Bonnie Nish

Moving through different modalities can help you to understand issues that you are dealing with. 

As an expressive arts therapist, an educator, published poet and a person who has experienced the trauma of sustaining numerous Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries (MTBI), I understand how important the work done in an expressive arts therapy session can be. 

Having worked for over 20 years giving writing workshops and talks in such places as Pacifica Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Center, Woman’s Hospital Eating Disorder Clinic, and Covenant House, and with Physios and RMT’s, I have seen first-hand the benefits of allowing people share their experiences through writing creatively. 

Sharing our stories can change a life. Providing a space for a person to share their journey, struggles, fears and frustrations allows them a way in which to navigate through these difficult times. Sharing stories whether various modalities can help us out of isolation and to feel connected to others at a time when we are feeling alone and helpless. 

The arts opens doors for understanding. We are offering a much-needed tool by which people can retain their dignity, and continue to have a sense of purpose. It is in the embodied experience that art offers where we find our humanness again. The arts whether writing, painting, movement or song offer a way in-to and out of ourselves. We can navigate through the changes that are happening to us physically to understand how they affect us emotionally. Most of all it is a way for an individual to let those around them know exactly what they are experiencing. 

In a session an individual may start in one modality and end in another. There is no wrong way to navigate through this and no artistic skill needed. Just a willingness to allow for things to change.