The state of doing nothing is on my mind just now. Having been driven for most of my life by an imperative to act, to do, to succeed, I find myself questioning this need more and more. Last Saturday I attended a half-day meeting, funded by the British Association of Dramatherapists, in Edinburgh, where the main speaker was Phil Jones, author of Drama as Therapy, Theatre as Living, a new edition of which incorporates the experiences of therapists influenced by his writing. This is a book I have often referred to since it was first published in 1996 . I was fortunate enough to meet Phil at a Sesame training day in London where he signed my copy for me. Listening to him reflecting on his own career path, now moving on from dramatherapy into wider areas of research, I am struck by parallels in my own working life. He described his motivation to write Drama as Therapy as coming from irritation that no-one was writing about dramatherapy in a way which connected with his own practice. My own writing - articles, mainly - generally comes from a need to articulate and process my professional experience. A driving force in my work has been to use dramatherapy with psychiatric patients to see if it can give expression to what Phil describes as 'the unspeakable' in ways which other approaches cannot.
In a small way, and in a limited setting, I have achieved this and had some recognition within the NHS. After doing clinical work for some years, my decision to concentrate now on training nursing staff to develop their skills in using creative approaches in their work seems a natural direction for me to take, although I still work with clients with a range of mental health problems in my private practice. I was pleased to see so many people on Saturday, dramatherapists and potential dramatherapists who will practise in Scotland in the future. The way is open for the development of person-centred services in mental health. The principle of choice is now a key element which will necessitate the provision of a range of treatments, including the arts therapies.
As always, at these events, people were hungry to exchange their feelings about and experiences of dramatherapy and there was consensus that to meet one another is a good thing. There was a call at the end of the day for people to take this forward, and several initiatives were agreed. I found myself with a sense of deja vue at this point. I was on the steering group which became the Scottish Arts Therapies Forum, I represented arts therapists on the advisory group which is now part of the Health Professions Council and was a founder member of the local networking group in Fife. Reflecting on my own position now, I decided that to have a less active role, to reflect in this blog on some of my own process as a therapist, to explore good practice through my sessions with supervisees, is probably enough. There are younger people, who have that irritant of their needs not being articulated, to take things forward in their own way.
One special aspect of the day for me was meeting up again with my travelling companion and fellow student during my training in Manchester, a wonderful young woman who has made a great success of her career as a creative arts worker and dramatherapist. Like me, she has also been happy in her personal life over the past seven years and is now expecting a baby. We always pick up where we left off, even if we haven't been in touch for a while. At the end of our training, we did a performance together telling the story of our shared and separate journeys through the course. This embodied so much of what we had learned together, and from one another, bridging the generation gap which seems largely irrelevant.
One morning last week I waited for a bus which didn't come. I had left the house before 7.30 on a cold, windy morning and spent over an hour huddled in a minimal, graffiti-scratched bus shelter with two other women, stoic in our shared adversity. In that 70 minutes, I felt freed from time, feeling the cold, but watching the bare trees shiver in the wind, hearing the birds restless for spring, knowing there was nothing to do but wait. It occurred to me that this experience was probably closer to true meditation than my rather forced efforts to lie down and listen to my Guided Mindfulness or Eternal Om recordings.
Returning to finish this after a three hour gap, I have to admit to a real dislocation with time today. A friend rang me earlier and arranged to give me a lift to our local co-op. I was surprised when the doorbell rang a few minutes later. That was quick, I said. Not really, she said, What time do you think it is?
Twelve? I guessed. It was actually nearly two o'clock. Where was I for those two missing hours? Writing, reflecting...........?
Time now to end. Till the next time.
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