In my Multicultural Perspectives in Art Therapy and Counseling With Diverse Populations class, I wrote my cultural humility exploration paper about “Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the 21st Century”, edited by Alice Wong.  Divided into four parts, “Disability Visibility” includes personal essays by thirty-seven authors living with disabilities.  Each essay offers a unique perspective on specific disabilities, often emphasizing their intersections with multiple marginalized identities.  Throughout this book, I felt shocked and angry at how little I understood about disabled experiences.  For example, I had no idea that one in five Americans live with a disability.

 

As I read through various chapters, I was struck by the diversity of experiences within the disability community.  As a mostly able-bodied person, my assumptions about quality of life and accessibility were challenged as I gained a greater awareness of my privileges and cultural blindspots.  The degree of marginalization for persons with disabilities was much greater than I had imagined, with many unduly suffering or even dying from a lack of external support and resources.  Additionally, I learned that those living in social isolation and experiencing abuse within institutions often have much poorer outcomes than those living communally integrated lives.

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I particularly loved the worldview of disability advocacy and culture.  Late capitalism’s ever-increasing demand for us to participate in constant production has led many Americans to experience severe burnout and poor health.  In particular, the individualist ethos of pulling oneself up by their bootstraps makes it extremely difficult for anyone to practice self-care and maintain sustainable lifestyles.  For persons with disabilities who require interdependence, cooperation, and inclusive systems to survive, this ethos can be a death sentence.  Disability culture asks us all to slow down, reimagine exclusive capitalist systems, and work to create a more loving, supportive, and interdependent world in which all persons have the resources they need to participate and thrive.

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Please click here to read my full essay reflection.

In my Art Therapy Techniques and Materials class, I completed an adaptive tool art directive.  Throughout this class, I had been utilizing the same materials and techniques: paper, dry media, and a ruler.  While idiosyncratic, my art stayed within the same range on the Expressive Therapies Continuum.  The result was that I stayed within the same perceptual, cognitive, and symbolic range to address issues that may have benefited from exploring affective, kinesthetic, and sensory states.  When designing my adaptive tool, I decided to break the mold and apply watercolor with far less control on a blank sheet of watercolor paper with no geometric framework.  To engineer a lack of control in my watercolor application, I bypassed my hands and tied a string to two of my paintbrushes.  One knot at the metal crimp and another at the back of the wooden handle allowed me to dangle and stabilize the brush in a downward position.  To bypass my hands, I secured the brush to my left wrist by tying a wide loop on the end of the string and then I draped the remainder of the string’s slack over my right wrist.  Together, my wrists became a pulley system that I could utilize to adjust the brush’s distance from the paper and color palette.

 

Overall, the process was invigorating and allowed me to have a purely affective and kinesthetic experience.  As I moved my hips, torso, and arms, I felt some interesting guttural emotions arise and release through my strokes.  I believe this modality could benefit clients with similar blockages within their bodies who need to lose control and allow emotional energy to flow more freely from their gut and heart regions.  If a client presented as depressed, under-aroused, having a low affect, or dissociated, I may encourage them to address their bodily blockages in this manner.  Additionally, clients with a physical disability or certain motor impairments that decrease control may find this paint application liberating and exciting.  While I would still have to assist the client in washing and changing out brushes, I believe this adaptive tool assignment was a good first step at considering a more seamless process for clients with such disabilities or impairments.

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Please click here to read my full essay reflection.

As an art therapist, I may be working with clients recovering from substance use disorder (SUD), who are struggling with a combination of three key factors: input, biology, and environment.  These factors may involve abusing substances as a maladaptive means of chemically rebalancing themselves (input), activating genetic proclivities for addiction (biology), and existing in a “rat cage”, totally isolated from social support systems (environment).  Current research shows that ketamine-assisted psychotherapy has promising results in the treatment of SUDs, particularly with alcoholism.  The illegality of all other psychedelic medicines makes many safe and efficacious treatments for addiction highly inaccessible.

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This is why I vehemently oppose the racist “War on Drugs”.  When I worked for a year as a legal assistant with defendants in the Texas criminal justice system, I witnessed the direct effects of the “War on Drugs” and how many of our clients were locked up and separated from their families due to drug possession charges.  Some of them were low-income people of color stuck in private prisons that profited off of their high incarceration rates and recidivism.  Despite Black and White Americans using substances at the same rates, Black Americans are far more likely to be racially profiled, incarcerated, and exploited for their labor.  It is no secret that the prison system is an extension of slavery-era chain gangs, designed to turn prisoners into coerced, cheap, and exploited laborers.  This punitive system did not prioritize healing, growth, or positive behavioral change.

 

To begin the process of healing this horrifically racist trauma cycle, I agree that the United States should follow Switzerland’s four-pillar model, which includes needle exchange programs, safe injection rooms, and shelters within its prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcement protocols.  In the meantime, psychedelic medicines such as cannabis, ibogaine, psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, and mescaline should be moved down from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Schedule I status.  The conflation of these psychedelic medicines with high-risk and low-benefit substances like heroin is misleading to the general public and perpetuates social stigmas that prevent legal and medical progress.  Lastly, reparations should be retroactively made to those who were affected by the criminalization of psychedelic medicines by expunging their criminal records.  Further, enacting new policies such as pre-trial diversion programs that refer people arrested for small quantities of substances to drug treatment can result in more successful rehabilitations without criminal convictions. 
 

Please click here to read my full essay reflection.

In my History of Art Therapy: Founders and Foundations class, I painted a geometric abstraction to honor the indigenous American traditions of healing fiber arts and psychedelic medicine.  Throughout my research, I was inspired by Navajo rug-making and Shipibo shamanic weaving.  Indigenous American weaving is about more than the art product; it is a holistic and integrated life practice designed to sustain humankind through generational trauma.  This powerful medicine supports mental health through society's systemic and existential repair.  For example, it is remarkable how weaving aided the Navajo people in surviving genocide within the reservation and boarding school environments.  Without any buffalo to hunt or established economies to support themselves, they utilized their sacred creative tradition of weaving to earn a living in the face of severe oppression and trauma.  Similar to prior Navajo weavings that were originally worn, their rugs have roots in the mythical Navajo creation story, in which the “Diné” (Navajo people) were led to the Southwest by the “ye’ii” (Holy People) and taught to weave by Spider Man and Spider Woman.  Individually, the symbolism of these rugs can only be defined by the Navajo artists who created them; however, there is a collective concept of “hozho”, in which each weaver preserves the combined elements of order, beauty, balance, and harmony.  Ultimately, these rugs are testaments to the Navajo culture’s resilience and ability to bond the tribe throughout the generations.

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Additionally, the Shipibo tribe of Peru has utilized weaving as a therapeutic tool that allows them to commune with the natural world.  Rich and colorful, their geometric textile patterns synthesize Shipibo herbalism, shamanic religion, and visionary arts.  Within these traditions, the Shipibo first cleanse their bodies by fasting and then ingest indigenous medicinal plants harvested from their local Amazon rainforest.  Shamans known as “curanderos” perform medicinal songs called “icaros" inspired by these plants.  In response to the icaros, the Shipibo women weave tapestries, which may be worn as skirts, enjoyed as blankets, or used in ceremonial practice.  Wisdom and protection are common themes that may be symbolized by serpents, plants, or crosses within the Shipibo tribe’s tapestries.  Each unique design is considered to be able to heal a variety of mental, emotional, or spiritual ailments.  Altogether, this creative communion between the Shipibo people and their natural environment engenders a sense of spiritual and medicinal holism, which sustains their mental and physical wellness.  Shipibo rituals celebrate the fundamental belief that medicinal plants can teach humankind valuable spiritual lessons, and the relationship between the audio and visual worlds shapes how the Shipibo conceive and express their visions of these plant teachings.​

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Please click here to read my full annotated bibliography.

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Please click the image below to view my full artwork.