

by Athina Copteros
There is a lot of joy in the coming together of our modalities in the Arts Therapy Scope of Practice. Our collaborative, shared efforts make our therapeutic modalities known, understood and accessible. Connecting in the South African space is critical as well as internationally.
I have been invited to join the International Authentic Movement Teachers’ Inquiry Group. This group came about after the International Association for Creative Arts in Education and Therapy (IACAET) began a series of webinars in 2020-21, which introduced both the Discipline and the practice of Authentic Movement (AM) to international audiences. The first webinar was coordinated and presented by Rosa Maria Govoni and Marcia Plevin with Janet Adler as guest speaker. The co-ordinators are now creating an opportunity to gather together a small group of long term AM practitioners, teachers and authors from different parts of the world to discuss AM within a wider scope.
These are some of the issues we will be engaging with, relating to the practice of AM:
1. How is the witness’s ability to “see” and be “present” with another, affected by the personal, cultural, and archetypal material of both people? Under what circumstances may the re-stimulation of this material generate a lack of ability to witness or to move?
2. Though we often look at this in terms of our personal ‘transference and countertransference’ responses, how to extend this question to personal, cultural, and archetypal dimensions. For example, in these deeply polarising times how do we do the necessary shadow work to better prepare ourselves to be world citizens capable of embracing difference, personally and collectively?
3. How do we continue to grow as a field in a way that can address the impact of personal cultural complexes, increasingly materialistic cultures and fundamentalist values/responses, and the effects of centuries of internalised patriarchy power elements arising in our world (and in each of us and our families and communities) tat are split off from the feminine, from feeling, from the body, and from the body of the Earth, bringing us towards ecological and moral crisis.
I look forward to being part of this group and contributing from a South African perspective, as well as growing the practice of AM in South Africa.