ABOUT FREDA

When we were ready to dive into the arts, we were in the midst of certifying as a FWB practitioner (Focusing with the Whole Body). A dream depicted that we were taking the wrong direction train. The call of hour was immediate change of direction

We enrolled in the 2017 FOAT® training program with Dr. Laury Rappaport (FOAT®: Focusing Oriented Expressive Arts), took additional trainings in trauma-informed Expressive Arts and Person-centred Creative Arts, and suscribed to a university art therapy program and practical art couses. This comprehensive training bundle turned out to set us on the right track

 

We had been visiting the Saintbury Center (art gallery and museum) at the campus of University of East Anglia UEA/UK during the UEA Focusing and Philosophy Conference in 2011

The center's art shop layed out a picture depicting a full circle in four parts waiting to be put together. Finding this picture it hit us on a sudden: Our efforts of bringing our Focusing profession to completion were still in a puzzle state. A PhD at UEA looked the perfect match to come to professional completion, and we prepared for a PhD with Judy Moore and Campbell Purton as UEA supervisors

Our Phd thesis was to be on models of intermodal experiential learning. We had witnessed how intermodal teaching of Focusing was fading away in the German Focusing community. Experimenting with intermodal didactics had been natural to our Focusing teachers of the pioneer generation. A new generation of Focusing teachers wanted to teach in more standardized ways, and we were unwilling to follow this trend

Unexpectedly, life turned into other direction than expected. Living in the UK as a European PhD student was no longer an option. As we could not find the missing piece of our professional puzzle in a doctorate program in Germany (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz 2014-2016), we left the German program with unfinished PhD work

The missing piece seemed to be found outside of our linguistic culture only

 

The art training bundle we compiled years later was revealing that the outside culture place was to be found in the aesthetics. Our professional completion was linked to non-native vocabulary. It was bloming in experiential felt arts languages

Through trial and error we could identify the missing piece. It was experimenting practically along circular loops of experiential slow art (artmaking containing the one move of creating and aesthetically re-experiencing what we just had been creating)

We found that experiential artmaking calls on all the senses to serve the body's next right step, and studied the theory of polyaesthetics

We discovered that artmaking in itself is not a safe place (the setting of art fascilitation is the safe place)

We did not expect artmaking being risky (but it was) and were surprized by its energizing power once risks were taken

We realized that arts are using a language of deconstruction and reconstruction that leads to no right nor wrong

We learned that art is culture-bound and found out that artmaking can bypass cultural structure-boundness the moment we get connected to our creative instincts

What we found in experiential Felt Arts as essence were new grounds for living a sensual Focusing life to the full

Art Therapist AT (Diploma of Advanced Studies DAS) | Advanced Person-Centred Creative Arts Practitioner | Guided Drawing® Practitioner | Focusing Oriented Expressive Arts FOAT® Practitioner

TIFI Certifying Coordinator | TIFI Focusing Oriented Therapist FOT | TIFI Focusing Trainer | TIFI Focusing Professional FOAT®

Person-centred and Experiential Psychotherapist/Counselor PCT with Diploma in Existential Wellbeing Counseling

Clinical Psychologist CP (GRAD) (BA, MA) | Registered non-medical Practitioner for Psychotherapy

Adult Educator Ed (GRAD) (MA) with undergraduate degree in Design Techniques