Poiesis

Stephen K. Levine is Associate Professor of Social Science and Social and Political Thought at York University, Toronto. He is the Chairperson of CREATE (the Creative and Expresive Arts Therapies Exchange) and co-Training Director at ISIS-Canada, a training programme in expressive arts therapy.

• Foreword Paolo Knill. Introduction. 1. Psychotherapy and the Arts. 2. The Artist as Therapist: Towards a Poetic Psychology. 3. The Idea of Integration in the Arts Therapies. 4. The Play of Imagination: On the Possibility of Expressive Therapy. 5. Bearing Gifts to the Feast: The Presentation as a Rite of Passage in the Education of Expressive Therapists. 6. Image Abuse and the Dialectic of Interpretation. 7. The Dialectic of Creativity: From Innocence to Experience and Back Again. 8. The Myth of Orpheus: Poetry as a Healing Art. 9. 'And Yet' Poetry After Auschwitz. 10. Brooklyn Memories.

Examining not only psychological, but also selected philosophical, existential, moral and pedagogical aspects of utilizing aesthetic processes to alleviate human suffering, Levine emerges as an ardent and thoughtful practitioner of the arts in healing, founding his advocacy in the etymology of the word "suffering": "to hold up from underneath". For Levine, cultivating poiesis in the healing arts supports a more fully human being through creative engagement that gives value and meaning to experience.