Embodied wisdom in the creative arts therapies : learning from contemporary art

Practice wisdom in any field can be learned. However, it is not the kind of knowledge that can be codified for instruction manuals under some notion of “best practice” (Cheung, 2017). As Jean-Paul Sartre once stated, “[s/he] who begins with facts will never arrive at essences” (in Becker, 2009, p. 59). This sense of journeying to the “essence” or embodied heart and mind of knowledge is practice wisdom’s locale. It is unsurprising therefore that it may feel elusive to those in the early years of their profession and most certainly an enigma for those in training. Practice wisdom is a form of “moral practical reasoning” (Tsang, 2008, p. 131); a “personal and value-driven system of knowledge” (Klein & Bloom, 1995, p. 799). It is the “knowing-inaction” evident in “the artistic, intuitive processes” skilled and experienced practitioners bring to difficult or uncertain situations (Schön, 1983, p. 49).