Abstract:
Radical healing in social work practice can look like creating space for individual and communal sharing of experience, to validate their accounts of oppression and trauma, and to open a pathway to expression. The connectivity of music and the arts as a form of healing has a long history but never been fully identified as a clinical practice. That should change. This work proposes an intervention born from the innovative thinkers from the diaspora who embraced philosophical views intended for the European/Eurocentric world and made it their own. Art and psychology found common ground to shift the hegemony and begin the process of finding new ways of seeing the self and healing the wounds of colonization and oppression.
Short bio:
Kim Carmona Aptekar, LCSW, MSEd, received her BA in Theatre from Marymount Manhattan College, her MSEd from Bank Street College of Education, and her MSW from Hunter College. She is a Social Worker for the Committee on Special Education at the New York City Department of Education, focusing on the development and implementation of services for non-public school students. Kim is studying for her Doctorate in Social Work at New York University, and believes in utilizing an eclectic mix of therapeutic methods as well as incorporating her creative background in her research and practice.