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Hello, everyone. I hope you all have been well. In South Australia, while the weather has been very lovely as it has been sun shining most of the days, we have experienced no rain. This is worrying for us as we constantly experience climate change. The temperature dropped down recently too. Australian houses are usually cold and I am wearing three pairs of socks at home! I hope you stay warm and cozy. In this newsletter, I am going to talk about reading and my research project. Happy reading!
Reading
I recently have been immersing myself in reading professional articles and books, as per the requirements of my research project, training (the Somatic Intersubjective Self-Psychology Psychotherapy Training), and teaching a new subject. I always wished my first language was English. I wish I were a bookworm like my mother. The more I read, the more vocabulary I have not come across. After I finished my MA degree, I can’t recall if I have ever sat down and read so many articles. I have been enjoying doing so, but also feel daunted. I was wondering so hard why the reading process makes me feel so overwhelmed. I think I am delving into the world of the unknown; as you begin to master any skill, you feel more confident with what you do. That is amazing. However, from knowing to some extent, to going unknown, it needs adjustment in the thinking. Being unknown is such a theme for psychotherapists and we are told to get more comfortable with not knowing. Yes, Casement talks about it. So does Winnicott. I was speaking about this feeling to one of my training course trainers. She beautifully and simply said, “Mioi, it (your training journey ) might be relaxing (yourself) into being in the not knowing. It is a vulnerable place to be in.” This experience of her understanding my struggles was warm and it felt understood. So simple yet so important.
Research – What is it for?
As I announced in the last newsletter, I began my first research project. I am interested in the phenomena of children who experienced preverbal trauma regressing bodily to the womb stage in a therapeutic context. I have Dr. Caroline Frizell (senior dance movement psychotherapist, lecturer, supervisor, and researcher) as my research mentor for the next few months. We have mentoring sessions fortnightly to discuss the direction of my research, methodologies, ideas, etc. As I needed to understand a research methodology, Caroline sent me her article that struck me so much. Caroline interviewed eight parents whose children were born with Down's syndrome. Some of the themes that arose from the interviews were a life worth living, finding a language to speak about disability, and issues of belonging (Frizell, 2020). I found the stories in this article were so living, real, and personal too. The narratives explain how the parents receive news of having a child with a learning disability from the professionals and how this is perceived by their extended families and friends. While reading it, I recalled my personal experience; after the sonographer scanned our 12-week-old daughter, she simply said, “Let’s pull the chairs.” This sentence remained with us as fresh as yesterday. I expected to hear something bad. We were told we might have a chance of having a child with Down's syndrome. This experience challenged us to think about what it could be like to welcome a child with a disability. After many sleepless nights, I received a call from a professional while waiting at the bus stop and was told that my child had no problem. After the phone call, I felt something behind me. I looked back and found a teenage girl with Down's syndrome waving at me with a big smile. I cannot forget this.
Frizell informs readers that the interviewed parents encountered socially and culturally constructed disappointments that were expressed sometimes unintentionally by people around them. This article helped me to think about the emotional, social, and cultural impacts on parents and what it is like to live with discrimination and prejudices. Frizell concludes in this article that she begins to imagine what it would be like if the birth of a baby with Down’s Syndrome was celebrated as a life well worth living and an opportunity to perceive life differently (Frizell, 2020, p. 18). Caroline said in a mentoring session, “Dance movement psychotherapists are doing research not to prove what we are doing is right. But our research focuses on helping other practitioners think about the world differently and practice." As I am now deepening my understanding of what research in creative arts therapies (CTA) means, this was such a shift in my understanding of research in CATs. In a few months, I will write more about my research direction. I am sitting with an exciting project now.
Frizell, C (2020). Learning Disability Imagined Differently: an evaluation of interviews with parents about discovering that their child has Down’s Syndrome. Disability & Society. Routledge. DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2020.1816904
Thank you for reading my newsletter. Stay warm!
Kind regards,
Mioi Forster, Adelaide, SA
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