Appreciating diversity, commonality and the transcendent through the arts therapies

Abstract

The call for papers for a journal issue on the “Multicultural Application of the Arts in Psychotherapy” resulted in such a high response on a special focus for The Arts in Psychotherapy that it prompted a decision to publish two issues on this profoundly significant topic, What we have discovered is that the use of the arts in the area of multiculturalism is a many-faceted subject. In the first special issue (Vol. 24, No. 2, 1997) Dosamantes-Beaudry began the exploration of how culture is developmentally transferred. Bradt and Coseo focused on the need for the therapist to be aware of his or her own world view as well as what it means to be a culturally sensitive creative arts therapist. Application articles from Farr, Linden and Landy addressed the use of the arts in psychotherapy with individuals whose race and culture differed from those of the therapist. Antinori and Moore discussed the use of drama in diversity awareness training. In this second special issue on multiculturalism and the arts in psychotherapy, Pallaro furthers the exploration of Dosamantes-Beaudry’s article with an in-depth discussion of “Culture, Self and Body-Self: Dance/Movement Therapy with Asian Americans.” Pallaro holds a magnifying glass up to some of the Western psychological theorists’ views of such topics as healthy human development and their focus upon separation and individuation and the spiritually reductive approaches that devalue and ignore the profound and pervasive significance of the transpersonal in the daily existence and world view of Asians from various cultures. She views dance/movement therapy as a medium that creates and supports a facilitating environment for the process of biculturalization. Dance/ movement is capable of holding both cultures allowing participants to explore their relationship to both world views without discounting either one. Lewis’ article, “Transpersonal Arts Psychotherapy: Toward an Ecumenical World View” continues Pallaro’s discussion of the religious and spiritual biases of therapists and their perceptual frames and their effect upon psychotherapy with individuals who hold divergent belief systems. The history and range of Western theories of transpersonal psychotherapy are traced and current or neo-transpersonal approaches discussed. Lewis then explores the role of the arts therapist as the modem priest and shaman who, as in early civilizations, combine art and spiritual beliefs toward the healing of the individual and the well-being of the community. Clinical cases follow, describing creative arts processes with three clients who hold differing transpersonal frames. Linden’s “A Festival of Light” describes the creation of a healing arts event in a high school that utilized an archetypal transpersonal symbolic theme to assist in the celebration of diversity and commonality among a multi-ethnic school body. In describing the creation of this celebration, Linden discusses the way in which the “transpersonal draws individuals together through manifesting a conscious intention that had the power to transform all who participated” (p. 255). The creation and perhaps invocation of the