ExAF in Continuing Education

Expressive Arts Focusing ExAF is following the person-centered and experiential ethics of the pluralistic humanistic approach

Foundational Focusing and FOAT® prinicples (Eugene Gendlin, Laury Rappaport) are the main principles here, along with Empathic Curiosity for Differences (Christiane Geiser) and Aesthetic Empathy (Friedl Dicker-Brandeis)

Processing artistically at the edge of sensual awareness in ExAF based continuing education is leading to a More of ... ... (Eugene Gendlin). The More of is is the place where the Experiential Third (Freda Blob) is going to emerge

The Experiential Third is a space offering unpredictable shifts in body, arts and meaning. Those shifts are actualized through the living body interacting with all the components of the situation as a whole

Within the space of the Experiential Third interactive relations are characterized by co-reation and collaboration (same for both the fascilitator and the practitioner/participant). All activities of ExAF based continuing education are embedded in the space of the Experiential Third

The experiential process of the practitioners/participants is forwarded by empathic art making. Art making itself is a carrying forward: 'Any action or interaction is a carrying forward of the body' (Eugene Gendlin, The Process Model)

Forwarding goes hand in hand with pausing (The Revolutionary Pause, Mary Hendricks), a one minute wait for the body to carry forward experiencing with precision

Practicing the Revolutionary Pause in ExAF ways, experiential listening and repetitive art activities may occur simultaneously. For example: Holding on to autonomous bilateral drawing movements from the Whole Body (without using art materials or expressing content) is sometimes just the time the body needs to find its next right step

We use various hand-on methods in ExAF based continuing education that are fine tuned to the educational or training setting and its topics, issues, and target groups

• Embodied Doodling: Energizing the body through spontaneous repetitive art activities, releasing stress,  getting grounded

• Felt Art Journaling: Processing difficult emotions, themes or intentions through multiple layers of artistic expression from the body sense

• Experiential Museum Art-Based Engagement/Receptive Art Therapy: Receptive-active art activities, responding to fine arts from the art sense (Paolo Bianchi), getting hold of aesthetic connections and deeper meaning

• Experiential Collaging (Akira Ikemi), Phototherapy (Kathrin Seifert): Finding and exploring meaning through action-oriented art expression using inside-out and outside-in felt sensing

• Experiential Dynamic Shape Drawing (DSD): Getting focused through drawing rhythmical moving and swinging lines along breathing rhythm using lombard braid patterns (anthroposophical art therapy)
  

• Bilateral Body Mapping/Guided Drawing®: Releasing intense body feelings, emotions and trauma (Sensorimotor Art Therapy®)