Does art help us move from dissociated pain, shock, horror or numbness to more grounded, connected states? Can it help us get to a part of the conscious self where traumatic experience can be processed differently than just dissociation?
Betsy Hegeman will describe clinical examples exploring these questions, where the experience of making art helps patients move from their dissociated state to one of connection. As a group, we will then consider how cultural traumatic or existential events, like global warming, are denied, and how we might work to instead incorporate cultural experiences of connection.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Betsy Hegeman, PhD, is a faculty member and a Training and Supervising Analyst at WAWI, where she co-teaches a class on trauma with Richard Gartner and Sharon Kofman. She is also a faculty member at NYU Postdoc and is professor emerita of anthropology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice where she has taught for over fifty years. Dr. Hegeman has done field work in Puerto Rico and Colombia, focusing on migration, class structure, gender and poverty. She lives in Massachusettes with her daughter and grandson.
Please join us for this moving presentation and discussion.
Frances V. Dillon, MSW and Eric Dammann, PhD, Co-Directors of the Artist Study Group