Talk

MPS Art Therapy presents Jordan Potash, Ph.D., ATR-BC, REAT, LCPAT (MD) who will give this year’s Valery Daniels Memorial Lecture: “Art Therapists as Peacebuilders.”

This virtual presentation will explore ways in which art therapists can support peace-building in their practices. Peace advocates employ a range of strategies to decrease conflicts and increase harmony. Some models emphasize relational approaches that simultaneously champion human rights and commit to unrelenting dialogue. Rather than reducing opponents to dehumanized enemies, they are re-imagined as conflicted partners struggling together to resolve injustice. Such an approach to peace-building requires self-reflection, perspective taking, identification of power dynamics and alliance formation. Art making and the creative process can parallel processes for disrupting presumptions, stimulating emotional experiences, encouraging risk-taking, and fostering openness. Similarly, art therapy offers the means for facilitating personal expression, channeling emotions, embracing conflict and identifying purposeful actions.

Art therapists can draw on the traditions of peace scholars, activists, artists, and advocates to enact socially responsive practices. Taking into account both negative peace (violence reduction) and positive peace (justice assurance), art therapists can apply their services to diminishing disputes and tensions while fostering equity and inclusion. For a holistic approach to peace, art therapists can facilitate opportunities for peace in personal, relational, communal and societal arenas.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will describe peace frameworks that can inform art therapy theories.
• Participants will synthesize peace-building art approaches with art therapy practices.
• Participants will identify how art therapists can support peace-building in their agencies, communities, and society.

Jordan S. Potash, Ph.D., ATR-BC, REAT, LCPAT (MD) is a registered, board certified and licensed art therapist, as well as a registered expressive arts therapist (USA). He is an associate professor in the art therapy graduate program at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, and an honorary associate professor at the Centre on Behavioral Health and Department of Social Work and Social Administration, University of Hong Kong. He is primarily interested in the applications of art and art therapy in the service of community development and social change, with an emphasis on reducing stigma, confronting discrimination, and promoting cross-cultural relationships. Potash has presented courses, conference and community lectures and workshops, and co-authored publications on these topics in the U.S., Hong Kong, and Israel. He is also the editor of Art Therapy. For more information, to view podcasts of past lectures, or to view his portfolio, visit www.jordanpotash.com

The MPS Art Therapy Department at the School of Visual Arts is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists. #CAT-0054.

2.0 CE hours available for LCATs.