Alain Mullenex

Track: Holotropic Art as an Expression of Inner Process

“Voces sin Fronteras”: a transpersonal-transcultural holotropic art experience working with refugees

Facing the experience of the extreme violence of being a refugee, the use of art from an holotropic and transpersonal paradigm can generate reparative, transformational and hopeful processes in the construction of a new life. The project Voces sin fronteras “Voices without borders: music as a bridge between cultures” is a multi-cultural refugee choir experience, using art with a transpersonal-transcultural framework. The symbolic languages of cultures bring creative expressions in a transpersonal perspective where we dissolved cultural barriers integrating unity.
We will be sharing our artistic methodology based on active participation, imagination and joint creation. Art and its symbolic language allow access to holotropic states as subtle levels of being and consciousness: meditation, energy and bodywork, painting and singing are languages that allow to connect beyond words. Refugees explored and expressed inner processes in which experiences emerged from biographical material to transpersonal, archetypal and cultural symbols. The group encourages the activation of a resilient movement towards unity where trauma experiences can be transformed. Through artistic dynamics and music, refugees have recovered their inner voice, the voice of the Self. The voice became a tool of connection with their inner healer and the Self, where the consciousness of uniqueness of the human being crosses the social and collective context. Opening the holotropic paradigm to the social and humanitarian context with a transcultural artistic perspective, is a new form of sharing concern about global consciousness.

Keywords: holotropic states, refugees, inner voice and process, music and arts, universal consciousness, transpersonal- transcultural.

Alain Mullenex, MA, France, is a philosopher, also specialist in international relations and conflicts, humanist and transpersonal therapist. He has worked for 12 years in South and Central America in accompaniment to human rights defenders and displaced communities. He is founder and director of the international organization “Voces con Sentidos” (Voices with Senses), which works on art and creativity as a means of social transformation and personal growth. Specialized in artistic and creative methodologies, He works with refugees to develop the emotional strengthening and the resilience.

Growing up in a broad family spiritual context (Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Russian-Orthodox and Buddhism), he explores shamanism through Amerindian Lakota traditions. For several years, he accompanies distinct groups at risk from art and creativity as a way of developing autonomy and resilience. Trained in transpersonal psychology in Barcelona (IPTB), he is currently dedicated to accompanying processes of transformation, self-knowledge and personal growth, through a holistic therapeutic vision with individuals and groups.

Copresenter:

Irene Santiago

Irene Santiago, MA, Spain, is a psychologist, transpersonal therapist, specialized in psychosocial care to individuals, organizations and groups in situations of human rights violations, emergencies and disasters. She worked in Colombia, Venezuela, Perú and Mexico with people affected by armed conflict, migrants, refugees, people in situation of forced displacement (PTSD).
Irene is a psychosocial-community assistance to refugees since 2015 under the Asylum Program of the Ministry of the Interior (Spain). She currently works as the pedagogical coordinator of the association “Voces con Sentidos”.
With almost 20 years of experience accompanying individuals, groups in trauma and extreme stress contexts. She focusses her psychological work on strengthening people's resources, capacities and resilience to overcome limit situations. In this professional and human path, she learnt from the complexity and the multidimensionality of the human being.

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