It's 9am on a Thursday in a substance abuse treatment facility. How do you solicit interest from clients? Try this out:

In 1898, the American author Morgan Robertson wrote a novel called Futility, or The Wreck of the Titan. It features a boat called the Titan that has the following specifications:

• 800 ft [244 m] long 
• Capacity for roughly 3,000 passengers
• Lifeboats for only a fraction of that number of people
• Capsizes after hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean as it sailed from Ireland to the United States

On April 15, 1912, the Titanic (actually) struck an iceberg in the Atlantic killing most of the 3000 passengers on-board. Here were its specifications:

• 882 ft 9 in [269 m] long
• Lifeboats for only a fraction of that number of people
• Similarly upper-class passengers

I then ask the clients two questions. 1.) How is it possible that an author envisioned a significant historical event in advance? 2.) Which of the two events came/comes first?

Answers to the first question typically run the spectrum from "It's just luck" to "That's impossible." And while the answer to the second question seems straightforward, I point out that the answer is more complicated than it would appear. There are in fact at least four answers:

• Chronologically, the Titan comes first
• Epistemologically, in terms of the order in which your minds are encountering the thought of this situation, the Titanic comes first (because people have heard of it but not of the Titan)
• Philosophically, they are co-eval, they co-exist, which is to say, we are thinking of both at the same time, the time of the present.
• Psychoanalytically, they are both “late,” meaning they are both symptoms (of the death and dying of a bygone age of rigid class structure and European dominance, of the ascendance of capitalism, etc.)

By this point, we're ready to figure out what this has to do with recovery and mental health. I provide two takes on how to utilize this allegory.

1. “Self-fulfilling prophecy” and “self-sabbotage”
The more obvious use of the story is to leverage it for knowledge of self-destructive behaviors. Consider this metaphor:

• I built the Titan, and it sank. So I definitely shouldn’t do that again
• I built the Titanic, much like the Titan, and though I shouldn’t have done that, I definitely did it. I shouldn’t do that again.
• I built the…etc., etc., ad infinitum 

Leveraged as a metaphor for addiction and recovery, the new knowledge is this: my “building” behavior is conditioned by some governing ideology and social-environment. Unless I change those things, I will keep building versions of the Titanic. Such a consideration shifts the attention away from the "boat's material" to the conditions that permitted the boat to be built with such material. The ductility of the steel used in the Titanic was not flexible enough to handle a glancing blow from a large iceberg. But the cost-cutting measures used for decades in the industry of shipbuilding enabled the creation of sub-par steel and the marketing of the steel. Similarly, addiction is in-part an intrapersonal issue linked to the brain's reward center, but it is also a socio-cultural and "ecological" issue that concerns natural support systems, the learned burden of "asking for help," and other interpersonal issues not reducible to the brain's material. If you treat addiction as a brain disease but leave untouched the societal dimension of the addictive behavior, then no changes will come about.

2. Trauma and post-traumatic growth (many deaths)
First operative healing principle (again, metaphorically): I sank, I died, I still live.

• Your “boat” "sank." It was a tragedy. Have you grieved it? If so, you are more prepared to handle future sinkings

Second operative healing principle: You will sink and die again.

• If you grieved the last sinking, then you are in better shape to grieve the next one.
• If you haven’t grieved the last sinking, now you’ll have twice the “mass” to grieve. Titan x Titanic = A lot more to grieve all at once.
• If you keep multiplying grievable events without grieving them, then the likelihood that you will ever grieve them (and make something of the grief) goes way, way down

Third operative healing principle: You aren’t learning how to build a better boat. You’re learning what sinking actually is.

• Notice the “success/failure” binary lurking in the background. E.g., “Unless the boat stays afloat, I have failed.” 
• Baffle the paradigm: not “succeed or fail;” rather, deaths in life. I.e., you will sink. Will you sink well? What will you learn from sinking? Will you faithfully report back that sinking in life is something different than what people think it is?
• For example, this “rehab” experience. Most people do not expect philosophical considerations of the Titanic and its relation to daily life to be taking place inside "rehab" facilities at 9am on a Thursday.

If: Sinking = grieving = recovering = living = healing
Then sinking is…
Then relapsing is...
Then ending relationships is...
Then starting anew is...

If any clinicians run group therapy sessions and would like to try out something fun, here's a group to try (along with an evidence-based summary and references):

TITLE:
​Thought Experiment: Spontaneous Vulnerability
This group therapy session combines elements of philosophical counseling and techniques from narrative therapy to help clients rehearse an imagined moment of vulnerability. The clinician explained the principle of Gedankenexperiment [thought experiment], the “term used by German-born physicist Albert Einstein to describe his unique approach of using conceptual rather than actual experiments in creating the theory of relativity” (Brittanica). He then provided the following thought experiment.

• Imagine you are on a date
• You are sitting across from the person. You’ve just met in person for the first time.
• You find the courage to ask, “Would you be willing to let me look through your phone for 10 minutes?”

Clients then responded to the following questions:

• What feelings come up as you imagine this experience?
• If the person says yes, how likely are you to hand your phone over as a matter of courtesy and reciprocity?
• When you’re holding the other person’s phone, what do you look for, and why do you think you choose those things?
  

The discussion up to that point prepared clients to answer the main question: What story does your phone tell about you, and is that story aligned with the story you like to tell others about yourself?
Theoretical Foundations & Therapeutic Alignment

1. Narrative Therapy Principles
   Narrative therapy posits that individuals make meaning through the stories they tell about themselves and others. This group leverages this by asking clients to examine the implicit narrative contained within the contents of their phone (photos, texts, history), thus helping them explore discrepancies between:
   
   
   • Their lived identity (as tracked digitally),
     
     
   • Their performed identity (how they wish to be seen),
     
     
   • Their recovery identity (how they hope to evolve).
     
     
2. White & Epston (1990) emphasize that externalizing conversations and exploring subjugated narratives can disrupt self-stigmatizing and substance-linked identity stories.
   
   
3. Philosophical Counseling & Thought Experiments
   Thought experiments have been used in philosophical counseling to challenge assumptions and encourage clients to rehearse moral and emotional dilemmas. The vulnerability posed by the imagined phone exchange models existential risk and intimacy.
   
   Lahav (2006) supports the use of philosophical techniques in therapy to cultivate ethical self-reflection and identity exploration, especially effective in group settings where peer perspectives deepen the inquiry.
   
   
4. Self-Concealment and Shame in Addiction
   Individuals with substance use disorders often experience elevated levels of shame and self-concealment (Luoma et al., 2007). Asking clients to imagine handing over their phone invites them into a symbolic moment of radical honesty, where their digital footprint becomes a metaphor for internal experience. This supports exposure to vulnerability in a contained and reflective way.
   
   Luoma, J. B., et al. (2007). Self-stigma in substance abuse: Development of a new measure. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment.
   
   
5. Digital Identity as a Tool for Reflective Practice
   Modern therapeutic approaches increasingly acknowledge that individuals maintain significant emotional and narrative content in digital devices. Asking clients to consider “what story their phone tells” uses contemporary, relatable metaphors to elicit profound reflection.
   
   Ward, C. (2018). Digital storytelling in therapy: Narrative, identity, and ethics. Clinical Social Work Journal.
   
   

Psychotherapeutic Goals of the Group— Foster insight into incongruity between private and public selves
— Increase tolerance for vulnerability in a safe, imaginative frame
— Promote group cohesion through shared discomfort and emotional risk-taking
— Challenge shame-based thinking by recognizing common themes in others’ responses
— Support authenticity in constructing new recovery-oriented narratives

Clinical Utility in Substance Use Settings

• Clients with addiction histories often feel disconnected from their “authentic self” and suffer from fragmented identities. This group encourages:
  
  
  • Cognitive dissonance exploration (Festinger, 1957)
    
    
  • Ego-integrity restoration (Erikson’s stages; McAdams’ narrative identity model)
    
    
  • Pre-relapse cognitive awareness of shame, secrecy, or avoidance
    
    
• By embedding this activity in a thought experiment, clients are spared the real-world exposure of actual phone sharing, but benefit from the emotional simulation of a highly vulnerable moment—functionally similar to imaginal exposure in trauma treatment (Foa et al., 2006).
  

REFERENCES

• https://www.britannica.com/science/Gedankenexperiment
  
• White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. Norton.
• Luoma, J. B., Kohlenberg, B. S., Hayes, S. C., & Fletcher, L. (2007). Self-stigma in substance abuse: Development of a new measure. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 29(4), 231–244.
• Lahav, R. (2006). Philosophical practice and self-transformation. Practical Philosophy, 9(2), 12–19.
• Ward, C. (2018). Digital storytelling in therapy: Narrative, identity, and ethics. Clinical Social Work Journal, 46, 321–330.
• Foa, E. B., Hembree, E. A., & Rothbaum, B. O. (2006). Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD: Emotional Processing of Traumatic Experiences. Oxford University Press.

Voodoo Dolls have a rich and often misunderstood multifaceted history that branches off into different cultures. Rarely does this history intersect with western therapeutic strategies. This group sought to change that.

​Németh (2018) reports that "The earliest extant reference to magic dolls is made in the foundation oath of the settlers of Cyrene [Libya]" (179). These dolls, in fact, show up in fragments of text throughout the classical Greco-Roman world. But these dolls, while similar in purpose and effect, at least on first glance, to the "Voodoo Doll" of African and Afro-Caribbean figures, are in fact quite different. When we approach the topic of magic dolls and the Voodoo religious practices, we run into difficult territory. David Frankfurter (2020) explores these difficulties at length. He argues that term often applied to hand-sized, human-like dolls made of fabric or straw, and used for the purposes of inflicting harm on a human identified by the miniature effigy, is "fundamentally misleading in its history of applications and especially egregious in the current debate over the openness of classics to people of color."

His argument is worth citing in some detail because the primary points of contention are all valid. First, he shows how "the term Voodoo Doll implies that it is the law of sympathy (“like affects like”) that is the prevailing assumption of the artifact’s users. But these laws of sympathy belong not to the various worlds in which people have used ritual figurines and curse-poppets but rather to the “armchair” synthetic theories of Frazer’s Golden Bough, which strove to comprehend primitive religion in a general, if uninformed, way" (53–54). Second, citing the work of Joan Dyan (1995), he acknowledges how “anything diabolical, irrational, or superstitious became materialized [starting in the 18th century] as the spirit of blackness" (cit. 54). Ultimately, Frankfurter's claim is clear and simple understand: "The term Voodoo Doll should be abandoned, as many more precise ones have long been available to scholars" (54).

​I don't disagree, but I also chose to use the oft-misused, sometimes offensive word for the title of this group. I had two primary reasons for this choice. First, the milieu of group therapy in substance use treatment facilities is populated by many types of people. The effort to find a "common language" while also teaching and doing valid therapeutic work is substantial. I gravitate toward scholarly sources such as Frankfurter's essay, but I have learned through thousands of hours of experience that most of my clients do not. Since I am well-trained in the art of teaching and have the ability to translate scholarly concepts into different modes of discourse, I frequently lead groups on heady and challenging topics. But, I always pepper those groups with copious pop culture terms and references in order to speak to as many people as possible all at once. In the case of this group, "Voodoo Doll" is accessible as a concept, and so I used its accessibility as a rhetorical gambit to entice clients (aged 19–61) into the hard emotional work that I'll explain below. 

Second, if and when matters of race, gender, sexuality, stigma, offensiveness, political discord, religious trauma, etc., come up, which they do quite frequently, then whatever gets initially branded as "offensive," regardless of who says it, becomes an invitation to a therapeutic discussion about the emotions that arise around the particular brand of offense one experiences. Nothing occurs in the treatment environment that is devoid of therapeutic value. All problems, especially racism and similarly charged -isms, have the power to reveal something that was previously invisible to one or more clients, even to the clinician(s). So, having hazarded the use of "Voodoo Doll," I was prepared to drop my plan for the group and pivot to a processing group on racism and cultural appropriation. As it turned out, that need did not arise.

Clients were at first hesitant about the prompt to construct Voodoo Dolls, but the hesitance dropped away as I provided the set-up and rationale for the group. I began by talking about the difference between self-defeat and self-destruction. Clients were quick to point out the main difference. Self-defeat is a thought-based, self-talk problem. Self-destruction is a behavior that causes harm. For example, self-defeating thoughts take the form of core beliefs such as "I'm not worthy of love." One self-destructive behavior that could follow from that belief is the self-imposed prohibition on making any attempt to connect meaningfully with other people. The harm caused by this behavior is the harm of isolation. Without meaningful connection, the self fails to grow. Another self-destructive behavior, however, could be much more severe. To prove to oneself that one is not worthy of love, a person could inject fentanyl into their neck with the hope of numbing the pain caused the lack of meaningful interpersonal love. In either case, the self-destruction hurts. What's more, self-defeat and self-destruction work together like tag-team wrestling partners. The behavior often doubles as proof that the core belief is correct, when in actuality the "proof" is made for the purpose of reifying the belief. My plan was to use Voodoo Dolls to address this problem, a problem with which all clients were very familiar.

I proposed that anger is the primary emotion that accompanies self-defeat and self-destruction. The problem with anger, in this case, is often that it gets directed toward the self instead of directed towards the actual instigating object. With this possibility in play, I asked clients to make a Voodoo Doll that represented a person or a specific situation toward which they had unresolved anger and rage. Once they made the doll, the clients were to use thumb-tacks, scissors, and markers to make surgical wounds on the dolls. Each mark or stab had to relate to a specific instance of anger. I asked clients not to hold back. And they didn't. A few minutes into the creation process and the clients were expressing their anger.

But then I introduced a twist. I reminded them that the name of this group is "You will suffer." Offered as a fact, not a threat, the group, as the clients know by now, derives its name from Buddhist approaches to wellness and recovery. Suffering exists. It only causes more suffering to pretend that isn't the case. What would it look like to operate from the certainty that suffering will happen instead of avoiding suffering or refusing to admit that we all suffer? In accordance with Buddhist principles, however, each act of violence we direct toward others is an act of violence committed against ourselves (since there is no real self-other/subject-object divide). With that thought in mind (treating it as true), I invited clients to take another look at their dolls. I asked them to watch as the identity of the doll transforms from someone else or some outer situation and becomes a representation of themselves. I asked them to notice: You are already dinged up. Your anger has hurt you. Following from that, I asked them to add more marks to the doll. I asked them to add a new mark/cut/tear for each self-defeating belief and self-destructive behavior they’ve enacted in the past 6 months.

Each person in the room groaned and audible sighed. The weight of the idea landed in their bodies. Perhaps reluctantly, each client took up the invitation and made their marks.

Another twist. Buddhist approaches to recovery also invite us to meet suffering with compassion. We suffer more when we fail to accept that we cause harm, that we defeat ourselves, that our self-defeat leaks out onto others. As such, I instructed the clients to take a look at their dolls and slowly, with great care, attempt to return the doll to its starting shape as one (or more) plain piece of paper. I asked them to smooth out the wrinkles the best they could. I asked them to do this with the same sensitivity that you might use to wash a baby. In a metaphorical sense, that's exactly what they are doing. They are caring for their dinged-up and disheveled selves, and they are offering the care because they are deserving of it. 

Next, we observed the wrinkled paper. We imagined ourselves as the wrinkled paper. I said, take a look at that paper. It’s you. You are wrinkled and torn. And since we can never untoast the toast, so to speak, we will never return to a state of pristine paper. But the clean sheet is an illusion anyway. Nobody ever attains it (addict or otherwise). Unless we start from where we are, meaning in this wrinkled and torn state, we cannot truly accept ourselves. I then asked them to keep looking at the paper while I asked some questions. I invited them to feel what comes up when I asked: Do you think anyone wants this wrinkled piece of paper? Do you want to be the paper in this shape? What allows or prevents you from accepting that this is it?

If you'd like to see what kinds of responses arise after a session of this sort, I invite you to try out the group in your own environment. This was the second time I conducted this group, and the pleasant surprise that hit me this time came at the very end as I pondered what to do with all the paper and related material. It felt charged. I didn't want to throw it away. To preserve the memory, I gathered it all together and invited clients to think about the pile as our collective pain. When most people think of anger, they think of the color red, of punching and kicking, and of steam coming out of cartoons' ears. But nobody thinks about this tattered stack of paper. And yet, in under 60 minutes, our group had created a beautiful representation of collective suffering.

References:
Dayan, Joan. 1995. Haiti, History, and the Gods. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Frankfurter, David. "" Voodoo Doll": Implications and Offense of a Taxonomic Category." Arethusa 53.1 (2020): 43-58.
​Németh, György. "Voodoo dolls in the classical world." Violence in Prehistory and Antiquity (2018): 179-94.

Therapeutic references:
Feen-Calligan, H., McIntyre, B., & Sands-Goldstein, M. (2009). "Art therapy with substance abuse clients: Evidence-based support for a model program." Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 26(3), 104–110.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003). "Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present, and future." Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10(2), 144–156.
Malchiodi, C. A. (2005). Expressive Therapies. Guilford Press.

Client's don't often come into treatment with any knowledge of (or interest in) art history, so I try to find as many opportunities as I can to introduce them to visual art. Today's art therapy group drew inspiration from the Impressionist Berthe Morisot and the Expressionist Erich Heckel. I showed them Morisot's Psyché and Heckel's Männerbildnis because I wanted them to use Impressionist and/or Expressionist visual language to produce self-portraits. There was, however, a catch. The two self portraits had to be conceived from the perspective of two people: a stranger and someone who knows you well. This constraint, in addition to the artistic mode of expression, produced the therapeutic effect of the group; namely, creating self-portraits through others' eyes helps to make visible how we see ourselves, how we hide parts of our emotions from view, and how we yearn for others to see the parts of ourselves that we hide. 

Research supports the use of art therapy as a means of fostering emotional regulation, enhancing insight, and promoting psychological flexibility (Kimport & Robbins, 2012; Gussak, 2007; Slayton et al., 2010). The dual self-portrait exercise specifically encourages clients to explore the discrepancy between internal and external perceptions of self, which can be particularly valuable for individuals in recovery who may struggle with shame, self-stigma, and identity confusion (Mezo & Short, 2012; Kim et al., 2017).

Since most clients are highly judgmental, especially when it comes to their own perceived lack of artistic skill, I provided a few extra words of guidance:

• Use of Color: Participants should represent affective states and emotional intensity through color choice (Moon, 2010).
• Use of Line: Use lines to show your measure of self-cohesion and mindfulness regarding present-moment awareness.
• Background Setting: Let the background image or texture act as a metaphorical tool for exploring underlying values, personality traits, and environmental influences on identity.

Here are some of the results:

If you've ever tried to throw a ball with your non-dominant hand, then you remember the feeling. Awkward, alien, confusing. Use your "off" or "wrong" hand to brush your teeth, put your contacts in, or write a few sentences on paper, and the experience is similar. Even someone with five decades of life experience can feel new to their body simply by altering daily tasks in this one simple way. 

Building from that experience, I designed an art-therapy group called "wrong-handed hope" in which I asked clients to draw two different images. One image, drawn with the "wrong" hand, would represent hopefulness. The other image, drawn with the dominant hand, would represent hopelessness. After completing both images, clients placed them in a group that I arranged in a salon-like manner. The group perused the artworks and had to determine which images depicted hopefulness and which ones depicted the opposite. Check out the three gallery images for the results. 

You've heard the factoid about how it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile, which infers a connection between the (greater) effort it takes to sustain a negative affect compared to the (lesser) effort it takes to tilt toward the positive. Well, the same principle is in effect here. When we produce hopelessness, we tend to do so with the same surety as we bring to drawing a "Cool S" with our dominant hand. By distinction, when, or if, we produce hopefulness, it usually ends up looking like a child's drawing of hope: innocent, naive, shaky, but brilliant, inspiring, beautiful. 
​
The relationship between these ideas and the work of recovery will likely be clear to you by now. For addicts, the future can't help but appear bleak. If they base their image of the future on the experiences of the recent past, then the road ahead is daunting. The work of recovery, however, is essentially the work of honoring your "wrong" hand. You are producing a reality with the fine motor skills of a child. This is not a bad thing. Instead, it's a reminder that the fine motor skills of children are what produce the most imaginative artworks of humankind. After all, Picasso is famous for having said, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." Such a beautiful reminder for people in early recovery: your aim is not to produce a masterwork like those of the Renaissance elite; rather, it is to play with the aplomb of a child learning what it means to live. 

I prepared this text for The Summer Happening residency at Texas A&M, May 2025

​I’m going to explain something that is really happening.
I’m going to imagine something that isn’t yet really happening.
I’d like you to listen to this from a future anterior point of view such that the imagined happening becomes that which will have happened.  

I. Indigenous Cultures Institute
For the 2024 Performance Philosophy conference in Austin, Texas, members of the Miakan-Garza Band informed our group about their ongoing struggle with various educational institutions. The members who spoke to us were:
· Dr. Mario Garza currently serves as board of elder’s chair and is the principal founder of the Institute.
· Maria F. Rocha, Secretary
· Ruben A. Arellano, Ph.D., Consultant

Here is a summary of what they told us:
​"The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) databases list more than 7 million Culturally Unidentifiable Inventoried (CUI) Native American remains of our ancestors that have been unearthed over the years and are kept in “collections” by universities, museums, and federal and state departments.  This has happened in a country where it is against the law to disturb a human grave.

As of 2015, the remains of 3,454 ancestors were removed from our Texas sacred grounds.  Over 2,400 of those ancestors are at UT-Austin. The Miakan-Garza tribe is seeking three of those remains for reburial. “Our obligation, as native people, as Texas Indians, is to obtain possession of these ancestral remains and rebury them as close as possible to where they were unearthed.” — Dr. Mario Garza

UT ISSUED DENIAL OF REQUEST TO REBURY ANCESTORS:
On June 3, 2020, UT denied the tribe’s request to rebury their ancestors.  The Miakan-Garza appealed to President Jay Harzell to overturn this decision and gave him until August 17th to respond. No response was received. On August 20th the tribe issued a press release targeting the university’s unwillingness to turn over the ancestors for reburial. September 7th, the community gathered and united with the UT students to launch a campaign for the ancestors’ release."

Put simply, the University of Texas has transformed ancestors into objects. 

II. The Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory
During the same talk, I learned that TARL made it possible for scientific researchers to rent the remains. That is to say, the Miakan-Garza band cannot repatriate their ancestors because they have been turned into objects, but others who are interested in the objects can pay money to spend time with them. 

III. Alchemical Research Coalition, a division of the Invisible College

Let us imagine that there is a revivification of the Invisible College.
 
Founded by the natural scientist Robert Boyle in the 17th Century, the Invisible College convened around a distrust for knowledge received through inherited institutional frameworks. This ensemble, which included the likes of Christopher Wren, took as its motto Nullius in Verba (‘on the word of no one’), a phrase in which resides a distant echo of the founding Performance Philosophy proposition that we ought to think without knowing what thinking is. The Invisible College’s mission was to think anew by refusing the keywords and presumed certainties that pretended to vouchsafe the bedrock beliefs of the sciences. Engaging in experiment and active observation of the physical world around them, Boyle and his colleagues built their own theories and inspired a new generation of non-conformist intellectuals.
 
As non-philosopher Francois Laruelle sees the discipline of Philosophy as a machine that endlessly produces problems suited perfectly to the answers that the discipline itself produces, I understand the University as an institution that, more and more, seeks to commodify education and produce the language that would legitimate and sanction such an education, all the while blocking students’ paths to forms of learning that would cultivate not workers but life-artists, or, better, performance philosophers. This is something to grieve. The University has not irrevocably ceded ground to the forces of ignorance. But the battle is underway. The question: what is to be done? I have been imagining ways to supplement traditional University offerings with experimentation within the Invisible College. The Invisible College has no defined curriculum but operates within the field of research mapped by Performance Philosophy, and as such it would have two guiding principles: 1.) To think such that we do not know what thinking is. 2.) Doing life is that which we must think.
 
So imagine that this Invisible College is alive. And imagine further a group called the Alchemical Research Coalition. Within this coalition, 4 researchers have formed a multidisciplinary humanities research cluster to function as a node of the Invisible College dedicated to completing the work of the great alchemists of the past. Let us imagine that the names of the researchers are Ahmed Adel Awni Al-Dous, Mays Hossam Jamil Al-Zaanin, Ayla Ahmed Ali Obeid, and Niveen Khaled Saleh Hassouna. They partnered with the Miakan-Garza Band and submitted a fellowship application to the American Council of Learned Societies. The stated goal of the proposed research project was to enact an alchemical transformation of objects into ancestors through a fusion of Occult Philosophy, such as that used by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, and song, such as that produced by members of the Garza band.
 
The project proceeded in this fashion. First, the team used ACLS funding to rent the remains of the Miakan-Garza ancestors from the Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory. Second, once in their possession, the remains were buried on the Sacred Ground of the tribe. Third, the researchers and the tribe members performed alchemy that transformed objects—remains held by the university—into ancestors—participating members in the daily lives of the Miakan-Garza people.

The University sued the researchers and found themselves in the position once occupied by the tribe. No longer the ones in possession of anything, they had to request the return of the ancestors in order to transform them back into objects. The tribe denied the request. Thus, a second alchemical transformation had taken place. The University became those who are denied.

IV. What can imagining do?
It is perhaps an understatement to say that imaginative and creative thinking are needed in the present moment. Is there a way to intervene creatively, perhaps through fiction, in our daily reality so as to produce a kind of change that seems magical upon initial inspection but turns out to be fully material? Might grief be the affective source material upon which we can draw to produce cracks in the smooth façade of daily life?
 

Of the many important take-away messages from this group, I would like to underscore one in particular. If a treatment facility (or any therapist for that matter) tells you that a stay in treatment or a series of sessions will create lasting change, they are promising something they cannot possibly promise. Change will only take place after the possibility of change becomes thinkable and palpable. Therapy sessions are the places where this new way of thinking/seeing/knowing/feeling arises. Life outside the therapy room is where the change takes place. 

Researchers of narrative therapy such as Freedman and Combs (1996) and White and Epston (1990) have argued convincingly that healing from mental health issues requires externalizing phrases, images, and emotions that we believe to exist "inside" of us. Once "outside," these phrases, images, and emotions take on new characteristics as they tangle with the material world. Storytelling, for example, accomplishes this goal. By telling our stories, i.e., by narrating our experiences, we package our lived history in ways that appeal to others and, in turn, we create the possibility that others will validate our experiences, shed light on certain mysteries, and provide insights into our personal struggles, thereby fostering a sense of togetherness in the world.  

I adapted these ideas in today's art therapy group. (See the previous blog post for another analysis of art therapy in action.) This group invited clients to practice externalizing the substance use and mental health problems that they typically restrict to their “internal” or “mental” self. The purpose of externalizing problems, again, is to gain perspective on something that often masquerades as “natural” or “given” but is, to the contrary, constructed, in part through our thoughts and beliefs about the malady. By undertaking this externalization process in a group therapy setting, clients can collaborate on the production of new perspectives and generate viewpoints that could be pleasantly surprising and/or unexpected.

Here are the instructions I gave to a group of seven clients

• Each person starts with a piece of paper and a pen, colored pencil, crayon, or marker. The first instruction is: draw a line on the paper that represents your struggle with addiction
• Hand the paper to the person to your left. With the new piece of paper in front of you, look at the line on the paper and add a new line that represents the road of recovery required to remedy that specific addiction
• Hand the paper to the person to your left. With the new piece of paper in front of you, reflect on the two lines and then add colors that emphasize the emotions you see in the lines
• Hand the paper to the left. With the new piece of paper, add a new color to the page that represents challenges that could prevent long-term recovery
• Hand the paper to the left. Look at the paper you received. Something is missing from it. What is that missing thing? Add it.
• Hand the paper to the left one more time. Look at the new piece of paper and add a title to the image, one that fits the color, shapes, and lines you see on the page

The slideshow shows the results of the activity. I placed the artworks on the floor and asked clients the following questions: What if these artworks were the only things we had to guide us through recovery? What if there were no 12-step programs, no evidence-based practices, no research on addiction? What if you had to figure out how to live your life according to these images alone? How would you go about healing yourself?

Of the many take-aways from this activity, here's a vital one. The first line drawn on the page may be someone's unique expression of their struggle with addiction. But the path forward from that point will not transpire in isolation. Others will necessarily add to that first "line." As such, we benefit from working together to produce an artful way of moving from the first line to the caption we'd like to include beneath the finished product of our recovery journey. 

Works cited:
Freedman, J., Combs, G. (1996). Narrative therapy: The social construction of preferred realities. New York : W. W. Norton.

​White, M., Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York : W. W. Norton.

Every Monday at 9am, I lead a group therapy session called "Arts and Sciences." The rationale for the group topic and title is twofold. First, scholars have demonstrated the benefit for artistic therapeutic modalities in substance use treatment settings for numerous reasons. Dingle et al. (2009) have shown how music therapy in this setting compels clients to pair their efforts in recovery with the parts of themselves that derive motivation from music. Heiderscheit (2009) explains how music therapy engages the individual and the group at the same time, thereby making it ideal for substance use treatment centers where most of the day is dedicated to group therapy. Anggawijayanto et al. (2024) and Breslin et al. (2003), though in different ways, identify the process of "finding one's voice" as crucial for increased self-esteem, which, in turn, can fuel long-term recovery. As such, narrative-based art therapies (e.g., poetry or manifesto writing) can provide useful containers into which clients can place strong values and beliefs. Wadeson (1980) explained “that what is more desirable than isolated descriptions of [arts therapy] techniques is a theoretical framework from which to select appropriate materials and methods” (cit. in Hinz 2009, 20).

​Whichever artistic medium one may choose, the process of thinking artistically gives clients access to parts of themselves that have likely been turned off by drug addiction and alcoholism, parts that were active during childhood but deemed "useless" or tangential to the "true" purpose of life (ostensibly, getting work, contributing to the world, making a difference). And while scholarship is important, my own personal experience leading art therapy groups in the treatment setting has validated my long-held belief that art is transformative and that the therapeutic journey requires more art and less science, especially in treatment settings. 

My second rationale for leading an "Arts and Sciences" group is that, while the evidence is compelling, clients often have a bias against art, claiming that it is unserious or superfluous in a setting where each group emphasizes the life and death stakes of treatment. Equally as common is the belief in clients that "I'm not a good artist," which is often a narrative they acquired from authority figures who judged or invalidated their artistic expressions against certain ideals or norms. As such, given these biases, I've found it necessary to explain the brain science and cultural studies-like social science behind artistic expression. I'll point, for example, to the work advertising is able to do upon the brain to persuade people of needs they didn't know they had, or to the culture jamming (a la Situationist International) projects that have been capable of challenging and shifting epistemic frameworks that shape how one sees anything at all. Taken together, then, "Arts and Sciences" is a group topic that enables clinicians to play creatively with interventions not typically taught in textbooks of addictions treatment and that enables clients to tap into parts of themselves that store strong emotions that haven't been validated in years or sometimes decades. 

One of these Arts and Sciences groups asks clients to make three types of flyers that I promise to hang in public spaces. 1 flyer must be a serious or genuine ad for going to treatment. 1 flyer must use irreverence to solicit authentic interest in substance use treatment by utilizing "dark" humor or direct speech to compel attention. 1 flyer must be for "meaning in life," and I leave it open-ended so as to see what clients make of that invitation. The role of irreverence in this activity is important for many reasons. One, the ability to laugh at oneself and at others like you is, generally, an ability to truly see yourself in the world. As Simon Critchley writes in On Humor (2002), “The object of laughter is the subject who laughs” (14). He goes on to say, “A true joke, a comedian’s joke, suddenly and explosively lets us see the familiar defamiliarized, the ordinary made extraordinary and the real rendered surreal, and we laugh in a physiological squeal of transient delight, like an infant playing peek-a-boo....Thus, jokes are a play upon form, where what is played with are the accepted practices of a given society” (10). One may not immediately think of a client in treatment as a "comedian," but there is no doubt that clients in treatment are in the best position to help society challenge the accepted stigma against addicts and shine light on the ostrich-head-in-the-sand behavior that leaves substance use treatment in the category of "Things we just don't talk about." As such,  by using humor capable of breaking through the wall of silence around addiction in society, clients become powerful change agents. If clients are comedians, per se, then they certainly ought to be empowered to engage in comedy during a time in their life beset by mirthlessness and feelings of failure. 

Here's an example of one of the flyers made by a client at Nova Transformations where I work. 

If we take a moment to analyze this, we see the arts and sciences at work. First, note the handmade appearance of the flyer. Compared to the AI-generated group of people engaged in serious conversation in a group setting that one is likely to see on treatment websites, this flyer feels quite human. More than that, it feels childlike. In a public forum like the public library or a grocery store bulletin board, a handmade aesthetic like this will catch people's eyes. Second, the childlike, handmade aesthetic clashes with the large "Free Drugs" that pops into our vision first. Third, the clash produces an incongruence that compels further inspection. If, fourth, the inspector is a person who uses drugs, then the words "Free Drugs" will entice them even more, but, fifth, the "sale" of free drugs is undercut by the smaller print that reveals the entire pitch: "be free from drugs." The spectator is then forced to act: stay and think or recoil.

Talking about this particular flyer in the group, each client recognized the habitual, anti-authoritarian response to such appeals that still lives in them even as they sit in treatment. "Don't tell me I need help!" That adolescent defiance is a hallmark of in-built defense mechanisms that, far from actually protecting people, often lead them into commerce with "the devil they know." All the clients in this group know this defiance because I always chip away at it, ask them to perform it, and ask them to over-emphasize it thereby drawing it out into the light where it withers upon inspection. The clients know that spectators of this sign will elicit strong responses, and that's precisely why this client chose to design the flyer in this way. It's a provocation. It is irreverent. It effectively winks at those who know and then gets real to say, no, really, come join us. Come to treatment.