Cathy Malchiodi, guilty pleasures and time

Collages from Cathy Malchiodi's Brainwise workshop

I created these 'stress-less' collages in a workshop I attended recently, by the very inspiring Dr Cathy Malchiodi, who has contributed so much to the global art therapy/expressive therapy community.

Cathy's particular skill, I believe, is to communicate clearly and effectively about art therapy - she has published numerous books on a wide range of art therapy topics. This link, above, is to the first TED talk by an art therapist...and yes it was given by Cathy Malchiodi.

When I studied art therapy, there were very few  books published on the expressive therapies. How that has changed. Often, serendipitously, one of Cathy's books appeared, just as I was thinking, 'what we need is an art therapy book about...' So I am grateful to Cathy for making art therapy more widely known, and for making my job as an art therapy educator much easier than that of my past lecturers at Goldsmiths in London in the 1980's.

Tangle doodle hand, from Cathy Malchiodi's Brainwise workshop 

Cathy's workshop was titled Brainwise Creative Interventions with Traumatised Children Young People and Families, and was hosted by the Australian Childhood Foundation. What was impressive about the day, was not so much the content, which was familiar to me, (although seeing it through the lens of working with the military was different), but seeing what a huge number of people attended, and were therefore interested in this creative and neurologically sound approach to working with trauma. And many of them were friends, colleagues and graduates of our UQ program.

left/right brain

I have been continuing to work three jobs this semester, which, much as I love teaching, is now, thankfully over. A few weeks respite before it all starts again...

The very exciting part about work, namely that third job, is that earlier this year I started working at Kooky Kid Clinic, which means I am now back in private practice, after a long break. I'm loving it!

Being so busy has a down side, of course. I've just noticed I appear to have needed a week off work before sitting down to write both this and my last blog post, back in April. Its a shame, that I can't manage to post more often, but its not surprising. 

And I have to thank Michael Leunig for this wisdom on recharging:

The other thing I appreciated about the Brainwise workshop was having time to make art. Ah, time, what a strange phenomenon that is...half an hour in a workshop dedicated to making art is a luxury, but time off in general can sometimes be anxiety and guilt provoking. Or is it just me? So much unstructured time, so many possibilities, but also so much potential for guilt, if I don't make totally good use of that precious time. Sigh.

I wrote recently about guilty pleasures, and Disney was included in there. So yesterday I watched Frozen, mainly as 'research', because so many of my young clients refer to it. And I am looking forward to seeing Pixar's Inside Out, about the emotions of an 11 year old girls, also for work-related reasons. Honestly.

Apparently, speaking of guilt, mothers no longer need feel guilty about working outside the home - although I noticed the benefits were based on their daughters' career success, status and income, not 'happiness' or something equally hard to measure, but probably much more important. 

Anyway, there are many other things we can pin our guilt to. (According to Cathy Malchiodi, we can now be virtual hoarders, thanks to Pinterest.)

Like colouring-in for example, as I may have mentioned in my last blog post. The media furore around this continues. I have now done three interviews about the stress-relieving aspects of colouring in. And I have been practising, and (guiltily) spent serious money on a set of Copic markers. Can't wait for them to arrive. 

More later.