Recovery Services

Creative Recovery®

Individual Sessions and Groups

“Among the necessary initial moves toward sobriety is the directing of compassionate curiosity at oneself.”

~ Gabor Mate

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If you’re ready for real recovery, working creatively from the inside out using Expressive Arts Therapy Methods may be the answer for you.

Creative Recovery® is a creativity, somatic and mindfulness based recovery approach. It is intensive out-client recovery services that place personal resource building at the center of recovery.

The goal is to identify and develop personal resources of creativity, awareness and embodied expression.

This is an experiential expressive arts recovery approach using movement, drawing and writing to catalyze change while maintaining balance. We use expressive arts therapy techniques and exercises and work with our personal material providing a confidential and safe place to shine light on our most troubling issues in recovery.

This program works in conjunction with court-ordered IOP and 12 step recovery groups, and not a substitute. It is designed for the person who wishes to dive deeply into the recovery process and engage in a creative exploration of the themes and issues surrounding recovery. All fields of application are person-centered and self-regulated, not state-licensed, allowing you to take full responsibility for your own personal recovery.

Recovery can be challenging in many different ways. From the sense of being physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted recovering our authentic selves does not have to be filled with negativity and spiritual platitudes. As a somatic consultant and educator, I have worked creatively with many clients supporting them to become more embodied in their lives and to bring out there authentic natural selves. Working creatively with there personal material, or blocks to authenticity, brought therapeutic results that changed there lives.

Creative Recovery® uses the Tamalpa Life/Art Process® to bring the addicted person into awareness and embodied expression. When we are aware we make better life choices. When we are fully embodied we are comfortable in our own skin and able to express ourselves authentically. We find the truth about our life and our purpose on the planet. We may find that our new life in recovery has been a part of that purpose all along.

Call me for a confidential phone consultation. 408-472-1496

When we use expressive arts and mindfulness practices to address recovery, we are working creatively with our very private and personal material. Within this creative process we find a safe container that holds the energy of our pain and challenges, suspending them at a safe distance so we can begin to look at them directly, dialogue with them, illuminate them, and transform them in a constructive and life affirming way.

Why Movement Based Expressive Arts?

We move to become more embodied. When we are embodied, we are able to “be with” the things about ourselves that are uncomfortable and difficult. Our intention is a grounded and balanced stance as we express the full range of our life experiences. We are able to express ourselves fully and authentically with others.

When we activate our bodies in creative ways we become aware of our unskillful behavior or unhealthy life patterns. Expressive arts help raise self-esteem and provide an opportunity to create new life experiences beyond habitual patterns.

Expressive arts helps us express deeply held feelings and beliefs providing access to repressed memories as well as new experiences that can facilitate learning and growth.

We make friends with our shadows, activating their healthy and useful contributions.

Creative expression such as movement and drawing provide a form of expression for feelings that cannot be easily identified or put into words.

Movement gives us a glimpse at resistance and denial, allowing a connection with our contemporaries and developing a sensing of belonging.

Movement facilitates the development of alternative choices.

Working with movement teaches us to recognize the physical, emotional and mental activity that leads to resistance.

Performance enactment is an active, experiential approach to facilitating change. Through storytelling, movement explorations and improvisation, participants are invited to explore alternative behaviors and life roles.

We become more confident and alive in our interactions with others.

Movement and drawing foster a renewed ability to relax.