An Expressive Arts Approach to Healing Loss and Grief: Working Across the Spectrum of Loss with Individuals and Communities

by Irene Renzenbrink, Stephen K. Levine (Foreword by)

Overview

Drawing on expertise in both expressive arts and grief counselling, this book highlights the use of expressive arts therapeutic methods in confronting and healing grief and bereavement. Establishing a link between these two approaches, it widens our understanding of loss and grief.

With personal and professional insight, Renzenbrink illuminates the healing and restorative power of creative arts therapies, as well as addressing the impact of communion with others and the role that expressive arts can play in community change. Covering a broad understanding of grief, the discussion incorporates migration and losing one's home, chronic illness and natural disasters, highlighting the breadth of types of loss and widening our perceptions of this. Grief specialists are given imaginative and nourishing tools to incorporate into their practice and better support their clients.

An invaluable resource to expand understanding of grief and explore the power of expressive arts to heal both communities and individuals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781787752788
Publisher:	Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Publication date:	06/21/2021
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.91(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

Irene Renzenbrink is a qualified expressive arts therapist. She has worked as a social worker, with extensive experience in palliative care and bereavement support. In the last ten years, she has refocused on expressive arts therapy, completing a PhD in the topic.

Table of Contents

Foreword Stephen K. Levine 11

Acknowledgements 21

Prologue 23

1 Historical and Theoretical Milestones: On the Shoulders of Giants 27

2 Historical and Theoretical Milestones: Paradigm Shifts and New Directions 49

3 The Evolution of Expressive Arts Therapy 69

4 The Healing Power of an Expressive Arts Approach 93

5 So Many Little Dyings: Working Across the Spectrum of Loss 117

6 Illuminating Loss and Grief through Poetry, Metaphor, and Story 137

7 To Leave is to Die a Little: Loss of Home and Place 155

8 On Death and Dying: "The Wilder Shore of Illness 173

9 Creative Responses to Disaster 195

10 Repairing the World 217

Epilogue 231

References 235

Subject Index 255

Author Index 259

List of Figures

Figure P.1 Fluttering on Fences (Irene Renzenbrink) 23

Figure 4.1 Mended Heart collage (Irene Renzenbrink, 2017): 'Take your broken heart, make it into art' 93

Figure 4.2 Dorota's Golden Lady 95

Figure 4.3 The Shape of Caring (image of ceramic art, courtesy of M. O'Toole) 100

Figure 4.4 The Pain (Nicola Sherwin-Roller) 107

Figure 4.5 A Healing Symbol (Nicola Sherwin-Roller) 108

Figure 4.6 The Pain and the Healing Symbol combined (Nicola Sherwin-Roller) 109

Figure 4.7 Cartoon (Pham Thanh Tarn, 1966) 110

Figure 5.1 Dementia, E.gress, videostill (Marie Brett and Kevin O'Shanahan, 2013) 128

Figure 8.1 What Remains, charcoal on paper (Margaret Ambridge in Winter, 2017) 194

Figure 9.1 Broken Hearts cartoon (reproduced with kind permission of Michael Leunig) 195

Figure 9.2 Christchurch Cathedral (Sarah-Alice Miles) 199

Editorial Reviews

In this remarkable 'duet' for the fields of grief and the expressive arts, with unfailing pertinence and heartfelt authenticity, Renzenbrink eloquently illustrates the healing potential of the creative imagination across the loss spectrum. Against a thorough and comprehensive backdrop of traditional and current grief theories, the author courageously shares the intimate details of her personal struggles with trauma in a most readable style.

Sandra L. Bertman

A paradoxical, but unsurprising, display of how creative vitality springs forth from the most difficult conditions and inspires an embrace of life. Irene Renzenbrink presents compelling evidence of how art heals, gathered from throughout the world in an elegantly written and designed text that will persist as a hopeful guide.

Shaun McNiff

In this beautiful and deeply moving work Renzenbrink interweaves extensive professional knowledge and experience with personal story to show us that beyond suffering, hope and healing are possible, that we have within us an unshakable resilience that can be touched and nurtured by creative work. This is the most important book I have read for anyone working with grief and loss.

Sally Atkins