss with clay, while our eyes were closed. Here is what I made:

"Shadow"

My friend Marissa made this:

"Viola"

We also told stories about different metaphors for loss and trauma, such as "Reaching In, Reaching Out", "Body as Soul" and "Searching for the Sacred". All of the stories told were incredibly moving, and all told in different ways. Our story was called, "The Universal Pull" and was about the sun needing a playmate, finding it in the moon and playing on a see-saw (which was a story or myth about the creation of day/night). Here are some photos of us in the process (PS: every image appears with permission of the group members!):

creating Sun and Moon

The "Cosmic See-Saw" of reaching in/reaching out

Caroline and Jessica with Moon and Sun (guess which one was done by the art therapist...)

It was a powerful day and it was a great feeling to be able to let go and just be present without having to worry about judgement or being graded. Someone put it well and has stuck with me ever since, "We are in the training and practice of BEING. That is all- as therapists, we are trained to just be."... Or something like that! I definitely had a very cathartic moment when that was said, and now I am in the process of allowing myself to just BE, because that is healing in itself.

just be,

liz xo