The transformative power of arts psychotherapy to ‘unyoke’ creativity from the inner critic… By reaching down into our depths, intuitive artmaking can help shine a light on old patterns, dust off forgotten potentials, uncover new truths, so we can learn to express more freely different parts of ourselves.

In last Saturday’s CPD workshop, what rich, deep learning. Inner critics showed up as shapeshifters, bringing with them ancestry and roots – family, gender, culture, class – what was and wasn’t possible across generations. Self-criticisms revealed themselves in a tyranny of ‘shoulds, don’t, why’s’, personal and collective expectations, but they could hide behind notions of service and duty too. It was a useful reminder that as therapists, coaches, and facilitators, we need to keep an eye-out, if we are going to diminish the very real risk of burn-out.

How important to flush these inner critics out into the open, to see what they are up to, and give them compassion where needed. By relinquishing them from such unhelpful, self-limiting roles, I was struck by how we can potentially free up so much energy… energy we can reclaim and repurpose… to let go of the public stamp of approval, our fear of making mistakes, so we can learn a new skill, master a craft, try and make ideas we care about… real in the outside world. Freedom to play, try, let go, experiment… that was the resounding quality at the end of the day.

And so we come back to the yoke… which as metaphor fascinates me. It makes me think again of Maslow’s idea of there being two separate parts of the creative process – ‘creativeness/flow/energy’ and then the ‘learning of the craft, the doing’, the sheer dogged persistence and repetition. For anyone who wants to create something in the world, there needs to be a dance between these parts… playing with ideas, surrendering to the creative process and the building and practice of craft/technique.

There’s a Carl Jung quote, that is relevant here. ‘Freedom of will is the ability to do gladly that which I must do.’ We all have to put on the yoke, but if we can transform our relationship to the inner critic into something more useful, turning it into our own personal guide and inner ally, perhaps then we can start ploughing the fields that truly call to us, and find the will to keep going through the inevitable lows and highs of trying to create and bring anything into this world.