Expressive therapies the Timeless Hour
‘your hands know all your inner images and dreams, trust them to express your images’
Dialogue of a student and her paintings with Michiel in the role of trialogue during a summer course at the Italian Riviera.
The student concerned has given her permission for this picture to be used.
Head, heart and hands form the triangle…….
which is the base for the child’s emotional, spiritual and cognitive growth.
This workbook contains descriptions of 22 exercises out of visual expression for the promotion of the integration of emotional, social and cognitive intelligence.
Almost all exercises are characterised by the simultaneous or alternate drawing or claying with both hands.
This stimulates the exchange between de left and right hand sides of the brain. This is an important element of the method through which a harmonisation in the development of the client (the child, young adult or adult) can take place.
In practice the exercises of this method are applied in coaching in individual, group and family therapies. This expressive method, with art not as its aim but as a means, is effective both in an educational/creative way as well as in a curative therapeutic/creative way.
The method the Timeless Hour is applied professionally:
- in Higher Vocational Education such as Art Therapy and Creative Therapy in the Netherlands
In 2009 the Timeless hour was included as an Evidence Based method in the Handbook Art Therapy (Handboek Beeldende Therapie ‘uit de verf‘) next to 39 other methods.
Handboek Beeldende Therapie (Handbook Art Therapy) in which the method the Timeless Hour was incorporated next to 39 other Evidence Based therapies. The method is also applicable in the private therapeutic practices of trained therapists (see under References Therapists).The handbook was published in 2009 by publishers Bohn Stafleu en van Loghum/Houten ISBN 97890 313 52531
- b. By art and creative therapists throughout the Netherlands who have received training from Michiel Czn. Dhont in studio Molenpad Workplace in Amsterdam.
Twenty five therapists/teachers of this training course have come together in the working group the Timeless Hour and with supervision by Michiel have carried out many projects upon request in the Netherlands.
During a single session of 1,5 hours this woman processed her feelings of detachment towards her premature baby, which she had not been able to feel with her during the first six weeks, as the baby was in an incubator. The now 11 month old boy who was present during the session lying on a blanket , experienced all the energies his mother was going through. He was extraordinarily alert. He kept making small sounds as if he was giving his mother his approval for this process. By expressing her feelings through drawing (partly with eyes closed) the mother released much of her anger and sadness and the connection between her and her child became harmonious again.
- By coaches – therapists-pedagogues in the ASTRA and AFRA Boddaert Foundation and coaching of asylum seekers, the Foundation for Child and Justice in Amsterdam, in health care and coaching of the disabled, for instance the coaching of autistic children.
- The book is also known at the Psychology faculty of the University of Amsterdam.
- Primary education by group teachers and remedial teachers and to a lesser degree in secondary education.
- Erasmus Art Academy in Rotterdam in free drawing and drawing after a model.
- Private art training courses and alternative therapies.
- Training Artists & Co.,( Opleiding Kunstenaars&Co) in Amsterdam where artists are trained to become guest teachers in primary education. This may lead to permanent positions.
- A former student of mine is giving seminars about the Timeless hour method at RINO (Training Institute for Mental Health Care)
- By some Dutch therapists and artist working abroad.
The workbook is accompanied by an introduction and instruction film, the production of which was made possible through a subsidy from the Dutch Children Stamps Fund (Stichting Kinderpostzegels Nederland).
This DVD can now also be found in two parts on YouTube. A third film can also be viewed there. See under PRESENTATION – You Tube in the menu. ´t Tijdloze Uur (the Timeless hour) was published in the year 2000 by Lambo publishers in Arnhem. A revised version of the book is now available (see under ORDER in the menu).
Michiel Czn. Dhont has developed a unique method which works out of movement and intuition through individual and communal drawing and claying exercises …. Read More>>