Arts, Health & Society Division
The Arts, Health and Society Division offers Masters (MA), Qualifying Phase of the Ph.D. in Expressive Arts and Doctoral Degrees in Expressive Arts in the areas of Therapy, Coaching, Consulting, Education, and Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding. Our division is an Arts-based, Community-oriented, and environmentally-sensitive organization designed as an adult-learning model.
We are a academic institution without borders: an intercultural and interdisciplinary experience.
Our programs seek to restore confidence in POIESIS (The Greek word for making or shaping), Art-making stems from the human capacity to shape both, self and world. Training and research at the Arts, Health and Society Division of the European Graduate School are based on that capacity and encourage students to take responsibility for shaping their development as learners in a collaborative and supportive atmosphere.
Teaching takes place in the beautiful mountain village of Saas-Fee, tucked away in the Swiss Alps (State of Valais, Switzerland) at an altitude of 1800 m (6000 ft). Each summer from June to August, the European Graduate School holds two sessions for Expressive Arts, inviting students and faculty from all over the world to meet and participate in intensive training seminars.
The field of Expressive Arts at the Arts, Health and Society Division at EGS has broadened from an initial therapeutic focus to a more general concern with Arts-based processes of change in diverse areas: From Therapy to Education, to Coaching and Consulting, and to Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding. Our programs are thoroughly interdisciplinary, drawing on all artistic modalities and theoretical perspectives, united by a concern for the effectiveness of the Arts in bringing about change. We emphasize a phenomenological standpoint, allowing Arts processes to unfold their own meaning through careful attention.
Our faculty includes founders of the field of Expressive Arts with extensive experience on both, theoretical and practical levels. Our programs are Arts-based and take place within a community of adult learners from around the globe. Therapists, educators, coaches, consultants and those engaged in social change work together in a participatory way to develop their leadership skills and the confidence that will enable them to present their work effectively. We offer students the opportunity to take part in the creative development of this new and exciting field.
Life and work in the 21st century demand new ways for studies and research
Pioneering such new ways, the AHS Division of EGS works in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary mode and supports networking with other universities and institutes aiming to gain synergy through joint teaching and research activities.
AHS is committed to fundamental research in the health sector, Psychotherapy, Supervision, Coaching and Consulting, and Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding, and is active in research concerning the effectiveness and long term consequences in Art-related Therapy, Supervisory, Coaching and Consulting, and Conflict Transformation Processes.
AHS sets high ethical standards and works with scientific models and other established methods of learning.
Being with the Arts is our Way of Being in the World
AHS is closely connected to the phenomenological human sciences and to an anthropological view.
AHS is committed to the spirit of the "Liberal Arts" and considers Arts, Philosophy and Sciences as essentially related to each other. The various realities of human existence are connected in the creative act. Our foundation lies in Poiesis, the capacity of human beings to respond to what is given to them and to shape their world and themselves. Above all, we aim to develop a sense of aesthetic responsibility in our students, the capacity to intervene in problematic situations in order to bring about solutions that lead to well-being.
AHS considers the human being as part of a higher totality who, in "being in the world" carries not only an individual and social responsibility, but also an ecological responsibility.
AHS views the human being as a "lingual being" who, in opening to the "Here and Now" through the artistic act, through play and philosophical thinking, finds the possibility to constructively shape life in all its multiplicity.
Intermodal Expressive Arts
The field of Intermodal Expressive Arts (EXA) has grown considerably in the last thirty years and has developed an international reputation with professional representation in many countries.
The International Network of Expressive Arts Therapy Training Centers interconnects institutes in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.
Outstanding faculty
The AHS Core and Senior Faculty includes many of the scientific pioneers of Expressive Arts research and graduate instruction both, in Europe and in North America: Paul Antze, Sally Atkins, Herbert Eberhart, Margo Fuchs Knill, Majken Jacoby, Paolo J. Knill, Jürgen Kriz, Ellen G. Levine, Stephen K. Levine, Melinda Ashley Meyer and Allucquére Rosanne (Sandy) Stone.
Biographical summaries of all faculty members of the Arts, Health and Society Division can be found here: Faculty Members.