– Dr. Sh Marzety Adibah binti Al Sayed Mohamad.

A one-day Expressive Therapy (ET) for Counselor workshop was conducted under the “Research Programme of Coastal Community Centre for Socioeconomic Development (CSD)” in conjunction with the School of Social and Economic Development on the 12 May 2014 at Makmal Kaunseling Kelompok, UMT. ET is the use of art, music, dance, movement, drama, poetry, creative writing, play, and sand tray within the context of psychotherapy, counseling, rehabilitation, or health care. ET is an approach to psychotherapy and counseling that encourages client in self-discovery and view changes as a result of intrapersonal processing.

The main purpose for this workshop was to introduce the scale of ET among ten counselors in UMT as well as to enlighten them about ET techniques. Besides, this programme also helps the counselor’s confidence to give their clients (communities) the opportunity to become active participants in their own treatment and empower them to use imagination in productive and corrective ways. The speaker for the workshop was Dr. Sh Marzety Adibah binti Al Sayed Mohamad, who is a Chair at Research Programme of Coastal Community Centre for Socioeconomic Development (CSD). Overall, the programme was successful in achieving its objectives and as a kick start for counselors to make expressive arts therapy as a scale that can increase depth of spoken and unspoken communication which results from the expression process and the product itself in communities. The response from counselors showed that ET is a technique that helps them in exploration process during counseling session and is an interesting technique that can be used in the community.