The Department of Psychology, St Teresa’s College, (Autonomous), Ernakulam, organized a workshop on Expressive Arts Therapy on 9th November 2022, Wednesday at 11 a.m. in the Central Block.
Ms. Merin Thomas who is a Remedial Educator for children with learning disabilities and a Facilitator in Expressive Arts Therapy and Counseling led the workshop for the M.Sc Psychology students of the department. Ms. Merin is presently a part of the training content team for the Capabilities Exploration and Enhancement Programme (CEEP), an initiative that grooms students who are socially and economically backward, coming under the umbrella of Mission Better Tomorrow.
Ms Merin started the session with an introduction to Expressive Arts Therapy. Expressive Arts Therapy is an integrative, multimodal approach that utilizes a variety of methods including writing, music, visual arts, drama, and dance to help people achieve personal growth. People work with a trained therapist who helps them explore and understand their reactions to their experiences with different forms of expressive art. She stressed the importance of journalling and how it is helpful in coping with daily challenges.
The students were engaged in different experiential activities like emotional weather forecasts, playback theatre, and fluid states. The participants were attentive and interacted well with the resource person.
The program helped to gain insight into various expressive art forms and was well received by the students and faculty members