New York Expressive Arts writing
WRITING ABOUT THE EXPRESSIVE ARTS
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MARKUS ALEXANDER • SUSANA ARMBRUSTER • YVONNE LUCIA • STEVE PODRY • JUDITH PREST • DENIE WHALEN • REBEKAH WINDMILLER

Featured writer: Markus Alexander
Geoffrey “Markus” Scott-Alexander, MA, REAT, CAGS, (PhD Candidate) is the founder of World Arts Organization and Glass Lake Studio. He has served as core faculty for New York Expressive Arts training since 1986 and is a faculty member of the European Graduate School.

Addressing Self-Consciousness
The greatest deterrent to the clients’ ability to have a voice is self-consciousness. Needing to sound right. Needing to sound good. Needing or wanting a voice based on what they have heard outside themselves, apart from themselves. Comparing destroys playfulness; the dis-ease of self consciousness is continually exacerbated by the clients’ incessant comparing themselves to others.

When the flute-like voice compares itself to the saxophone personality, it is doomed to feelings of inadequacy. Likewise, when the saxophone personality becomes self-involved, it is also self-conscious in a self-involved way. What is the way out of this conundrum and constriction, this potentially crippling self-consciousness? A significant key is enjoyment, beginning with increasing the clients’ ability to enjoy their voice – as is. There is always somewhere to go, something to develop. At the least, however, playfulness is extremely hampered when the clients are self-conscious, experiencing the sound of their voice as inadequate, unrefined, or in any way less than their fantasy of what their voice should be.

Enjoyment of the voice ‘as is,’ is where it can begin, delighting in the ‘as is’-ness of it. This is usually essential to progress. Delighting in the ‘as is’-ness of the voice translates or has the capability of translating/transferring into other areas. For example, moving as is, the rabbit not comparing itself to how the tiger moves. Without this first step in the healing journey of the voice as is, there is little possibility for subtlety. Without a core of simple, honest delight of the voice in its relaxed state, any explorations are contrived, fake bravado with little possibility of there being a lasting therapeutic effect.

The other arena of self-consciousness is the realm of the voice in silence. Self- consciousness in silence is deadly. Awkwardness, discomfort, restlessness are all aspects of self-consciousness. The capacity to be still, gentled, and quiet at any time must be nurtured and encouraged – taught, in order for the clients to have a voice that grows out of their own being. We of the expressive arts community mustn’t skip over the importance, preciousness, and essentialness of comfort with the quiet, the silence – the rests in the line of music being made.

Quietude. Time to collect, gather, reflect, ponder, feel, moving gently in or slowly back out. Silence needn’t be stagnant…

Teaching clients to have a relaxed, full, enjoyable silence, alone and with others is essential. A full voice comes out of a full silence.

Delighting in the fullness of silence can come before or after expression. It must be a part of the ongoing understanding of the flow and expression of the voice, however. An antidote to self-consciousness can be enjoyment. The expressive arts therapist’s comfort with his or her silence models its essential place in play-ground…silence as essential to play and to the ground played upon. Without a delight in silence, the quiet voice is misunderstood. The palpable power of silence can be experienced by the therapist and client alike. The subtle, gentle beginnings of expression from that silence can then be appreciated and carefully tended to.

Tending and coaxing the voice out of its silence is only one side of the equation. The silence after the storm also has inestimable value. Feeling the effects of expression in the silent space where reverberations pulsate upon the heart, body and mind…and if we’re lucky, touching the Soul as well. Feeling the effects of expression in all the nooks and crannies of our psyches that, that voice on that day touches. The silence – the place where surprise has all the room it needs to do its job in the creative process.

…a holding back, sustaining, containing,
waiting attentively,
getting to the ‘wanting’…
—M. Fuchs-Knill