Art therapy

The art therapy conference on anxiety disorders and the somatic effects of anxiety from 9 to 12 January at the Goetheanum was sold out.

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The topic of anxiety drew more than 300 art therapists from more than thirty countries to the Goetheanum, with a multifaceted programme and a sheer endless range of creative methods and materials. The question was how art therapists around the world can share with and guide each other through methods and support measures that are highly individual and how the patient’s forces of self-healing can be stimulated in this process. The conference members trustfully crossed the threshold of their own fear and embarked on artistic journeys together. They laughed, embroidered, painted, played, constructed, prayed, created, felted, cut, stamped, smelled, sang, hummed, searched, dreamed, listened, wrote, ate, drank, lived – together!

Fear and anxiety are omnipresent in our society. Global virtual reporting adds to this and overburdens us all with real and virtual fears while the information, the ‹digesting› of these impressions, comes up short. As a result our vital forces are weakened and everything that our life body is unable to process builds up in our body and our soul life. Is there a hardening effect? Maybe. Who can really tell?

Newly connecting with the body

The anthroposophical knowledge of human nature can be inspiring and helpful here. With therapeutic clay-modelling, for instance, we can work on the life body. Experiencing the clay allows patients to feel connected with their body. And because anxiety manifests mostly in the etheric – as a most intensive form of bodily constriction – the patient’s life forces and resilience can be strengthened and the anxiety transformed. Spirituality can also be a healing force and the Christ force is aninspiration for the future.

That drawing from one’s own centre through artistic activity can be health-giving has recently been shown in a study conducted by the who’s Office for Europe.

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