«CREATIVE COMMUNICATION»
or
exercises for the imagination and interactive expression
by: Petros Theodorou, composer
Romanou 7, Thessaloniki 54621, Greece
tel: Greece/2310/262872
email:
SUMMARY
Being related with both the fields of art (as a composer) and psychotherapy I have formed a series of workshops that can in many ways combine two goals:
a) “therapy” in the sense of self – awareness
b) “creative-artistic expression” in the sense of exploring aspects of the creative process.
The concept of these «Creative Communication» workshops is functionally and structurally adaptable. Consequently their flexible form can be at will shaped under a variety of demands in the wide range between their two poles: “therapy” and “ creation”.
Sound, speech, movement are the tools for the creative level, while the psychological one is based upon the Gestalt therapy approach.
Running these workshops under any form I pay a lot of attention to work with the participants in an integrated way. Growth of «self» is continuously supported as I try to keep interconnected both the above mentioned levels on which is unfolding each workshop’s process.
«CREATIVE COMMUNICATION»
or
exercises for the imagination and interactive expression
by: Petros Theodorou, composer
Since 1990 I am working educationally as a composer in a wide variety of workshops. They were initially addressed to groups of musicians, actors and dancers. Later on even people without any artistic background were included in their range.
Since 1991 I am also involved in many ways with the psychotherapy field.
Around 1999 these two at first separate activities came closer as I was integrating in myself these “identities”. Just during 2001 I had the idea about a series of workshops that could combine two goals:
a) “therapy” in the sense of self – awareness
b) “artistic-creative expression” in the sense of exploring aspects of the creative process.
In this presentation it is outlined the content of these “Creative Communicationworkshops” (C.C. workshops) in 6 Parts: 1(The background), 2(The C.C. workshops’ general notions), 3(The C.C. workshops’ general concept and structure), 4(The psychological level),
5(The creative level), 6 (A brief reference to the first experiences).
1. The Background
The idea about these workshops was getting shape as elements of my personal course in art and therapy were gradually blending into each other. These “blueprints” are now inherent in the very core of these workshops. So it seems to me necessary to mention the most important ones of these elements (not as curriculum references but as the very “raw material” of these C.C. workshops).
1.My work as a composer. First of all, as any other composer, I gradually built my own ways of understanding and of approaching “sound”. Such approaches are now fundamental for the exercises of the creative level of the C. C. workshops.
Moreover about ten years ago it was as a composer that I at first worked with artists from other areas combining creatively our artistic fields. I had the opportunity to form many artistic groups and studios and it was there that I started experimentally shaping many of the techniques now used on the creative level of C. C. workshops.
The most important example is “Polytechno”, a creative studio - workshop through Theatre, Dance and the Fine Arts around Music, mostly of an educational character. It operated for the first time in Greece for 8 months in 1997, in Thessaloniki, as part of the OCCET '97 activities. Its conception was the result of my fruitful collaboration with the actress and director Tina Stefanopoulou. Since 2000 we are running again “Polytechno” (on the basis of private initiative). It is still for me a principal and endless source of new basic ideas and techniques to explore creativity through sound, movement and speech.
2.My personal experience and training in therapy. I had 5 years of psychoanalysis, 2.5 years of individual Gestalt therapy, and participated during many short seminars in groups of different approaches (psychodynamic ones, dramatherapy ones, etc). As I am soon getting the bachelor level degree in Psychology, I am in the 4-year training program in Gestalt therapy in my country. Thus I am participating in the program’s activities, in the training groups and I am having supervision. The Gestalt therapy approach is the one that I have chosen to mainly work with on the psychological level of the C. C. workshops.
3.The Alfred Tomatis method. It is an approachin the area of audio-psycho-phonology. The voice, shaped by various techniques, is used as a feedback for audio re-training. Active listening, perception, communication, “correct” body postures, bio-energy, vitality, are some of the goals of this method. I followed the first stage of the method In the Tomatis Centre in my town. In Paris I worked on the second and most important one. This second stage is still a very rich and rewarding source of ideas and techniques for both the creative and the psychological levels of the C.C. workshops.
4.The Autogenous Training. It is basically a self-relaxation method developed by J. H. Schulz and I have never been systematically trained in it. However I found very useful its basic principles as start points to develop my own visualisation exercises with different and more complicated goals than just relaxation. Such exercises are included in both the creative and the psychological levels of the C.C. workshops.
2. The C.C. Workshops’ General Notions
1. To figure out the C.C. workshops’ general idea the term “art therapy” itself can be of use as a start point. How does one understands it? Between the numerous answers one could be “therapy through art”. Another one could be “art as therapy”. But it can also be “art AND therapy” placed together as independent entities freely blending and interacting according to the special each time existing conditions.
In other words I thought to invent a very flexible “space” for groups of people interested in their self-growth in the sense of stirring their creativity AND of developing their self-awareness.
As the whole idea was resulting out of my personal course integrating both the creative and the therapy fields I structured also the framework totally out of my “profile”. That meant that the proportions of the two fields would not be prefixed. The rules would not be strict. There wouldn’t be any fixed “agenda”. There would be just the area determined by these two poles. Within this space each group would be allowed to build its identity and produce its orientation out of its own internal process. Each group’s process would also be its “matrix”. A “raw material” which would always be “there”, present and alive, not affected if the group focuses on “therapy”, on creativity, or even if it suddenly changes its course.
As a leader, I had only to be sensitive to the “here and now” of the group’s process and to closely follow it.
2. For the next step let’s consider on one side a professional artist who needs to work his expression on stage and on another one a person without any artistic background touching art for any reason of his own. A little further there is a third person who passionately wants to explore his self, and a fourth one who just came by curiosity.
Could we ever put them together in a group assuming that they came to us following their needs? We might at least try.
At first we have to imagine the flexible “space” mentioned above providing the framework for all of them. Secondly, we have to search for a common point between these persons. But how this could happen since their individual needs and motivations are so different? Is there any way to somehow bridge them?
There might be, if we consider the experiential issue (focusing on what am I feeling and experiencing, on being aware of what is happening inside myself). Or, to put it in other words, if we do not try to directly satisfy their needs but instead to shift their attention on the very experience of their needs. They are all seeking for different things. But also they are all experiencing this need.
If we focus just on the fact of this experience, they might meet each other through the experiential part of their individual courses. And if they meet they can share emotions and thoughts. And so they can produce a group process. And being in this process they may re-experience under another perspective their original need which motivated them. So self-change and self-growth might be encouraged. And all this may be understood as a sense of the word “therapy”.
Concluding, the C.C. workshops could be considered as a flexible “space”. There, different people with different needs and background can “meet” each other, can work experientially on a “therapeutic” (psychological) and on an artistic (creative) level, producing a group process and developing their self-growth.
3. The C.C. Workshops’ General Concept And Structure
For a certain period I just placed together the above mentioned notions. Little by little I worked on them and there it came out the original general concept of the C.C. workshops and the theoretical proposition implied in them.
*Each one of us can be considered as a person "in action" on a "stage".
*"Action", in the sense of moving in the environment or “action” just in the sense of continuously receiving and addressing messages of any kind (verbal and non verbal information, feelings, energy, vitality, mood, gestures, expressions, etc).
*"Stage" in the sense of a field of any kind where persons are inter-acting by movement and where messages are created and going around.
*The range of this general concept seems wide enough to include "action" of any kind by almost anybody, on a "stage" that can be even a real artistic one or simply our everyday, personal or professional life.
*The purpose of a participant in a C.C. workshop “stage” is to work experientially on his “action” interacting with the other participants. This work can then be used in different ways and degrees in the “stage” of his real life.
The general structure of the C.C. workshops concerns the following points:
* They consist groups of people, 6–14, unfolding either as autonomous weekend meetings (10-16 hours) or as a series of 3-5 hours periodic meetings for a certain total number of hours, usually 60-80 (12-16 weeks, if the period is fixed to be a week).
* They are addressed to anybody interested in his “self-growth” through creative work with sound, movement and speech and through his self-awareness. There are no special requirements for the participants as far as studies, profession, background and experience are concerned. The age of 20 may be a limit at least in my country. By their nature they are not addressed to people with mental disorders but there might be such cases of participants under special considerations and conditions.
* These groups are of a very flexible form which is each time shaped by the developing group process. The main poles are “therapy” in the sense of self – awareness and «artistic creative expression» in the sense of exploring aspects of the creative process. Under such a perspective they are different from theatrical animation or just psychotherapeutic groups. I preferred to call them "workshops" instead of just “groups” or “seminars”. I believe that in this way is best reflected the multidimensional interaction between the participants and the adopted perspective for the term “therapy”.
4. The Psychological Level
The primary aim of this level is “therapy” as “self-growth”.
1. Duration. In my working profile I soon realised that I do better with groups during long meetings. So, in periodic workshops I usually keep this level for 3 hours in a total 5 hours meeting. In weekend workshops of 16 hours this level consists of many shorter periods (30 min. to 1 hour) interchanging with creative work periods according to the group process.
2.Therapeutic approach. Let’s consider ourselves in a few activities. Watching an intense performance. Listening to dramatic or atmospheric music. Drawing freely on a wall. Participating in a serious role playing game. Rehearsing to prepare a performance. Moving freely in an empty space touching others and being touched by them, etc. It is said that all these activities and many other similar ones may have in a sense a “therapeutic” effect.
From the very beginning I had decided that such a general “therapeutic” sense often accompanying general artistic activities seemed too vague for me. Just “therapy through art” in such an undetermined - for me - sense would not be the schema for the groups that I had in mind. Instead I chose “therapy AND art” as two initially separate fields of activities for the start of each workshop.
So on the psychological level “therapy” had to be conceptually autonomous and primary. This would be important for both the forms of the periodic and the weekend C.C. workshops.
Any possible secondary enhancement of “therapy” through the effect of the activities during the creative level would anyhow be a very positive and desired effect. However, it should not influence the fact that in my idea of the C.C. workshops “therapy” had to be a very clear and even an autonomous concept. Moreover I am underlining that this clarity and autonomy of the therapeutic part are rather meant as global matters of perspective not relating with any special features of each one workshop form.
I finally needed a complete and coherent approach. Out of my profile, I chose the Gestalt therapy one for this level. (It would be useful but unfortunately beyond the scope of this presentation to mention here the Gestalt principles).
3. Therapeutic process. “Therapy” in all C.C. workshops is understood through the Gestalt approach. Thus we could talk about “self-growth” as the general goal of all these workshops and we could especially talk of “self-awareness” as the therapeutic goal of their psychological level.
In periodic workshops the participants are working with their personal issues and the developing relations between them. The personal themes are worked in the “here and now” of the group. I often use exercises with sound, movement, speech as initial experiments to stir and motivate the group process and bring to surface personal themes. Some of these exercises are also used for the creative level but for another goal. On the psychological level such an exercise is used just as a start point and we are focusing on the therapeutic work. If the same exercise is used on the creative level the emphasis will be on the artistic aspect.
In weekend workshops this level does not work so deeply. The “therapy” periods are shorter interchanging continuously with the creative ones or blending in them. I prefer to use group exercises for the whole group framework and not for the members as individuals in the group. Here the goal is rather to sensitise the group than to stir personal themes. During these weekend workshops sometimes there is not but slight differences between the psychological and the creative level.
However, I need to repeat once again that the “therapy” as goal and concept has to be equally clear in both kinds of the C.C. and not affected by the time schedules or the structural differences between the two workshop forms, the weekend and the periodic ones.
3. Secondary techniques. Speaking only for the periodic workshops I usually run a short introductory personal meeting with somebody who wants to participate. Furthermore a preliminary group session seem always useful as the participants are informed about the special nature of the workshop. Diaries and written feedback are also asked.
5.The Creative Level
The groups that I have in mind follow their own process shaping their own identity between the two poles of “therapy” and “creative–artistic expression”. As I have already mentioned, sometimes one group may focus on creative expression while another one on therapy, or even the same group changes suddenly its course.
In any case the primary aim of this level is exploring individual and group creativity. Furthermore the participants’ creative imagination is developed and secondary “therapeutic” effects are produced by the very nature of simply stirring the creative process. “Self-growth” is still the general goal. However this time it is sensitised through creativity, a pathway different than the one followed on the psychological level.
If a workshop is by its own process motivated to pass on the creative level then it is actually “shifting” position. Its function tends to be similar with the function of a stage-performance studio. I usually have a more or less prefixed “syllabus – agenda” to propose (still always depending on the group characteristics). My role is of course different. I am more like a sort of “teacher – director” than a group leader.
Most of the exercises of this level are originating from my creative work as a composer with actors, musicians and dancers while working for various performances. Additionally some of them were invented from my work in educational stage-performance studios. (As I have already mentioned “Polytechno” is the most important one of such studios and my collaboration with Tina Stefanopoulou in its framework is still a precious source for such exercises).
During the periodic workshops, on this level, the participants are firstly involved with creative activity – training through stage performance exercises. Interactive expression is emphasised whilevoicing and movement techniques are thoroughly worked on.