Art, Potential Space, and Psychotherapy: A Museum Workshop for Licensed Clinical Social Workers

Abstract

Potential space is the opening that allows for the unknown, for surprise. This is experienced in the process of psychotherapy. Potential space is necessary for change and growth and in the process of creating art. Works of art may articulate bodily and affective experience that is often out of our awareness. Viewing art involves at least a moment of recognition about ourselves; we connect with our present and our past in a different way. The focus of this ‘Ideas in Action’ paper is on teaching licensed clinical social workers in a workshop about creativity and potential space via viewing and encountering works of art in a museum. The goal is to help clinical social workers, qualified as psychotherapists, to open to their own creativity as psychotherapists in their work with clients by experiencing potential space in viewing artworks. This experience may translate to increased responsiveness and efficacy in the clinical encounter. The concept of potential space also has resonance in teaching and coaching relationships and in social work education.