Setting Goals

Posted by: Priya Senroy on January 19, 2015 11:27 am
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We all set goals and if nothing else make resolutions every year and there were many ideas and reflections I have come across in these past few weeks. My resolution is to be more of myself and be less of what others want me to be and my goals are to explore myself….. One of the areas I feel I want to be more of myself is in the department of creative-not only for my clients but for me-I just want to do something, make something, create something which will lead me to explore myself more and while doing so, I want my C.R.E.A.T.I.V.E. goals to be  Challenging  Recorded Explicit Affirmative Time-based Inspiring Valuable & Enjoyable! I came across this concept in a blog (http://mikemonday.com/become-excited-by-your-creative-goals-html/)

I have started using this with my clients and have found that this to be an alternate to S.M.A.R.T this also helps with making a personal vision board for someone starting fresh.

I am also finding myself shepparding my clients into areas of the art world, to incorporate more of the art and culture vocabulary in their goals setting repertoire. I am also encouraging them to set goals using the creative medium so either sing it, or draw it or write it in a poem format, blog, instagram or even pinterest them.

So as I am on the journey to explore more of me I think I need to explore the whole rainbow instead of using the monochromatic lens to set my goals.

Happy Goal Setting everyone!!!!




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Replenishing My Depleted Cells

Posted by: Priya Senroy on November 6, 2014 4:01 pm
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Hello fellow counsellors.

This month has been taxing on many levels. The attacks on our soldiers, being bombarded by elections materials and trying to keep Halloween alive in my parent council have made me feel tired and lethargic and all drained.

This is also when I attended a workshop on Sensorimotor Art Therapy and that has brought some energy back into my depleted cells- It has energised me physically, emotionally, spiritually and I feel I am ready to tackle Christmas!!!!

So SAT (Sensorimotor Art Therapy) centralises the wisdom of the body in therapy. Building on mainstream theoretical approaches within psychotherapy and mental health and integrating art mediums of paints, pastels, crayons and clay allows access, expression and healing bringing deeper experiences of a sense of self. Guided drawing is one of the approaches of sensorimotor art therapy. I find that while I am free spirited doodler, the guided art is helping to reclaim my boundaries, give me security and make peace with some of the body memories that have been churned by different events in the last months. I feel that exploring art through all the senses helps to remember its (the body) needs, its instinct to survive and to heal” (Elbrecht & Antcliff, 2013).




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Diversity and Creativity

Posted by: Priya Senroy on September 15, 2014 3:49 pm
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It’s back to school time and also a time for refresher trainings and courses. In one of the palces that I work, we had a refresher on diversity and creativity.There has beena big turover in stfaffing broing with it not only perople from a variety of backgrounds and experiences but a variety of thinking styles. It is crucial for any orginisation to have some kind of common vision and be able to work creatively within a diverse framework.

One of the group exercises was to mix up the counsellors from different departments and then strategically group them according to their diversity. The rationale behind this is that an intellectually diverse group operates more creatively and is more likely to generate innovative solutions as when all members are alike, they often reach agreement quickly — and although that may seem to be an asset, it is more often a liability. Only later might they realize that they lost a chance to see things differently and to create something truly groundbreaking, by tapping the experience of outside experts.

Therefore, even though there is unity in diversirty, often it might be benefitial to have opposites work together just to get creative results.Unusual connections produce-exciting results; Steve Jobs said that innovation occurs at the intersection of technology and the arts.

By: Priya Senroy




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Laugh ‘Till I Die?

Posted by: Priya Senroy on September 8, 2014 10:07 am
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Humor can be therapeutic or can be an excellent mask…For the last two days since depression and humor or comedy has been in the forefront of Hollywood, some of my clients who have been effected by depression have been posing lot of questions…and that has made me revisit the therapeutic nature of laughter-while it can be healing—perhaps it can be a smoking gun too!!! I have heard that famous comedy club in Los Angeles called the Laugh Factory has a as an in-house therapy program. Researching I have found that two nights a week, comics meet with psychologists in a private office upstairs, discussing their problems while lying on a therapy couch formerly owned by Groucho Marx. “Eighty percent of comedians come from a place of tragedy,” explains Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada. “They didn’t get enough love. They have to overcome their problems by making people laugh.”Further reading of Peter McGraw’s book on Humor Code brought some interesting perspective. The author talks about, that humor arises when something seems wrong or threatening but is simultaneously OK or safe. If comedians are going to mine their lives for material, they’re naturally going to start by looking for violations—the foibles, neuroses, and bad behaviors that are great for a laugh …So perhaps comedy as a therapy perhaps might not be funny at all sometimes.

R.I.P The Funny Ones!!!!!

By: Priya Senroy




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Self Harm and Creative Arts

Posted by: Priya Senroy on July 24, 2014 3:34 pm
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I could not find any metaphors to tie these two-I am sure there are many…for me at times its best to keep it as simple and direct as possible keeping in mind the sensitivity of the topic and the young clients that I work with. Summer has had an influx of teens that are as they say “being discovered’ by their parents or other faults as having self harm behavior-and they blame it on the weather and their clothing….no matter what the reasons are…one thing is sure that this needs to be addressed and expressed in many ways and creative arts has been a window of opportunity for some of these youth who have chosen to explore this medium. Some techniques that are based on the technique of focusing can be modified and used in various ways. I have found useful are:

Creating a Safe Space: Using art materials an image of the felt sense of the safe place is created. Once the client does this step, it may be fine to just stop here. This is an important step in creating a safe place within that the client can always choose to return to, whenever she or he needs to. The client can also embody this safe space and using movement, music and gestures could use it either as an intervention technique or calming technique.

2. Safe Space/Creating Distance: Once the client creates the safe space, and can clearly make connection to it when she or he needs to, then the client can move to place all the things between her/him and feeling all fine. Beginning with the safe place, in the art form, the client uses the art materials to symbolize the issues in the way of feeling all fine. Possibilities include, drawing symbols of each issue, or writing, onto pieces of construction paper; tearing or cutting into shapes papers to represent each issue; or using clay, beads, or other objects to symbolize the issues. These objects or papers are then placed at a distance that feels right to the client, from the safe place. The client resonates, or checks inside for a feeling of rightness as well as to check whether there is some more space inside. If the client connects with the image/art piece, it may be helpful to have the drawing/image present during subsequent sessions. When the client focuses on the experience, invite the client to sense the whole feel of it in her or his body.. While creating the art, the client resonates the handle (image/symbol), checking for a right fit.

More information on self harm and creative arts can be found in:

http://www.lianalowenstein.com/Self-injury.pdf

http://www.dtaa.org.au/download/Thematic%20Unfolding.pdf

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/self-harm%20distractions%20and%20alternatives%20final.pdf

BY: Priya Senroy




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Summer!

Posted by: Priya Senroy on June 6, 2014 4:09 pm
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Hello fellow readers…..yes summer is here and so is the season of evaluations for my programs.

One of the current programs I am coordinating in the community is a multi arts projects for youth with disabilities and evaluation has been challenging as the traditional survey, questionnaire and hasn’t really worked so I had had to think of creative approaches of evaluating them and that’s makes sense right-I have also started using them for my counselling session and have found them useful.  ABE or Art-based evaluation (ABE) uses creative activities such as visual arts, sound, photography, media arts, cartoons, movement, creative writing, to explore the impact of a project or program. Creative activities when combined with more traditional evaluation approaches, such as interviews and questionnaire, are an innovative and effective way to evaluate a program.

I have also combined things like Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) taking pictures at the end of the day and then stringing them with a simple like dislike symbol to accommodate and navigate clients with various communication, language and cognition barriers. There is not much out there in terms of resources on using creative approaches to evaluation and some approaches that I have been using can be found in this website:

http://www.artreachtoronto.ca/toolkits/the-goal-toolkits/creative-approaches-to-evaluation/

The process is tedious and requires time since it has to be group and needs specific but it is able to capture the evaluation process well and I would encourage practitioners out there to embrace the non traditional forms while evaluating their programs or sessions.




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

I Feel Like a Flower Waiting to Bloom….

Posted by: Priya Senroy on May 16, 2014 3:33 pm
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Dear fellow counsellors….YES…SPRING is finally here…I am seeing it in my backyard…although the weather is enigmatic as ever…I try to find some meaning in its  forecasts, try to make sense of the erratic nature…..this year is going to be unpredictable and I need some kind of roots to ground me—speaking of metaphor—while doing spring cleaning…I found my old metaphor cards and have used them  occasionally with my clients….the results have been better than our weather forecasts—each time I use them, they  are interpreted in amazing ways. I was first introduced to them as a young fledging Drama and Movement Therapist- we were encouraged to embody the images and then dramatize the associated feelings and metaphors…they can be defined as therapeutic tools that  open a window into a person’s inner world; associative reactions to the illustrated cards make it possible to reflect upon childhood memories, to recall repressed experiences, and to release blocked feelings. Since the interpretations of metaphors featured in the cards are completely in the eyes of the beholder, the same card can trigger different reactions in different participants (OH cards institute 2014) There are many kinds of cards, I use ECCO which are just one of the few decks out there .If anyone is interested in finding more about these cards which are specially useful when words are not enough to express how one feels. I became more fascinated by them when one of my favorite therapists-Mooli Lahad spoke of them. He has  quoted  about them in another site as (the) cards help us create a space in which we allow ourselves to invent, make believe and day dream, while knowing all along that the “fantastic reality” is there to serve our coping skills and not in order to cut us off from reality (Lahad, 2003).

I can go on and on….but I think I will leave you with websites that can shed more light on them and hoping that they will inspire to be used as an effective creative therapeutic tool in counseling:

http://www.oh-cards-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Chen-Nicole-International-Conference-Experiential-Card-Therapy-v2.pdf

http://www.oh-cards-na.com/areas-of-use/therapy-and-counseling/

http://www.oh-cards-institute.org/2012/metaphoric-cards-an-effective-tool-in-therapy/




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

So What’s Your Creative Quotient?

Posted by: Priya Senroy on March 15, 2014 12:39 pm
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I think this winter has zapped my creativity and the only canvas I see around me is white…every time I try to infuse color…BAM comes the snow and wipes it clean…even my children are saying my food is not colorful…so have I lost my mojo or winter is just an excuse not to be creative….so I came across this website that I was exploring with a client around career assessment  on creative quotient…and I thought to myself…well mine must be zero at this time and I surprised myself with a   57%–

So what is Creative Quotient or CQ….well…Just as IQ and EQ has proven to be measures of specific capabilities, the capacity for creativity is increasingly the core to building value in these uncertain and treacherous times. And just as IQ and EQ scores can be raised significantly for anyone by teaching and training, so too can CQ be bolstered for clients, individuals and organizations. Perhaps we can use CQ as an assessment/evaluation tool in our counselling process

I do not know if  such tests  are right or wrong, valid or not  and I definitely  do not know the scientific validity behind it or if it is backed by best evidence based practice ,but it was interesting to think of the questions-even though I did not take it for my career exploration-it might be worthwhile to try it to get over the creative blah if anyone is feeling up to it..

It has definitely raised my mojo and now I am striving to see how I can improve it further.

So the websites where these tests and more information can be found are:

http://assessments.firstnaukri.com/

http://www.edu-nova.com/apps/creativity.html

http://www.centreforthemind.com/publications/CQPaper.pdf

http://creativityforlife.com/your-creativity-quotient-how-to-boost-it/




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Hello Fellow Counsellors….

Posted by: Priya Senroy on February 15, 2014 3:14 pm
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February has been an interesting month for dealing with relationships issues in counselling and more interesting for me trying to find creative outlets for dealing with these issues.

Anniversaries around Valentine’s days are brutal and relationships are born and often put to death during this time leading to paradoxical emotional upheavals.

Working on using creativity to channelize the process of loss and grief has led me to plethora of resources, from journaling to using narratives to using music and drama to deal with these feelings.  While one client wanted to make a romantic musical out of his experience, another one did not know what to do with her ten years worth of stuff. While pondering whether to burn them or bury them, store them or donate them…I introduced her to  the museum of broken relationships where she could donate some of her belongings…..in order to honor that part of  her which   needed to be preserved and celebrated….

I think this is such a brilliant idea   where we are trying to forget those reminders of the failed love or the unthinkable gut wrenching emotions and what to do with them, this museum offers a brilliant alternative. You can in fact become a donor and the description goes like this:  Would you also like to become a donor? Recently ended a relationship? Wish to unburden the emotional load by erasing everything that reminds you of that painful experience? Don’t do it – one day you will be sorry.

Instead, donate the objects to the Museum while recovering and take part in the creation of collective emotional history. In order to protect your privacy all the exhibits are displayed anonymously…

I think as counsellors we face such situation where clients are not ready to let go but cannot live with   physical memories either-perhaps they can explore this alternative and that way keep their memories alive in some ways, if they choose to… We celebrate dinosaurs, historical figures and commemorate disengaged events so why not celebrate a part of us that perhaps heals the past, deal with the present and shapes the future in some way-emotionally, socially, spiritually and creatively..

More information: http://brokenships.com/en




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Avatar Therapy

Posted by: Priya Senroy on December 6, 2013 4:16 pm
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Priya Sen Roy

It’s been over 10 years that I made an Avatar for my yahoo profile. Who know that time that making Avatars would explode beyond its boundaries and create its own place in the virtual world as a tool for cybercounselling.10 years later, my Avatar has undergone changes and grew as I grew and finally got incorporated into my professional life. As an emerging cyber counsellor and an established  creative arts therapist , I am always trying to evolve and see how I can keep with the latest trends of reaching my clients. Avatar Therapy or Innovative Avatar Therapy Simulation is the way to go in offering counseling without borders. As an alternate to alter egos, my avatar is a cross between Xena the warrior princess to my nurturing 5 year old daughter. It lets me explore myself as well have special abilities to relate with my clients. I want to learn more and properly get the right training before I call myself an Avatar Therapist but I find it fascinating that the world of creativity and traditional talking therapy can emerge to create some that is nota fantasy anymore-I can touch it,feel it and its mine….For more information:

http://thefutureofinnovation.org/contributions/view/893/the_future_of_innovation_the_use_of_avatars_in_psychotherapy

http://onlinetherapyinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/AvatarTherapyCAPA1.pdf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23144208




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA
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