H&nds Project

The H&nds project was created by Nikyta Palmisani, Expressive Arts Therapy Coordinator, as a way for the youth we serve to tell their stories without giving away their confidentiality. Given washable markers, youth were invited to represent themselves and what they had experienced on the outside of their hands, and to express how the agency affected them in some way on the inside of the palm. Youth and staff alike participated and photo installations which were put in each site where they were taken, now selected photos have been self published in the book SDYS “H&nds”  which is available for purchase.

View photo album

Towards this end, the program:

·        Develops authentic expression of images that come from within the client.

·        Uses solution-focused resource based approaches.

·        Provides a structure for reflection on both process and artwork where the client is the authority for the meaning making.

·        Promotes a therapeutic relationship in the triad of therapist, client and artwork.

·        Use multiple art disciplines to follow the client’s needs.

·        Encourages healthy community building.

      

A INTERMODAL EXPRESSIVE ARTS THERAPY

What is Intermodal Expressive Arts Therapy?

Expressive Arts Therapy is founded on the premise that everyone is capable of making meaningful art and that the process and/or product is always helpful to the client. Therefore, we embody a low skill, high sensitivity approach. We are not technique oriented, but rather gear all our groups and sessions so that any person, regardless of their artistic talent or previous experience, can enter into the process. We guide the client into their senses and their sensitivity to create work. We look together observantly at what has been created without critique or judgment. There can often be educational or instructional components to the art making that are naturally imbedded within the groups.

We also hold that the client is the expert of their art and therefore will let meaning emerge through a reflective process that assists the client in discovering their own resources. We call this Aesthetic Analysis, which gives careful attention to what is actually there on the page, in the dance or song and allows for the whole experience to touch them. We do not codify images, colors, movements to any external meaning other than the client’s own experience.

We work in the five art modalities: music, theatre, writing, visual arts, and dance/movement and will often incorporate more than one modality into a session. Intermodal refers to our ability to shift into different art making modalities to bring more of the senses into play, to receive more information about an image, and or to facilitate where the images are leading the client. The therapist is knowledgeable in the language of all these art forms and how they interrelate.

Unlike other therapeutic art fields, we are grounded in theories from philosophy, sociology, ecopsycology, and anthropology as well as psychology that acknowledges art is the medicine. Many art therapy fields use the art to reach the psyche of the client. We practice that the making and finding what arrives with reflection is a healing act.

Creating art with sensitive awareness is a similar process as creating our lives. Both life and art require improvisational skills, resilience, awareness of beauty and the necessary hands on experience of shaping from materials at hand.

 

NIKYTA PALMISANI- BIO

Nikyta Palmisani, Coordinator of the Expressive Arts Program at SDYS 

Nikyta Palmisani started the Expressive Arts Program at San Diego Youth Services in 2004 as an intern while pursuing her masters degree at the Expressive Arts Institute of San Diego. Initially, this began with one art group after school at the drop-in center at Storefront, a shelter for homeless teens. Since then, she now works full-time as the coordinator of the program having received a generous endowment from the Annenberg Foundation which allowed her to expand the program to include groups at Teen Recovery Center Mid City, Teen Options, and a maga- Zine project for LGBTQ youth in conjunction with the Hillcrest Youth Center as well as hiring on two part-time expressive arts therapists.

Nikyta Palmisani holds a conservatory degree in the performing arts and acting from the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, a B.A degree from UCSD where she graduated with honors as a visual arts major and currently is completing her Master’s Degree in expressive arts therapy through the Expressive Arts Institute of San Diego and the European Graduate School. She is a working visual and performing artist, a yoga instructor for over 10 years in studios throughout San Diego as well as a long time teacher at the Golden Door in yoga, body mind programs and expressive arts. Nikyta is passionate about helping through the arts, and travels internationally connecting her global community though art making and social change.

RAINBOWLUTION

"Rainbowlution Now" is a teen maga-Zine that is created by and devoted to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Queer youth.

We are made possible by the Annenberg Foundation, The Human Diginity Foundation, and Photocharity. This project is in conjunction with the Hillcrest Youth Center and together we co-facilitate weekly groups that have produced three issues of Rainbowlution Now which are mostly uncensored, youth created poetry, images, writings, and photos.

Check Out An Issue of RAINBOWLUTION

http://www.rainbowlution.org/