Reflections OATA 2021. Group Supervision.
Susan and I share our appreciative reflections below after attending the OATA 2021 virtual group supervision in June facilitated by Hannah Sherebrin.
Reflections.
Facilitating a needed “Pause” through the One Canvas approach.
Thank you Hannah for bringing us into a relaxed and peaceful place beginning with meditative moments and breath work (connecting to the spirit), and then quietly easing us from that state of grounding and embodiement into a supportive creative space where exploration, and self reflection could flourish.
For those of us who participated in this group supervision online, Hannah generously gifted us through her words of guidance, gentle questioning and wise attunement. By creating this regulating space she transported us into a virtual art therapy capsule - an open-ended, art-making, and sensory space where self-directed expression, sharing and her community supervision approach are based on the ‘one-canvas’ supervision model.
Collectively we were invited to each visualize our own comforting and safe place or special locale, then move into responsive art-making. As therapists we chose this necessary time to explore our thoughts and feelings and where we might be feeling ‘stuck’ within our practice - in the safety of a supportive community. It is only through engaging in these moments of self-care, (and) explorative processing and reflection that we can support our own personal regulation. We need to have ease of access, and ready access to our safe place in order to be truly present, to provide co-regulation with others, and to expand our window of tolerance as situations arise.
Hannah led us by example, readily demonstrating the process and encouraging us to get started and to use any media that we liked, or that we had on hand. She used paint and a brush, but we were given free rein in choosing any media on our own canvas.
Later on, Hannah also shared two canvases that she had worked on during Covid. She showed us a completed diptych where she had used the ‘one canvas’ process to explore her own needs. As Hannah shared a cumulative work that she had created over a lengthy period of time, she made this process even more tangible for us; combining a tactile use of mixed two and three dimensional media; and including word-paths in both English and Hebrew in her narrative..
As a clinician, Hannah embodies deeply complex knowledge of the therapeutic arts as ways of knowing how to connect the mind, body and emotions, so that they can be implemented, safely-modeled and shared. The layers within the one-canvas process reflect(ed) the layers of our experiences as individuals and therapists - the shifts, transitions and changes that are constantly happening around us. Having this in-progress canvas can be reflective of all the layers of our experience.(s) An in-progress art piece is accessible to us for continued modification and - where our feelings and ideas can be revisited for further reflection and guidance. This process involves and attends to us evolving, with everything we do.
Also the accessibility of a piece of art that can exist within the ‘in-progress continuum ‘ becomes available to support us through our journey and through many unknowns. Hannah advised, that when we leave space for the unknowns we befriend them, and we begin to accept that not everything is comfortable and needs to be known. We surrender our desire for constant control, allowing us to pause, to be in the moment, and to be part of the here and now.
Even when we think we might be done - the art continues to evolve with ongoing alterations and added layers, whenever something arises that we need to express. This cumulative process on the canvas symbolizes our own progression, and how we work and change over time. We can actually see where we have come from and ultimately how we have changed. There are always experiences left over from the past, and these can be seen on the canvas in places that didn’t change – as the legacy and gift to and for our ongoing personal development.
Susan & April
Susan Beniston, MFA, ATR-BC, RCAT • Founder of Sheridan’s Art Hive Initiative, Oakville Campus
April Penny • BFA BED RCAT RP • Creative Connections • TATI Faculty • OATA Board
Follow Hannah.
Hannah Sherebrin • Dip AT OATR, ATR-BC
• Website: www.loremartis.com
• Weekly Blog: Loremartis Weekly Blog
• Hannah is an Art Therapist and Supervisor with a Small Private Practice in Israel and Canada.
One Canvas Method.
Abbe Miller (2012) Inspired by El Duende: One-Canvas Process Painting in Art Therapy Supervision, Art Therapy, 29:4, 166-173, DOI: 10.1080/07421656.2013.730024 • Article link
