| "Embodying Change: The Transformative Power of Expressive Arts and Ritual," is an heuristic study exploring eight women's experiences of creating and performing original self-portrait rituals using the Halprin Life/Art Process. The study examines the combined roles of the body, the expressive arts and ritual in the processes of women's change and growth. The co-researchers are participants in an expressive arts therapy training program at Tamalpa Institute in California which is dedicated to exploring creative arts processes that unite personal and artistic growth.;The co-researchers, aged 25--80, represent a culturally diverse group of women from the United States of America, Argentina, Germany, Hungary, Austria and New Zealand. Five of the co-researchers were immersed in the experience of creating and performing their own self-portrait rituals using the Halprin Life/Art Process at the time of the inquiry. The study tracks their experiences as they engage movement, dance, painting, poetry, storytelling and ritual to confront some of the challenging legacies of war, illness, loss, addiction and abuse in a therapeutic context. Through the body mythology and self-portrait ritual process described in this study, the coresearchers symbolically lay down some of the unhealthy patterns that are no longer serving them as women, to move forward into more authentic, embodied, artful, and spirited lives.;The literature review lays a theoretical foundation for the use of the expressive arts, myth and ritual in psychology with particular reference to women's psychology and women's health. Releasing ritual from its religious and occult contexts, the study examines ritual and the expressive arts as therapeutic agents of change which can help people face important turning points in their lives, and midwife in new patterns of behavior.;Presenting a combination of verbatim quotes, artwork and poetry created by the coresearchers, the study highlights key concepts that may be relevant to a biopsychospiritual model of feminine change and growth. The videotape Women's Rites: Remembering the Wisdom of the Body acts as the creative synthesis of the study and brings the self-portrait ritual experience to life for the viewer. The limitations of the study are acknowledged and suggestions for further research are included. |
