Melbourne Institute for Experiential and Creative Arts Therapy

At Miecat Inc we direct all our work towards engaging our credo, adopted from Plato: "Humankind is a being in search of meaning."

We have tried, as far as is possible, to abandon systems of therapy and theories of therapy, in the hope that there is a realness of possibility in the idea that people can make sense of their own lives. To this end we work in whichever modes of inquiry people favour - art forms and story telling - constructing representations of experiencing in whichever way helps connection and understanding. Miecat always seeks meanings in the ordinariness of lived experience, as well as the crises of experience. Examples might be telling a stroy about a chair that holds us; sweeping floors, washing dishes, emptying a drawer; my life on the phone and the computer; the family at mealtimes; photos; the box of old clothes; driving my car; a visit to the supermarket; money and me, and so on. In our training programmes, experientially based, all our students will connect with the layers of their lives by engaging in the actual activities and the search for meaning these hold. The themes and patterns of our lives are sought in that continuum of the ordinary to the momentous. Another focus in experiential work is in those values and emotions which lie at the heart of the patterns of our being. The emotions, held and experienced so often prereflectively, lead us to meanings and value issues about how we are and how we might wish to be, in our lives. This is a non-pathologising approach to understanding meanings and the ethical bases of our lives as practitioners and the lives our clients may wish to live.

Miecat has created a form of inquiry used in the work, but also holds a central value on the inersubjective relationship. This vehicle is the living experience of content as process, where it may be possible to be present in ways that allow the exploration of being present in our lives. This idea is central to both training and this way of working. Miecat staff team teach, and are constantly engaged in their own reflective, ongoing training and in the construction of our own meanings.

An accredited private provider of graduate tertiary training under the Tertiary Education Act, Miecat provides a Graduate Diploma, the MA by Research and the MA by Supervision. We teach the programme in Melbourne and Brisbane and have a steady enrolment of 140-150 students.

PACFA Section Experiential Therapy and Expressive Arts Therapies

Website link www.miecat.org.au