Antioch University New England PsyD in Clinical Psychology faculty Dr. Lorraine Mangione and Dr. Katherine (Kate) Evarts, and student Casey Buonocore, presented at the American Psychological Association’s (APA) 2021 Annual Convention. The title of their symposium was “The #MeToo Movement: Using Technology and Creativity in Healing.” The presentations included: “Women, #MeToo, & Creativity: Healing Interactions” by Mangione, “Development of the Padlet Display of Creative Responses in the #MeToo Movement” by Evarts, and “Spending Time with the Padlet Display: What Does It Mean” by Buonocore.
“Sexual assault remains such a widespread issue in our world that we were pleased to bring this to the attention of other psychologists at the convention in a way that used technology in an interactive and creative way for healing,” said Dr. Lorraine Mangione, Professor of Clinical Psychology.
The symposium was sparked by a short invited piece Mangione contributed to Daniela Gioseffi’s #Me Too, Anch’io, a book on Italian American perspectives on the #MeToo movement on sexual assault, harassment, bias, and sexism. The #MeToo Movement began in 2006 by Tarana Burke in response to sexual violence perpetrated against women of color and erupted in 2017, empowering women of all races to speak out about their experiences; destructive and illegal activities continue unabated and outside the general consciousness of society. Additionally, due to the stark lack of apologies by the perpetrators, there has been an unhealed community wound that needs repair.
Mangione, Evarts, and Buonocore presented ideas and a project about women and possible avenues to healing from sexual assault that involves creativity and art. Acts of creativity have within them the potential for healing, and creative activities around the #MeToo movement surged recently.
The group shared a virtual display, called a Padlet, they had created and used in the PsyD program to educate and inform about sexual assault and harassment. A Padlet is an interactive bulletin board that can present information in several innovative ways, such as on a map or on a timeline.
“We distributed the Padlet display to our student and faculty listserv for viewing, commenting, and contributing, and described that process and responses to the Padlet,” added Mangione
“We chose to use a Padlet to engage in discussion because the format aligned perfectly with the feminist underpinnings of the presentation since the information was presented in a way that was not patriarchal in nature,” said Dr. Kate Evarts. “In addition, the interactive format matched their points about the use of creative expression.”
Given the nature of the project, the Padlet contains examples of art that were made in response to traumatic experiences (including but not limited to sexual violence), statistics about the use of creative arts therapy, and additional information about the #MeToo movement itself.
“A majority of the images or titles of articles are links that will bring you to the page where the article is from,” said Buonocore. “One of my contributions is the ‘Relevant Documentaries’ box, which contains examples of documentaries about different aspects of sexual violence; all of the titles are links that will bring you to a page that further explains each documentary.”
“Our hope was to allow participants to follow links, learn information, and even add, comment on, or like posts,” added Dr. Evarts. “If someone is not signed into their Google account, they would be able to interact anonymously. It remains open to any participant who might be interested in engaging.”
