How Expressive Arts Therapy can Comfort Collective Pain and Cheer for Collective Joy

Jotika Chaudhary Samant (ExAT, RSW)
Vancouver, BC

Jotika is Queer, Femme of Colour. I come from a working class family and is a settler on the Musqueum, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples land. I am also an interdisciplinary artist, a community organizer, a social worker and an expressive arts therapist. I am deeply passionate about the arts as a profound and powerful tool to support a coming back into our bodies. It can be an entry point, a doorway to more self-awareness of our nervous system, to creating greater connection to what safety feels like in our bodies.

Before I was creating arts-based spaces in my communities as a Queer woman of colour and long before I went to school to become an expressive arts therapist, I was a child who created a lot of unique and imaginative art. I used accessible, easy to find materials (egg cartons, mesh from a noodle wrapper, pencil crayon shavings, etc.) to externalize what was happening in my body. Without realizing what I was doing, whenever hard things happened and I was overwhelmed by my emotions, I would delve into this world of imagination and creation to cope, to survive, to make sense of things in ways that weren’t even close to words or language. 

“Expressive art held my voice and honoured my autonomy, my resistance, my personhood as a youth. Expressive art comforted my pain and cheered for my joy. In coming to expressive arts therapy, I came to an introspective, deep, honest therapeutic process that was also my house, my home, my heart. ”

As a child I had a lot of feelings, but no teachers or guides to help me understand what it all meant. When experiences were oppressive, or when sensations and feelings in my body were too or confusing or painful, I moved towards the imagination — images, colours, writing and music. I was a child who went through the garbage and recycling to take out things I might be able to use; I still do this! I always had art projects and the beginnings of new creations strewn across my room, and other parts of the house — I also still do this!  Expressive arts creation, in all its glorious forms (drawing, painting, writing, movement, singing, theatre, etc.), has always been a vital part of my self expression; this was true well before I showed anyone else my work, and long before I ever knew that’s what I was doing.

As a young, Queer woman of colour I helped create community art spaces because I was surrounded by brilliant artists who had so much to say — so much to interrupt though their art. Like myself, these amazing creative people didn’t see themselves represented in the mainstream arts spaces. We held shows and performances in the backyard, ran art workshops in our living room, organized grassroots conference spaces and art fairs where I and artists like myself could share and sell our art to the public. Having these spaces to tell our stories, in our words, in the ways that made sense to us, helped a lot of us survive. It was a coming-of-age time for me, I grew deeper into my understanding of what it meant to be Queer. Along with other folks, I learned to see and name the ways we didn’t fit into the gender binary. We were learning to identify the many ways in which all these oppressive institutions — the gender binary, patriarchy, heterosexism, ableism — were telling us who we should be, and we were saying “No! This is who we are, and this is what we have to say.”

Grief in Process

Expressive art held my voice and honoured my autonomy, my resistance, my personhood as a youth. Expressive art comforted my pain and cheered for my joy. In coming to expressive arts therapy, I came to an introspective, deep, honest therapeutic process that was also my house, my home, my heart. It has been an intentional choice for me to centre my practice on supporting Black and Brown folks; I want to uplift their/our stories and voices in a world that has systematically tried to silence us and push us to the margins. The experiences of my youth — as an intuitive creator, and as a community organizer — helped to shape the ways that I hold space for people. I strive to center their needs and support them as they find their voice, process their hurt, their grief and their sorrow, and come to appreciate and embrace the many ways that, through healing, they are breaking patterns of abuse, neglect and intergenerational trauma.  This is anti-oppressive and anti-racist work.

In my private practice I work with folks one-to-one, I run workshops and groups; I aim for these to be spaces without judgement, places where folks can share their truths and the realness of their experiences. I teach and provide education about trauma; I support folks to understand their emotions and what is going on in their bodies when different triggers or experiences happen. For some folks it’s the first time they are learning about the different types of rest our bodies need, about how the impacts of traumatic experiences can still be affecting their life today, about how trauma literally changes and rewires our brains. I use guided arts practices with folks to support people to delve into their imagination and their unconscious mind.

For a lot of folks I work with who have been socialized as women and/or oppressed by gender roles and binary ideas of gender, hearing someone say “I see you, I believe you, your voice and opinion matter, what you said makes sense, your experiences matter they are important, you are not a burden, your needs are valid” is a necessary part of healing. So many folks I work with have been gas-lit to believe their lived reality is not important.

I’m talking about at a core level, where folks feel, that they are not allowed to take up space, share their needs and feelings, or be in spaces where they deserve to be (imposter syndrome). Many folks of colour who have been socialized as women, and/or oppressed by gender roles and binary ideas of gender, have spent so much time being told to take care of everyone else, men’s needs, and have been given absolutely no space to even know what their/our needs are. Having your experience not only acknowledged, but honoured is an experience so many folks I work with have been forced to live without, or have been gas-lit to feel their truth is not important or allowed to be.

I am a gentle, kind, caring, empathetic counsellor. I non-judgmentally and with great care hold space for folks. I can’t speak for every immigrant family or Black and Brown Queer person; I speak from my experiences and from the patterns I see in the folks I work with. A lot of folks I see have experienced immense neglect, abuse and trauma growing up. Many of us grew up in very abusive, manipulative, unhealthy, oppressive homes raised by parents and caregivers who were doing the best they could with what they had and what they knew. One of the patterns I see come up a lot with women of colour and Black and Brown folks is a deep self judgment that can be so cruel and demeaning; I see very little space for folks to have their own needs, bodies, emotions to be seen, heard or taken care of. This disconnectedness from the body and from emotion makes complete sense. Trauma does this to us; oppression does it to us; it’s is fragmenting. Creating art about one’s life and your stories is an act of resistance; it is an act of reclaiming!

Healing in Motion

This is where therapy and expressive art therapy can support folks to learn to gently and subtlety listen to what is going on inside their bodies, to support people to build skills to cope with all their emotions in their full range. For so many Black and Brown folks our bodies have been battlegrounds; unsafe places for us to be in because of complex trauma and oppression we continually experience. How do we make and find home in places that have always felt unsafe? Trauma work is powerful work; expressive arts is powerful work.

I am a survivor of violence; I spent many years living in my anger and pain. I was so disconnected from my body, in a constant state of emotional overwhelm. Art, spirituality, therapy, nature, community, love, a willingness to feel into my pain and see what else was there could be all supported my healing path — which I am still on everyday.

Healing from complex trauma is not quick, there is no one fix that will magically take away trauma. The work of trauma therapy is deep, slow, vulnerable, hard work. I am so grateful to be able to use the arts as a space to help hold what my clients bring — the arts as a place for folks to land and be in their healing journey.

This work is transforming in that it can support people to make sense of feelings, sensations, emotions, roots about old stories they have had about who they are and their lives. This work is anti-oppressive because it gives people what is theirs: their voice, their power and reminders of who they are. It’s such an honour to hold space with and for people. Folks’ courage inspires me and I deeply respect the strength it takes to go to therapy, to say “something isn’t working and I want to work towards making changes.” People share the deepest, most vulnerable stories of their lives with me and I don’t take that lightly. The healing is reciprocal; I gain and learn something from every person I work with.