Content
‘Inspire to (re)wire’ is a quote by neuropsychologist Daniel Siegel indicating the importance of meaningful, inspiring experiences for neuroplasticity: the establishment and strengthening of connections between neural networks. Also neural networks involved in stress response.
A healthy stress-response system helps you cope with and recover from exciting or challenging situations. Neural networks involved in signals from the body, feelings and cognition are then integrated. This allows a person to function in a balanced way and deal adaptively with a variety of situations.
Research shows that many healthcare clients have a dysfunctional stress response system. This is often due to chronic or traumatic stress. This results in a wide range of physical and mental complaints. The different neural networks are disrupted, they no longer work well together. Thinking or feeling then takes over. If you are only in your head or only in your feelings, your repertoire of reactions is reduced. Your adaptability and resilience diminish.
Research shows this:
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The neural networks of your stress response system develop based on genes, but more importantly, on experience. Since these are different for everyone, this means that every brain and stress response system is unique. This explains, for example, why resilience varies from person to person.
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These neural networks are hardly affected by talking or thinking about them. The main reason for this is that the neural networks involved function largely subcortically, that is, at a non-conscious, non-verbal level. This means that understanding why you do what you do and feel what you feel does not change the fact that you do and feel this way.
But how, then, can you regulate the stress-response system? This is where creative arts therapies come in, because creative arts therapists are masters at creating meaningful and salience experiences!
A meaningful experience is an experience that touches you, moves you, stimulates you, inspires you and takes you out of your comfort zone. This taps into other resources, the healthy part of a person and creates space for change.
But how do you actually do that in practice? How can the creative arts therapies activate specific and client-tailored experiences that contribute to restoring balance and increasing adaptability?
What do creative arts therapists have in common in activating physical, affective and cognitive experiences? What are the specific elements per art form? What does that mean for indication and how do you explain its importance in a language that the client, as well as other healthcare professionals, understand?
Objectives
In this interactive online lecture we will look at:
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How chronic and traumatic stress disregulates the stress response system.
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How meaningful experiences in the creative arts therapies stimulate neuroplasticity and thus contribute to the regulation and integration of different neural networks of the stress response system.
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What creative arts therapists have in common and in particular how you can use your art form to activate meaningful experiences specifically tailored to each individual client.
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We will do this in an interactive way, linking your own clinical practice experience with the (neuro) science!
For whom
Professional therapists (all disciplines) who work with trauma- or stress-related requests for help or who are interested in the mechanisms of action of Professional Therapy based on neuroscientific insights.
Duration 2 hours
Where Online
By Dr. Ingrid Penzes
Costs
€50,- per person
€35,- for students
Incompany: in consultation.
PE
You will receive a proof of participation.