The webinar will discuss how spontaneous mandalas can be used as therapeutic tools for self-knowledge and to decrease anxiety levels.

Mandalas are exquisite works of art that have been used for many centuries as spiritual tools for meditation to help focus and bring a deeper understanding of the self. Mandala means circle in Sanskrit. In the 1960s, Carl Jung, a Swiss Psychotherapist, considered mandalas magic circles connecting the unconscious to the conscious mind. The Brazilian Psychiatrist Nise da Silveira recognized spontaneous mandalas in the drawings and paintings of schizophrenic patients. Sharing pictures of these artworks with Jung was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration. The meeting with Jung occurred in 1956 at the II International Congress of Psychiatry held in Zurich, Switzerland, where the mandalas of her patients were part of the exhibition "Schizophrenia in Images." For Jung, the circle imposes a severe pattern that compensates for the disorder and confusion of the psychic. Later on, in the 1970s, Joan Kellogg developed the Archetypal Stages of the Great Round of Mandalas, a method of analyzing mandalas from psychiatric patients. By bringing this method beyond hospital walls, Susanne Fincher unveiled a transformative path to insight, healing, and self-expression accessible to all. Spontaneous mandalas are also great tools to decrease anxiety levels.

This trajectory of mandalas from the ritual and religious perspective to therapeutic practice will be presented in the webinar, during which a 20-minute practice of spontaneous mandalas will be done. There is no need for a compass, ruler, or protractor. The attendees will be asked to have a paper with a circle drawn with a pencil in the middle using a plate. The drawing can be done with anything the attendee is comfortable with: colored pencils, oil pastels, dry pastels, or even watercolors. It will be a fun, relaxing time.