The metaphor of the circle is unequaled as a symbol of an ideal relational community. There are no leaders or followers, no hierarchy. Geometrically, the circle gives us symmetry and strength, the archway that supports a Cathedral, or the wheel upon which a train might ride. At the institute we literally sit in a circle for

This article by Judith Essex examines Shaun McNiff’s metaphor of the Enduring Shaman, in relationship to the professional practice of Expressive Arts Therapy. This article is an excerpt from the dissertation Dionysos and the Shaman, by Judith Greer Essex Ph.D. , provided for scholarly use. No further reproduction or distribution rights are granted without the author’s

Students at the San Diego Expressive Arts Institute, immersed from the beginning in phenomenology are often curious about my continuing use of a technique they identify with archetypal interpretation in the Jungian model…In answer to my students, I acknowledge that sand play has become the dominant model for working with sand and miniatures…Is there a model

In his call for papers to the Ecological edition of Poiesis, Stephen Levine asserts that “the environmental movement suffers from a lack of imagination,” suggesting our current vision of a benevolent Gaia leads to a kind of poverty of imagination about our relationship with nature. Certainly the image of nature as a harmonious system of romanticized

Reprinted with permission from Poiesis Volume 2, 2000, pp 6- 14. In this article Paolo J. Knill discusses his theory of alternative experience of worlding as an essential component of the therapeutic process. Essence in Therapeutic Process