Art therapy in Casablanca

Casablanca : French Institute hosts conference on art therapy :: moroccoTimes.co

Casablanca
French Institute hosts conference on art therapy

By Oumnia Guedda | Morocco TIMES 5/31/2006 | 5:03 pm

The Moroccan Jewish painter, André Elbaz, will preside on June 7 a conference hosted by the Casablanca French Institute on “Therapy by Art”.

One of André Elbaz’s works of art.
Ph: Archives.

Art therapy is a type of psychotherapy that uses art-making and creativity to increase well being.

This approach helps people use art to overcome their illnesses, trauma or life challenges. It also helps some to reach personal development.

Through artistic creation and reflection on products and processes, people can increase awareness of themselves and others; cope with stress, and traumatic experiences; enhance cognitive abilities; and enjoy the life-affirming pleasures of making art.

The hypothesis of this definition is that the unconscious is not only a solicitation of blocking out but also a place of creative and generating potential.

The eminent painter, Elbaz, will give examples of this subject through his works of art.
André Elbaz, famous painter and filmmaker, was born in El Jadida in 1932. He studied art and theatre in Rabat and Paris from 1950 to 1961.

The artist is one of the pioneers of modern painting in Morocco.

He started painting at the age of 21. Few years later, he managed to combine his two passions into a new approach in art-therapy, invented together with his wife, a psychiatrist, the Pictodrame, a therapeutic approach by painting and theatre which brought him international recognition.

Source: http://www.moroccotimes.com/Paper/article.asp?idr=49&id=15127