You don’t have to take my word for it … (Part III)

Participant reflections

When I sat down with members of my creative movement group to discuss their experiences and feelings during our classes, I was impressed by the openness and vividness of their remarks. They painted an incredibly positive picture of the experience and recognized not only the directly movement-related results that my co-facilitator and I plan, but they also talked about the social and emotional achievements inherent in the group activities and new experiences.

Irene said it best in her own words: “I’m pretty good at it. It makes me feel wonderful. It makes [my body] feel stronger, happy, gentle.” She talked about enjoying holding the “sweet” baby in our drama activities. While doing so, she got up, found a blanket in the room, and after cradling it, passed it to Jeff (the ATCO Community Inclusion Coordinator, who works closely with Haley and I in organizing the group). This was a perfect, active demonstration of the type of social sensitivity and skills developed in group activities such as arts therapies classes.

Dawn said she felt “inspired” and “light as a cloud” during creative movement classes. She likes these feelings because they “make her feel better about herself.”

Chase had a bit of a difficult time verbalizing his feelings about the class. Rather, he preferred to stand up and move, associating my presence with the movement we do in class. When I asked him more questions, he responded with short, positive phrases including “thank you” and “hooray!” while continuing to move.

Jason’s emphatic response was “It makes me feel GOOD moving around. Not sitting around doing nothing.”