Abstract
This study explores a social dreaming matrix (SDM) and artmaking workshop among art therapy trainees in South Africa. This study is a preliminary investigation into the social unconscious of art therapy trainees, as art therapy practitioners and allied practitioners, need to promote thinking that derives from an intersectional framework, practising from this framework may help practitioners to be empathetic, culturally attuned, and culturally sensitive within a multicultural context. In this study, I argue that analytic group-based practices or interventions, such as an SDM, are a worthwhile method of getting to know and actively engage in the critical discourse around the lived experiences of students, practitioners, and citizens of South Africa. It may also prove a worthwhile directive for clients wishing to explore their social unconscious. This study considers knowledge and issues surrounding the complexities, contradictions, and discomfort of the lived experiences of future art therapists in South Africa. This exploratory approach aims to facilitate new insights into art therapy trainees’ social unconscious related to their identities as art therapy trainees and future practising art therapists. The findings are analysed through the lens of intersectionality and critical consciousness. The central conclusion of the findings reveals that art therapy trainees’ social unconscious comprises five elements: power, privilege, identity, alienation, and violence related to their roles as art therapists. Moreover, the SDM and artmaking offer a tool to empower the pedagogical process for art therapy trainees. This study models a framework for students to make use of their unconscious active imagination, dreams, and image-making as a way of engaging as students and future practitioners. This study is a preliminary investigation into the use of a SDM and cannot be generalised to the greater population. Further studies using a SDM would be beneficial in understanding and evaluating unconscious processes and content that can inform theory, practice, research, and pedagogy in the field of AT, psychology and general teaching and training in higher education systems in SA.