Ikuko Acosta and Ani Buk to speak at NYU

[Guest guest]

Subj: [iSPS] NY Branch of ISPS-US Sat Oct 29th On Saturday, October 29th, 2011, the New York Branch of ISPS-US will meet at

New York University, the Silver Center for the Arts and Sciences, 31Washington Place, Room 408, from 3-5pm. Art psychotherapists Ikuko Acosta

and Ani Buk will present their work with persons struggling with psychotic

symptoms.  Obstfeld, art therapist and psychoanalyst, will moderatethe panel. Descriptions of the papers and the presenters follow.

All are welcome to attend. There is no fee, nor are reservations needed.Contact Koehler at bk64@... or  should you need

additional information.Moderator: Renée Obstfeld, LCAT, ATR-BC, CASAC has been practicing arttherapy since 1986 with adolescents and adults in hospital, outpatient, and

private settings. Her experience includes working with chemically dependentpeople in both abstinence oriented and harm-reduction settings, and with

survivors of suicide. is currently in private practice,  just completing her psychoanalyticcandidacy at PPSC in Manhattan, and is an adjunct instructor in the graduate

art therapy programs at New York University and the School of Visual Arts.Ikuko Acosta will present her paper “Unique Symbol Formation and Visual

Expression: A Glimpse into the World of Psychotic Mind.”This presentation demonstrates the unique pictorial characteristics

expressed among people with schizophrenia and how such artistic expressionsreflect their psychic world.  The presentation also illustrates how their

pictorial self expression supersedes verbal expression, tapping into thedeeper realm of the unconscious. The presentation also offers insight into

the expression of delusions and psychotic ideations in their images in a nonverbal and concrete form.

Through the illustration of images produced by psychotic patients, thepresentation will offer insight into the power and effectiveness of visual

expression leading toward understanding the mind of people withschizophrenia.Ikuko Acosta, Ph.D, ATR-BC, LCAT, director of the Graduate Art Therapy

Program at New York University has been an art therapy educator andsupervisor for more than 30 years. She has also lectured and consulted in

the development of art therapy programs nationally and internationally,including Korea, India, Thailand, Turkey, Italy, Iceland, Japan, Singapore

and Jamaica and has developed the Art Therapy Internship Abroad programwhich has operated in Tanzania, Peru, South Africa, Brazil and India.

Ikuko Acosta also has 17 years clinical experience working with   adultpatients in the Admissions Unit of a New Jersey county psychiatric hospital,

interacting with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and nurses.This period involved working with several thousand patients, amassing a

collection of over 6000 artworks.Much of her expertise in assessing patients through their process of making

art and their artworks may be attributed to this rich and extensiveexperience gained as a staff art therapist in the admission unit.

Her article published in the American Art Therapy Journal, entitled, " Rediscovering the Dynamic Properties Inherent in Art " , and her doctoral

dissertation, entitled, " A Dynamic Approach to the Interpretation of Artworkby Psychiatric Patients Based upon the Aesthetic Theories of Rudolf

Arnheim " , convey her unique philosophy of pictorial assessment.The psychological birth of a traumatized adult: The efficacy of art therapy

in facilitating the expression of dissociated experienceby Ani Buk, MA, LP, LCAT, FIPA

Mr. G, a 59 year-old homeless man, presented himself to an emergency roomcomplaining of " memory problems. " Upon his admission to the inpatient

psychiatric unit, he was found to have a history of previous psychiatrichospitalizations, and a long-held diagnosis of Paranoid Schizophrenia

complicated by alcohol abuse. However, his gradual immersion into the arttherapy program allowed him to create drawings that metaphorically expressed

a dissociated history of profound childhood trauma. As a result, a diagnosisof PTSD seemed to be an additional way to understand his constellation of

symptoms.Mr. G's moving artwork, created in psychoanalytically-informed art therapygroups, will be examined in the context of recent findings from the field of

neuroscience. The functioning of the mirror neuron system, and the relatedprocess of ‘embodied simulation,’ can be seen as identifying some of the

neuroanatomical mechanisms that contribute to: (1) the trauma survivor’scapacity to express the implicit, dissociated realm of experience and memory

in a work of art, and often to go on to put into words what had previouslybeen unspeakable; (2) the art therapist’s ability to interpret the many

possible meanings of the art work made in the psychotherapeutic setting; and(3) the efficacy of particular art therapy interventions with survivors of

trauma, and how the clinical implications of these interventions can informall therapists working with traumatized populations.

Ani Buk, MA, LP, LCAT, FIPA, is a New York State Licensed psychoanalyst and

art therapist in private practice on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, whereshe works with children, adolescents, adults and couples. A Fellow of theInternational Psychoanalytical Association, she has twenty-five years of

diverse clinical experience. She is a Training and Supervising Analyst, andan instructor, in the Adult Psychoanalysis Program of the PsychoanalyticTraining Institute of the New York Freudian Society. She is also a graduate

of The Institute for Child, Adolescent and Family Studies. A nationallyrecognized trauma specialist, her work and recommendations have beenfeatured in newspapers and periodicals such as The New York Times, US News &

World Report, The Chicago Tribune, and Scholastic News. Ms. Buk has been onthe faculty of the Graduate Art Therapy Program of New York University since

1993, and was a faculty member of the Department of Psychiatry of AlbertEinstein College of Medicine from 1996-2007. She is the author of “Themirror neuron system and embodied simulation: Clinical implications for art

therapists working with trauma survivors” [The Arts in Psychotherapy:Special Issue on Trauma, 36 (2009), 61 – 74], and a co-author of HumanRights Clinic: Training Manual for Physicians and Mental HealthProfessionals, and A Facilitator’s Guide: Training Health Care Providers to

Work with Refugees, published by Doctors of the World and the Office ofRefugee Resettlement.

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