Image resolution (art) psychotherapy uses visual image making as integral to communication and is more than “creativity”. It involves a conversation between Quaestor (client), his/her image, and the therapist: each are equal participants. The creation of these images, engages kinaesthetic activity and a state of reverie, promoting full storying. Shared storying promotes bodymind integration.

According to neuroscientist Dean Burnett, “Anything visual has a much better chance of being lodged in the brain and staying there” and Antonio Damasio writes that all feelings and emotions are connected to images, which is of importance in addressing learned coping strategies, perceptions of events, psychological shock and PTSD. We learn all our social dynamics before we can speak, through watching those around us: this is held in unconscious memories, often as a deep mnemonic. This work celebrates the work of Jung, Bach and Kübler-Ross.

Dr Marie-Christina Virago will run a 3-day course, which includes:

• Interrogation of “creativity” and “healing”. Image making BEYOND “creativity

• Your own Process & Learned Dynamics. The use of the Kinetic Family Drawing

• Colours and their Character.

• The Primacy and Power of the handmade Image

• Recognising the Image as mnemonic and Communicator.

• Inner Knowing, Embodied Knowledge and Somatisation.

• Guided Imagery and Storying.

• Archetypes and the Magic of Numbers.

• The Right Question and The Dragon’s Treasure.

• Trust in the Process.

• The Mask

ABOUT DR VIRAGO

My initial training was in nursing which was followed by work in the electron microscopy units of Sydney and Queensland Universities. I worked as a Lab Technician in Veterinary Virology, human Haematology and Cytology, and early corneal transplant. A dominant theme was cancer research. I later trained in TA and Gestalt therapy, working in Drug and Alcohol rehabilitation, Couple Counselling, Oncology Support and Critical Incident and Grief support counseling. After my second husband’s death I studied Fine Art and Waldorf education, then Art Psychotherapy at Sheffield University, followed by Anthropology at Deakin University and my PhD research at the University of Newcastle, investigating the reflection of immune function in psychological exploration of images made by participants over 6 months.

With 40 years’ experience in Art Psychotherapy, where image making is the primary medium of communication, I recognise that is far more than “creativity”, and that images are unconscious mnemonics, holding tremendous amounts of information and transformational treasure. Art psychotherapy is a modality, heavily involved with the senses, particularly the visual sense, dominant in sighted individuals. Making art also engages kinesthetic which can help to unlock memories. My experience leads me to conclude that nothing is ever totally forgotten! It simply waits.

According to neuroscientist, Dean Burnett “Anything visual has got a much better chance of being lodged in the brain and staying there” and Antonio Damasio writes that feelings and emotions are connected to sensory images. Engaging people in art making is a certain way to connect to the unconscious, which has great ramifications in addressing deeply held pain and entrained dynamics. Freud was wrong when he stated that the “royal road to the unconscious, is through dreams”; it is through externalised and shared handmade images.

Susan Bach recognizing that each person has an “Inner Knowing” of their health, disease and prognosis, after decades working with sick kids. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, built on this work which profoundly influenced psycho-oncology and palliative. Bach’s is sadly, largely forgotten.

During this workshop you will learn about colour, the use of different media in different situations and the difference between art as therapy and art psychotherapy: importantly, you will learn by experience and your own process.