Part two: Collective Anxiety and Healing through the Arts

IACAET 东西对话系列: 稳定与破局 – 艺术康复 艺术·身心·生命（第六季)，第二场：艺术治愈与集体焦虑

Time: 8-9:30am New York / 1-2:30pm London / 8:00-9:30pm Beijing

November 13, 2022

While the term collective anxiety isn’t something new, it is, somehow feeling different to its usual connotations. It has become more of a collection of various senses and perceptions of an experience of stressfulness that seem to permeate through social threads of communities. How do we construct environments that heal this kind of complex stress?

In this 1.5 hr. interactive seminar,  Dr. Zarate will highlight topics of collective anxiety that are linked to global health concerns, such as access to healthcare, poverty cycles, and global warming eco-anxiety. Living through a global pandemic has shifted focus on how certain mechanisms such as the Arts can support safer, sustainable and vibrant environments. In order to develop these generative experiences, it is important to learn from each other regarding how to harness these powerful tools to operate them effectively in wider, larger social and cultural landscapes. It begins with community action, and applying the Arts that we know which lead towards change in our minds, our bodies, and our hearts. It requires interplay with human and non-human life that looks towards sustainable health and mental health practices in and across community and cultural borderlands. It requires looking at the opposites and finding the intersections. Finding a way through the static of anxiety can be daunting and feel impossible. But, when we look at the broader landscape and begin to understand the contexts of things that operate around us, it helps to understand how those cause a ripple effect in our collective consciousness and experience. When we combine our collective knowledge of the Arts as an anti-stress movement, we can move towards healing and shared sustained, positive and productive collective affect.

This webinar will be curated by and in dialogue with our Chinese colleagues and consists of lecture, discussion and Q&A.

There is English-Chinese translation for this webinar which will be recorded and accessed by all IACAET members.

Speakers

Dr. Rebecca Zarate

Dr. Rebecca Zarate is an Associate Professor of music therapy in the department of Expressive Therapies at Lesley University, USA with 27 years of practice and research in mental health and trauma – informed music therapy. She is a music psychotherapist, musician, researcher, and educator of music therapy and the arts therapies. Her research focuses on anxiety and improvisation-based music therapy and she has secured several program and research development grants. Dr. Zarate is interested in the clinical, social, and cultural intersections of anxiety, and writes and presents on this from clinical, critical, and cultural perspectives. Her latest project is an authored book on music psychotherapy and anxiety in social, community, and clinical contexts (in press). She leads the music and mental health lab She and is dedicated to translating clinical and educational knowledge of music as a sustainable health mechanism.

XiJing Chen

Xijing Chen is an assistant professor at the institute of psychology, Chinese academy of sciences. She is a certified music therapist issued by both Chinese Music Therapy Association and Chinese Professional Music Therapist Association. She has been engaged in the practice and research of music therapy for nearly two decades. She is the deputy secretary general of the Chinese Music Therapy Association and the vice chairman of the Chinese Professional Music Therapist Association.

Haiping Guo

Founder of Chinese Outsider Art Therapy, chief editor of “Outsider Art Series”, director of International Association for Creative Art Education and Therapy (IACAET) in China, professional committee member of International Expressive Art Analysis Association (IAEAA), expert of “National Painting Psychological Practice and Application Summit Forum”. In 1989, he founded the Art Analysis Department of Nanjing Adolescent Psychological Counseling Service Center, and joined the Chinese Mental Health Association in 1989. In 1991, he joined the member of the first Health Committee of Jiangsu Branch of Chinese Preventive Medical Association. In 2010, he founded the first outsider art center in China serving the patients with mental illness and the recovered. In 2014, he founded Nanjing Community Outsider Art Studio.

Hosts

Ruixiang Hong

Hong Ruixiang, PhD. of Tsinghua University, Visiting Scholar of Harvard University, and lecturer of National Academy of Education Administration, China. He is passionate about Educational drama, Art Education, drama therapy and Values education. Recipient of the golden mask award of drama education, China, and the prize of Excellent Educational Empirical Dissertation, China.

Katee Shen

Certified Movement Analyst, Certified Mental Health Counselor, Professional interpreter in the field of somatics education and DMT, Trained as a DMT through the American Dance Therapy Association, Program Manager with Inspirees, Co-Creator of BodyMind Union, Regional Director of China for IACAET. As one of the pioneers and practitioners of Dance/Movement Therapy and Laban/Bartenieff Movement System in China, Katee Shen integrates creative arts into courses and activities emphasizing embodied experiences for different populations.