Near Completion of My First Ecourse!

   I have just finished running my first ecourse. Back in the winter I sat with a friend and talked about how I wanted to combine my love of art with my work as a therapist. I didn't want to do art therapy I wanted to use art as a means of exploring an idea that developed from my therapy practice. In my practice I repeatedly encountered mid-life women who struggled to be everything that we knew they could be. For example, they were unhappy because they second guessed themselves, they felt they had to please others, they felt frustrated because it seemed that no one saw them. As I reflected on this reoccurring theme I wondered what was missing. These were wonderful, smart, funny, lovely women. What was it that was keeping them stuck.

   After much thought it became clear to me that these women weren't having any fun. I wondered why. Then it hit me that these women did not have access to the fun part of themselves, their early adolescent girl. I knew that this part of the self knew how to have fun. She knew how to play and not let anything stop her from laughing too loud or feeling too passionatly. This self was unapologetically herself.

   I knew that I needed to figure out how to help women reintegrate her adolescent self. But I didn't know what kind of forum to do this in. I had toyed with the idea of running a group but wasn't convinced that that would work for practical reasons, i.e., we would need to gather one evening a week, find a suitable space... So as I explained myself to my photographer friend she said, "what about running an ecourse?" And I replied, "what is an ecourse?" She patiently explained it to me and slowly I realized that that was exactly the forum that I was looking for. It would provide the structure, accessibility and artistic freedom that I wanted to provide. So in March I sat down and wrote the course. It took me about three weeks to put 6 assignments together to get at the ideas that I had been sitting on for probably years. Today marks week six of the course. It will soon be over and I have learned so much.