Abstract:
In der folgenden Untersuchung geht es um das seelische Leiden des Menschen. Unter „seelischem Leid des Menschen“ wird nicht eine Via Dolorosa verstanden, sondern einerseits das psychische Leiden von Personen, welches durch eine existentiell bedrohliche Erkrankung wie Krebs ausgelöst werden kann, anderseits zeigt sich beim Menschen das Phänomen, auch dann noch am Leben zu leiden, wenn alle Bedürfnisse der Person befriedigt scheinen. Auf dieses Leiden beziehen sich die Ausführungen aus spirituell philosophischer Sicht.

Ziel der Masterthesis ist die Erforschung der Fragen,
inwiefern
1. man das Leben selbst als einen künstlerischen Prozess begreifen kann,
2. eine „künstlerische Haltung“ eine Hilfe bei der Leidens- Bewältigung sein kann, die Reifeprozesse in Gang setzt und unterstützt,
3. eigenes künstlerisches Tun die Lebensqualität Krebsbetroffener verändert.


The following research will be about the soul suffering of the human being. By the term “soul suffering of the human being” I do not mean a ‘Via Dolorosa’, but psychological suffering which may be caused by an existentially threatening disease like cancer. On the other hand there is a phenomenon which shows that people still suffer if all their needs seem to be satisfied. I shall write about this sort of suffering from a spiritual and philosophical point of view.

It is the aim of this master thesis to reflect the following questions:

1. Can life as such be understood as a process of art?
2. Can an “attitude of art” be helpful in the attempt to soothe suffering and can it promote and support processes of maturity?
3. Can the action of art change the life quality of people suffering from cancer?

Abstract:
This thesis focused on a review of the pertinent literature and the field research that explored the question: How do the arts/EXA contribute to human flourishing (eudaimonia) and sustainable happiness. The literature review incorporated the ideas of Aristotle and the ancients around the idea of happiness, followed by the concept of sustainable happiness and its origins in the field of positive psychology. Also included in the literature review were the ideas of James Hillman in his re-envisioning of contemporary psychotherapy and the upholding of the expressive arts therapies as central in this re-envisioning. Finally a thorough overview of the theoretical principles and psychotherapeutic practices of EXA was presented with a specific focus on what EXA offers to the sustainable happiness discourse.
The review of the literature was followed by the field research that included three community-based workshops, offered as an introduction to EXA, and the arts-based research of the EXA therapist/researcher. The workshops were offered to three distinct groups: a small women’s group, a team-building workshop for the staff members of a newly opened community resource centre and a workshop for a cross-cultural youth group.
The findings of the field research were that EXA holds extensive and innovative intervention resources for increasing wellbeing in sustainable ways and that this in turn relates to the need to validate and recognize human suffering and to construct meaning. The finding of the paradox of bitter-sweet happiness, wherein both happiness and sadness can co-exist and are interrelated, was also an important finding.

Abstract:
“There is no place like home.” Being home is different for each of us and is more than just a roof over our heads. In this study, I will be examining the secret ingredients that give that special loving sense of warmth and security to our homes. For the expatriate community finding a home away from home adds another dimension to what is needed. This international dimension can be a confusing and chaotic experience but if the necessary steps are taken to recreate a sense of belonging it can become a rich and positive one. The expressive arts enhance the expatriate experience. Art making stimulates connection to others and the emergence of self understanding. It helps the expat to metabolize a new identity and establish roots in the new country.

Abstract:
This paper shows a change process within existing structures of a public elementary school. By means of various projects the author makes understandable how free space can be created by restructuring both the classroom and the subjects. Another access to the work is thus made possible.
The explorations with materials and various techniques, together with the tasks that are furthered, stand in the foreground. The student’s self-reliance is the focus of the individual projects. This means that the activities of the teacher have to change and adapt. The thesis gives several examples showing how the author works differently in her classroom and how these new ways of communication and work-processes help the students to develop their self concepts.

Abstract:
In this thesis, I explore numinous experience in Expressive Arts Therapy (EXA). Numinous experience, as the powerful experience of the sensed presence of a non-concrete “other”, is a variant of human experience that has often been seen as deviant, especially in a medical model of illness. Moving away from the idea of illness (hallucination or delusion) and having an appreciation for the numinous, it can be conceived as a bodily-given potential for guiding images. The expressive arts provide an approach to utilize creativity to image through all the modalities of imagination (visual images, movement, words, acts, sounds, rhythms) to encourage the emergence of works of art. The approach is artistic and the inquiry seeks to deepen experience and expand the possibilities of the numinous in the language of the arts, particularly because the experience itself is by its very nature compelling, inexplicable, and difficult to express otherwise. The arts can allow movement from the inexplicable, felt-sense numinous through the imaginative reality of artistic work and effective reality bridging to everyday life that confirms the world. The exploration is phenomenological and heuristic. The starting point is my own experience in viewing the numinous in an arts-based approach, as well as the participation of three co-researchers. The expressive arts were employed to image experience and follow the movement and direction of the images, to contain the mystery and pathos of the image within an imaginative framework, to shape and be shaped by the images, reflect on the images that have a life of their own, and to find new perspectives to contend with worldly realities and situations.