International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and Other Psychoses United States Chapter
Ikuko Acosta and Ani Buk will present their work as art therapists with people struggling with psychotic symptoms. RenÈe Obstfeld, art therapist and psychoanalyst, will moderate the panel.
Saturday, October 29th, 2011, 3:00 – 5:00 pm, New York University, Silver Center for the Arts and Sciences. 31 Washington Place, Room 408
All are welcome to attend. There is no fee, nor are reservations needed.
Contact Brian Koehler at bk64@nyu.edu or 212.533.5687 should you need additional information.
Moderator: RenÈe Obstfeld, LCAT, ATR-BC, CASAC, has been practicing art therapy since 1986 with adolescents and adults in hospital, outpatient, and private settings. Her experience includes working with chemically dependent people in both abstinence oriented and harm-reduction settings, and with survivors of suicide. RenÈe is currently in private practice, just completing her psychoanalytic candidacy at PPSC in Manhattan, and is an adjunct instructor in the graduate art therapy programs at New York University and the School of Visual Arts.
Unique Symbol Formation and Visual Expression:
A Glimpse into the World of the Psychotic Mind
Ikuko Acosta, PhD, ATR-BC, LCAT
This presentation demonstrates the unique pictorial characteristics expressed among people with schizophrenia and how such artistic expressions reflect their psychic world. The presentation also illustrates how their pictorial self-expression supersedes verbal expression, tapping into the deeper realm of the unconscious. The presentation also offers insight into the expression of delusions and psychotic ideations in their images in a non-verbal and concrete form. Through the illustration of images produced by psychotic patients, the presentation will offer insight into the power and effectiveness of visual expression leading toward understanding the mind of people with schizophrenia.
Ikuko Acosta, PhD, ATR-BC, LCAT, director of the Graduate Art Therapy Program at New York University, has been an art therapy educator and supervisor for more than 30 years. She has also lectured and consulted in the development of art therapy programs nationally and
internationally, including Korea, India, Thailand, Turkey, Italy, Iceland, Japan, Singapore and Jamaica and has developed the Art Therapy Internship Abroad program which has operated in Tanzania, Peru, South Africa, Brazil and India.
Ikuko Acosta also has 17 years clinical experience working with adult patients in the Admissions Unit of a New Jersey county psychiatric hospital, interacting with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and nurses. This period involved working with several thousand patients, amassing a collection of over 6000 artworks. Much of her expertise in assessing patients through their process of making art and their artworks may be attributed to this rich and extensive experience gained as a staff art therapist in the admission unit. Her article published in the American Art Therapy Journal, entitled, “Rediscovering the Dynamic Properties Inherent in Art”, and her doctoral dissertation, entitled, “A Dynamic Approach to the Interpretation of Artwork by Psychiatric Patients Based upon the Aesthetic Theories of Rudolf Arnheim,ö convey her unique philosophy of pictorial assessment.
The psychological birth of a traumatized adult:
The efficacy of art therapy in facilitating the expression of dissociated experience
Ani Buk, MFA, MA, LP, LCAT, FIPA
Mr. G, a 59 year-old homeless man, presented himself to an emergency room complaining of “memory problems.” Upon his admission to the inpatient psychiatric unit, he was found to have a history of previous psychiatric hospitalizations, and a long-held diagnosis of Paranoid Schizophrenia complicated by alcohol abuse. However, his gradual immersion into the art therapy program allowed him to create drawings that metaphorically expressed a dissociated history of profound childhood trauma. As a result, a diagnosis of PTSD seemed to be an additional way to understand his constellation of symptoms. Mr. G’s moving artwork, created in psychoanalytically-informed art therapy groups, will be examined in the context of recent findings from the field of neuroscience. The functioning of the mirror neuron system, and the related process of embodied simulation, can be seen as identifying some of the neuroanatomical mechanisms that contribute to: (1) the trauma survivor s capacity to express the implicit, dissociated realm of experience and memory in a work of art, and often to go on to put into words what had previously been unspeakable; (2) the art therapist s ability to interpret the many possible meanings of the art work made in the psychotherapeutic setting; and (3) the efficacy of particular art therapy interventions with survivors of trauma, and how the clinical implications of these interventions can inform all therapists working with traumatized populations. Ani Buk, MA, LP, LCAT, FIPA, is a New York State Licensed
psychoanalyst and art therapist in private practice on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where she works with children, adolescents, adults and couples. A Fellow of the International Psychoanalytical Association, she has twenty-five years of diverse clinical experience. She is a Training and Supervising Analyst, and an instructor, in the Adult Psychoanalysis Program of the Psychoanalytic Training Institute of the New York Freudian Society. She is also a graduate of The Institute for Child, Adolescent and Family Studies. A nationally recognized trauma specialist, her work and recommendations have been featured in newspapers and periodicals such as The New York Times, US News & World Report, The Chicago Tribune, and Scholastic News. Ms. Buk has been on the faculty of the Graduate Art Therapy Program of New York University since 1993, and was a faculty member of the Department of Psychiatry of Albert Einstein College of Medicine from 1996-2007. She is the author of ôThe mirror neuron system and embodied simulation: Clinical implications for art therapists working with trauma survivorsö [The Arts in Psychotherapy: Special Issue on Trauma, 36 (2009), 61 74], and a co-author of Human Rights Clinic: Training Manual for Physicians and Mental Health Professionals, and A Facilitator s Guide: Training Health Care Providers to Work with Refugees, published by Doctors of the World and the Office of Refugee Resettlement.