Dr. Natalie Rogers, Ph.D., R.E.A.T.
This
is an interview by Lisa Tenzin-Dolma for her upcoming book, Mind
and Motivation to be published in the United Kingdom. It will
be included in her chapter titled, “Success”.
Natalie
Rogers, Ph.D., is a pioneer in expressive arts therapy. She is an
author, artist, psychotherapist and group facilitator. She founded
and is now faculty Emeritus of the Person-Centered Expressive Therapy
Institute, Cotati, California. She has taken this training to Europe,
Russia, Latin America, Japan as well as the United States.
Her
first book, Emerging Woman: A Decade of Midlife Transitions
is a personal/political statement of her life between age 40 and
60. The Creative Connection: Expressive Arts as Healing documents
her work in person-centered counselling. Natalie is a full professor
(adjunct) at the California Institute of Integral Studies, the Institute
of Transpersonal Psychology, and Distinguished Consulting Faculty
at Saybrook Graduate School. In 1998, Natalie received the first
Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Expressive Arts
Therapy Association for being “a pioneer in the field of integrative
arts therapy, education and consultation”.
Natalie
is the daughter of Carl Rogers, one of the founders of the humanistic
psychology movement, and is the executor of his published works.
She has produced a CD-ROM titled: Carl Rogers: A Daughter’s
Tribute, available online
here.
The
interview with Natalie took place two months after the terrorist
attack on the World Trade Centre and The Pentagon in the United
States, followed by the war on terrorism. As the ripples from these
tragedies spread across the globe, Natalie wanted to speak first
about that situation in the context of her healing work, and to
then discuss the results and implications of her expressive arts
training program.
(to the top of the next column)
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Interview
with Dr. Natalie Rogers©, page 1 of 3
Natalie:
Lisa, we are talking about my work, and success, but I have some
thoughts about the current world situation, and how expressive arts
can help us after the terrorist attacks in the United States, the
“war on terrorism”, and in any world crisis. Would it
be appropriate to start with that?
Lisa:
Yes, Natalie, that would be very helpful.
Natalie:
Well, I’m realizing that with the September 11th terrorist
tragedies in the United States, the whole place for expressive arts
therapy is timely. It is timely for those of us who are capable
of facilitating the healing of the grief, the anger, the pain, and
the sense of hopelessness. It is time for us to move into the community
to help people regain their sense of personal empowerment. I’m
not quite sure how to do this personally, in my own community, but
I think that now is the time, because people are coming out of their
shock, and into their feelings of anger and devastation, —particularly
their hopelessness. What occurs to me is that the principles of
humanistic psychology are so important right now, because for people
to heal themselves they need to be able to have a new vision. They
need to be able to tune into their own feelings of grief, anger
and hopelessness in a person-centred environment in order to move
through them and then to imagine and act on their ideas of a more
harmonious society.
Not all psychological theories really believe in this process,
—the process of acknowledging and accepting one’s deepest
feelings as a way to transform them—but I do. I believe most
humanistic psychologists do. Of course, the arts are a language.
A language to connect with our inner self, and a language to express
our feelings and thoughts to other people ñ whether it’s
our therapist, or a group, or the world. My sense is that we could
use movement, art, sound, and drama to help people tune into their
own inner truth around these world issues, and help them to express
it in these non-verbal, very creative processes. Recently my own
art has helped me with my feelings about the tragedies and my government’s
response. The spontaneous art I did came totally from the unconscious,
which is where we need to go to really release these feelings. What
emerged in a very quick painting were many little stick figures,
-- many souls -- they were all leaving the earth. This did not come
out of a thought process, or of thinking “Well, all these people
have died, and I’m going to help release their souls”.
It just happened. Often that’s the way expressive art tells
us who we are and what we are thinking and feeling. In the same
picture there is a dark angel hovering over the situation. In another
quick picture I put a great big “X”, saying “No more
war. No more killing of innocent people!” I have a collage
that carries out that theme, as well. It has a wolf face with intense
blue eyes and the caption I cut out to go with him says, “Face
the Fury!”
Lisa:
That’s very powerful, Natalie.
Natalie:
One of the reasons I bring this up is that of course, this particular
situation is awful, and we have to learn, as a world community,
how to face our own shadow; our own fear, our revenge reaction,
and our ability to be violent. We need to overcome or move through
these feelings towards attitudes of compassion and love, understanding,
and to look at ways for conflict resolution and negotiation.
I think the arts do play a role in this. We all know how music,
around the world, helps heal people, because it is a language coming
from a different state of consciousness (continued)
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