The ICM Blog
Redefine Therapy

Our work and our mission is to redefine therapy and our conversations are about the art and practice of healing. This blog was launched in May 2018 by Dr. Jamie Marich, affiliates, and friends.

  Originally published on the Dancing Mindfulness Expressive Arts Therapy Blog, 5/4/2017 If you’ve followed Dancing Mindfulness and other projects connected to my Institute for Creative Mindfulness work, you’ve likely encountered the hashtag #redefinetherapy. What started as a book chapter and a hashtag is quickly turning into a movement that you

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Tattoos and Trauma Recovery: Part I

When I was twenty years old, I woke up one morning and knew I had to get a tattoo. I made the decision in a blend of peer pressure (my childhood best friend just got several) and being hungover. I knew that, whatever I got, I’d have to place it

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Kitten Paws and Loving Hands: Yoga in the #metoo Era

I am 57, and I have been a yogi since age 43. I have been #metoo declarant since late 2017, a survivor of sexual abuse since the age of seven. I have been touched inappropriately by yoga teachers three times, twice triggering me and once physically injuring me. We need

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It is a Joy to Be Hidden But A Disaster Not to Be Found: Guest Posting

The practice of free association in psychotherapy helps the mind make what was previously unconscious, available to the conscious mind for reflection and understanding.  When I stay open to images, sensations, memories and feelings during my movement practice, I am also free associating. Freud said dreams are the royal road

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Let’s Get Judgy!

We hear a lot about the dangers of being judgmental in many wellness and recovery circles. And in a colloquial sense it speaks to us. No one likes a judgmental jerk. That person who constantly insists they are right in all matters and anyone who doesn’t conform to their beliefs

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Poem of Instruction: An Invitation to Self-Compassion

I wrote my first Poem of Instruction “As a Daily Prayer” at the invitation of my expressive arts therapy teacher and mentor, Dr. Christine Valters Paintner, in 2015. My poem was first published by Yoganonymous (a now discontinued website) in 2015 and later in Christine’s own book, The Wisdom of the

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Hannah Senesh and Me: A Thank You Letter to My Protector Figure

I majored in history as an undergraduate at Youngstown State University, and was privileged to take several classes with noted Jewish scholar and author Dr. Saul Friedman.When I took his course on the Holocaust as a nineteen-year-old, he asked us one day, “How many of you have ever heard of

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What Does it Mean to #RedefineTherapy?

  Originally published on the Dancing Mindfulness Expressive Arts Therapy Blog, 5/4/2017 If you’ve followed Dancing Mindfulness and other projects connected to my Institute for Creative Mindfulness work, you’ve likely encountered the hashtag #redefinetherapy. What started as a book chapter and a hashtag is quickly turning into a movement that you

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Fighting Dissociation Phobia and Coming Out as a Professional with a Dissociative Disorder

To access original piece with full comments published on 5-18-18, go to: ​instituteforcreativemindfulness.weebly.com/icm-blog-redefine-therapy/fighting-dissociation-phobia-and-coming-out-as-a-professional-with-a-dissociative-disorder-dr-jamie-marichAs you read the title of this article, I am somewhat scared about how you are judging me…judging us. If your information about dissociative disorders—or what the general public may still call “multiple personalities” – is from the

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