Arts-based and narrative inquiry in liminal experience reveal platforming as basic social psychological process

Psychotherapists are challenged to find ways to facilitate and support people dealing with change and uncertainty in an increasingly stressful world. Art and narrative are widely recognized by cultures worldwide as ways of knowing about ourselves as human beings. This study examines how the creative process of art making may reflect the personal narrative of transformation in the liminal experience. Subjective reports of art process were obtained through semi-structured interviews of eight artists who have employed art making as an important way to express their own process of transformation through liminal experience. Through arts-based inquiry intertextualized with narrative inquiry, and using the methods of grounded theory to gather and analyze data, the notion of platforming was generated as a schemata of the creation of a means of support to carry one over the threshold of change.

Research highlights
► Arts-based inquiry reveals insights into the mechanisms of change.
► Exploration of the artistic process through liminal experience demonstrates the basic social psychological process of platforming.
► Intensive and systematic study of subjective experience of art making through the liminal experience demonstrates a schemata applicable to clinical psychotherapeutic work.