BeeNow podcast, Episode 39
This episode is with my good friend Katie Mansfield.
Katie Mansfield is a Ph.D. candidate in Expressive Arts and Conflict Transformation with the European Graduate School in Switzerland. She and I first met as classmates in the gigantic Swiss Alps. Katie’s research focuses on the power of embodied, expressive arts-based learning for building resilience. She works as the lead trainer for the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) program within Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.
She has now been working or studying peacebuilding for about 15 years, after eight years working for a multi-national bank (now hard to imagine). She has also studied Personal Embodiment at the Tamalpa Institute, completed teacher trainings in yoga and JourneyDance and is a certified practitioner of Integrative Energetic Medicine.
Our chat explores Katie’s journey as an Expressive Arts practitioner in helping people “face the horror and love the wonder.” The questions we cover include:
– How can the arts be used to address conflict, bridge cultures, and heal trauma?
– What are the neuro-biological effects of Expressive Arts?
With a trauma-informed approach, Katie applies techniques that foster self-regulation and co-regulation in the brain to ultimately cultivate resilience. Other topics in the chat include how to encourage creativity and transform the inner critic. She also performs a few poems for us.
Our chat was recorded via squash.
