Syllabus for Lani's Spring Art Therapy Workshops

1. Building Resilience from the Inside Out
Through Puppets, Play, and Stories
or A Back Door To Culture, Well-being, and Strength
“If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a
magic-bean-buyer. If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax-golden
tales to spin. Come in! Come in!” - Shel Silverstein
Lani Gerity DA, ATR
February 21, 2011
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2. This course, Building Resilience from the Inside Out, will provide participants with an absorbing
methodology for practicing art therapy in a multi-cultural world. We will explore how puppets
and doll-making as well as the creation of resilience narratives can enhance the therapist’s
empathy, compassion, attention, curiosity even appreciation for beauty and other intrinsic
rewards.
The course will weave an experiential art-making component into a didactic examination of the
idea of culture being a vehicle for learning skills of resilience. Through case material we will
look at resilience and puppet-making with dissociative patients, with grandparents and
grandkids, and across cultures. There are optional readings which will provide some clues as to
the ability of modern Western consumer culture to teach values of inner strength and resilience.
We will take a peek at dominant and non dominant cultures, colonialism, and the culturally
syntonic ego ideal, all in relation to art therapy. Particular attention will be paid to the
difficulties of transference and countertransference in working with populations from cultures
other than our own. We will discuss the possibilities of supporting a culture of resilience within
our art rooms.
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3. What will be required
1. Come to the class with a lot of curiosity and not too many assumptions. We really don’t
know what is around the next corner, do we?
2. Find a resilience narrative, either a folk tale, or a bit of history from your own cultural
background or family, that clearly speaks to human resilience (see strategies below). Be
prepared to tell the story as the introductory exercise.
3. Not required, but very helpful: read the following two articles (should be a separate
email): Gerity, L.A. (2000 a). The Subversive Art Therapist: Embracing Cultural
Diversity in the Art Room. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy
Association, 17 (3) pp. 202-206. and Gerity, L.A. (2001). Josie, Winnicott, and the
Hungry Ghosts. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 18 (1)
pp. 44-49.
Resilience Strategies:
1. Do what ever we can to build relationships, because we need people.
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4. 2. We need opportunities to take charge of aspects of our lives whenever possible, because we are
more resilient when we feel competent rather than helpless.
3. We need to have goals and wishes, because these produces optimism.
4. We need to look for good things in our environment, because we do better when we have at least a
few positive things in our awareness even in the most difficult times.
5. We need to believe in ourselves.
6. We need insight, so that we can think, draw conclusions, and problem solve.
7. We need to exercise our creativity for the above reasons and because it feeds us in non-material
ways.
8. We need humor. We need to be able to distance ourselves from life’s difficulties at times, and
humor allows for this.
9. We need an internal moral compass, to help us with our decisions.
10. We need to take care of ourselves.
11. We need time and space to help us create meaning of our lives. We need to keep a journal (art
journal) to help us reflect on what is happening to us.
12. We need meditation or a spiritual practice that helps us feel ourselves a part of a greater whole.
13. We need to have compassion, kindness, and generosity for ourselves and others. (see Dr. Kristin
Neff’s website: http://www.self-compassion.org/)
14. We need to study resilience, because in my experience it makes us more resilient.
Sources:
Figley, C. R. (2005). Combat Stress Injury : Theory, Research, and Management. Brunner/Routledge
Five Ways to Well-being. The New Economics Foundation http://www.neweconomics.org/
Lyubomirsky, S. (2010). The how of happiness: A practical approach to getting the life you want.
London: Piatkus.
Petronis, V. (2005). Resilience following Katrina. Loyola University New Orleans.
Road to Resilience, American Psychological Association. Found at http://www.apahelpcenter.org/
featuredtopics/feature.php?id=6
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5. Making Paper Puppet People or Paper Action Figures
What you will need:
Scissors, card stock, old magazines, photocopies of old photos, glue
stick, embellishments, hole punch; yarn, string, or brads for your
puppetʼs joints; and pencils, markers, crayons, even rubber stamps
can be fun.
You may also want a template.
Here is one you use. Cut it out,
trace it on your card stock or
construction paper and you are
ready to get started.
This template can be adjusted, of
course. You can make it taller,
thinner, fatter. You can give it
long hair, short hair. You can
make it bald, or even give it
feathers for hair.
Once you have your head, torso,
arms and legs cut out you need
to make holes where you see the
little black spots on this
little templateʼs shoulders
and the top of the legs. (8
holes)
Now you are ready to
attach arms and legs to the
body of your puppet. Brads
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6. are easy to use and
you can find
decorative versions
in scrapbooking
stores. Yarn and even
long skinny scraps of
cloth work really
well.
Experiment!
I used a small hole
punch and made
holes where I joined
arms and legs to the body. If you are using cloth or yarn, push the
ends though an arm hole and the corresponding hole at the shoulder,
tied a square knot (right over left and left over right) and then again
at each joint. Of course brads would work as well in these holes.
“It is in playing and only in playing that
the individual child or adult is able to be
creative and use the whole personality
and it is only in being creative that the
individual discovers the self.” D. W.
Winnicott (British pediatrician /
psychoanalyst and the quote comes from
page. 54 of Playing & Reality)
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7. A personal note on transformation &
puppets:
I found this process of using old
photos very liberating. I began to look
at the memories and photos of
childhood in a more playful way than
I ever had before. Suddenly these
little frozen capsules of time could be
a source of fun, less fossilized, there
were more possibilities, more kinds of
feelings. The feelings of new
possibilities, and new ways of looking
were probably the most remarkable of
all the feelings that emerged.
These particular
puppets were
rubber stamped on
water color paper
and water color
was added
afterwards. The
yarn hair came
from a scrap-
booking collection
of embellishing
yarns and there
are brad joints at
knees, elbows,
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8. hips and shoulders.
I figured more joints would
give her more flexibility,
metaphorically speaking.
(And what more could we
ask for than more
metaphorical flexibility?)
If you have any questions
please feel free to contact me at: lanipuppetmaker@mac.com
And check out my blogs for more ideas and inspiration:
http://lanipuppetmaker.blogspot.com/
http://14secretsforahappyartistslife.blogspot.com/
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