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Source: ©2015 Daily Drawing by C. Malchiodi, PhD Expressive arts (art, music, dance/movement, drama, and creative writing) therapies can enhance self-regulation in individuals of all ages who are experiencing distress or reactions from psychological trauma. In particular, the kinesthetic-sensory qualities of art, music and movement that include rhythm, movement, touch, and sound potentially mediate lower brain functions such as heart rate and respiration through specific approaches. Here are just a few ways that expressive arts approaches support self-regulation: Not Just Attunement; It’s “Sensory-Based” Attunement. In any therapy relationship, practitioners meet individuals where they are in their reparation and recovery, responding with both insight (knowing what one feels) and empathy (knowing what others feel). Daniel Siegel refers to this as “mindsight” while others refer to it as attunement, the capacity to recognize non-verbal … [Read more...] about Expressive Arts Therapy and Self-Regulation

Summary of Blog 1 (In Spite of Yourself) - Feelings First or Second? Personal and family safety, continuously assessed at an intuitive level, comes first. Following this assessment, instinct creates feelings to shape our behaviour - our thoughts as well as our actions. Feelings determine what we think and do to survive.  Every emotion you have is necessary for survival, and that includes feelings that we don't want to have like anxiety, depression, unhappiness, anger, envy, jealousy.  There are ways to influence the feelings produced by instinct (drugs - medication, alcohol, nicotine, party drugs - to disrupt your brain) or to lessen the distress of instinct (activity to distract you).  Selling you on ways to change your feelings is a lucrative and a 'repeat business' because following every change, instinct will ensure the return of emotions that you need for survival. So whether the 'business' is the accumulation of money, power, relationships, possessions or … [Read more...] about The Art Of Focus

People are perfectly imperfect creatures who get stressed out and feel emotions, unlike robots that can shut down without consequences. Stressful situations occur, we feel what we feel, and own those emotions. According to the Stress in America Survey, (APA, 2013), 43 percent of adults have stress-related insomnia and teens’ stress levels are comparable to those of adults. The data also revealed 44 percent of adults were not managing stress as effectively as desired. As much as we need to be real and feel, we are also encouraged to be emotionally intelligent with an awareness and ability to control our emotions so we can be socially intelligent through recognition of other people’s emotions to manage relationships (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, (2002). Sharing feelings through a journal, a special place to unleash emotions, can help reduce stress and increase emotional intelligence. We are entitled to those feelings, whether it is anger towards someone, untangling a messy … [Read more...] about The Art of Journaling

Source: "Visual Journal Cover" circa © 2008 Cathy Malchiodi, PhD Did you know that picking up a pencil to doodle or making a figure out of clay can help you to relieve stress, depression, and fear, and can even help diminish pain or other physical symptoms? Art therapy uses simple art activities to help people express themselves and develop a sense of well-being through the creative process. Expressing oneself through a drawing, painting, sculpture, or collage makes our thoughts, feelings, and ideas tangible and communicates what we sometimes cannot say through words alone. Through working with art materials, learning new skills, and developing ideas through visual media, often people feel a sense of self-satisfaction, personal achievement, and accomplishment. Across the U.S., art therapy programs offer creative activities to cancer patients and their families to help reduce stress and anxiety, lessen pain and nausea, and empower both the patient and caregiver to express their … [Read more...] about Drawing a Picture of Health: An Art Therapy Guide

There is continuing controversy about inter-ethnic differences in IQ and why these might exist. One of the most heated areas of debate is what role if any is played by genetic differences between ethnic groups. Richard Lynn (Kanazawa, 2013; Lynn, 1987) proposed that because European and Asian environments feature extremely cold winters the inhabitants of these regions historically faced greater challenges to survival than Africans. He claimed that these survival challenges would have created selection pressures for greater intelligence. Africans on the other hand live in tropical conditions all year round and hence did not need as much intelligence. Lynn (2006) has presented data correlating the intelligence of different ethnic groups with the severity of their winter climates. However, there are some anomalies in his data and the theory itself is based on questionable assumptions.   In a recent paper on race differences in penis size, which I have critiqued elsewhere, Lynn (2013) … [Read more...] about Cold Winters and the Evolution of Intelligence