Day 29 – What does "care" mean to me?

Day 29 - I’ve been working with a writing coach – shout out to Mace Dent Johnson!  Mace has really helped me get organized, focused, and clearer about what and why I am writing what I want to write.  I’m working on the article about the professionalization of expressive arts therapy, and on an article about the application of critical pedagogy and social justice to expressive arts therapy, and a few other smaller pieces.  Each of the pieces are related and so it’s been somewhat difficult to figure out how and why to separate each piece, and Mace’s guidance and prompts have been particularly helpful.  It has also just helped to be “in dialogue.”  I think it’s something I really needed intellectually and emotionally, but also in order to write!

 

Today Mace asked me the question:

In your ExAT practice, what does care mean to you? 

This is related to the work I’ve been doing on understanding Disability Justice and the “ethics of care.”

 

My raw thoughts were:

In my practice, I am always looking for ways to meet the person [or people I am working with] where they are with respect and an understanding of their multiple ways of being in the world.  I believe that attending to, caring for and about, and “showing up” for them is “care.”  “Caring for” means approaching their physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual experience with openness, concern, curiosity, and compassion. “Caring about” means holding those experiences as precious - as gifts/invitations to be in relationship (with me, themselves, and others) in specific ways.  I also am inviting my imagination and theirs to consider empathy, metaphor, artistic expression and/or remembrance as a way of relating to these invitations. I bring [or see] my “difference” [just who I am as a separate person] as a reminder that there is no “singular” experience - that there is always a “we” happening.

 

This led to the idea that Interdependence is fundamental, the ExAT space is a reminder of that for both parties.

 

This writing surprised me.  I think it’s my definition of the kind of “therapeutic” relationship I strive for with folks.  We also talked about the notion of reciprocity, and while I believe that the folks I work with know themselves better than I know them, and are ultimately responsible for themselves in a way I am not, it is not a “reciprocal” relationship, because they are not responsible for caring for me.  I am responsible for maintaining my boundaries such that my vulnerabilities, needs and issues do not become theirs to manage or care for.  It’s tricky because I do believe that a co-regulating process does take place, but I need to be as clear as I can that I am responsible for my own self-regulation where they may be wanting my help with that, and I am offering that.

 

Okay – this is tricky.  I’m going to keep working on it, but it’s a start at understanding the ways that “justice” and “respect” and “responsibility” are starting to clarify for me in new ways.  

 

What does care mean to you in your practice?