Using Art Media in Psychotherapy

Bringing the Power of Creativity to Practice

Michelle L. Dean

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317597773
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Using Art Media in Psychotherapy makes a thoughtful and contextual argument for using graphic art materials in psychotherapy, providing historical context for art materials and their uses and incorporating them with contemporary practices and theories. Written with an analytic focus, many of the psychological references nod to Jung and post-Jungian thought with keen attention to image and to symbolic function. This book jettisons the idea of reductionist, cookbook approaches and instead provides an integrated and contextual understanding of the origins of each art form as well as an insightful use for each in its application in mental health healing practices. Using Art Media in Psychotherapy gives clinicians and students alike the tools they need to offer psychologically minded and clinically astute choices that honor their clients.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Use of Art Media in Therapy

DOI: 10.4324/9781315746258-1

Art in a psychotherapy practice is much more than a quiver full of directives or a series of ingredients rattled off like a recipe in a cookbook. Although a set of ingredients may get the beginner into the kitchen, what separates the novice from a chef is a discerning appreciation for the individual ingredients and their synergetic effects. Likewise, the ability to be receptive and to engage images and the application of art and imagery into attentive and skillful intervention in a psychotherapy practice requires competent providers who are able to understand the transformative effects of imagery within the art process. The differences between art techniques and art as an emergent means of communication and knowledge spanning millennia are often confused.

Art therapy is often described as nonverbal therapy because, like sand tray therapy, some of the process may be done in silence. As a result, the session remains unfettered by cognitive processing, and the patient may stay close to the lived experience of the creative process, as the therapist holds the space like a silent witness. But as Moon (2008) stated, art therapy is really a meta-verbal therapy, a therapy that goes beyond traditional talk therapy. The Greek prefix meta- means “beyond,” and while art therapy does include language, it also includes the dynamics of image and the relational aspects of a therapeutic alliance. And art therapy goes beyond the obvious hybrid of art and psychology; it encompasses much more, including cognitive, behavioral, developmental, psychological, cultural, anthropological, historical, and imagistic considerations such as archetypes. An archetype, from a Jungian perspective, refers to a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern, thought, or image that is universally known by a group of individuals. Archetypes commonly present as reoccurring motifs or symbols in art and literature and may be thought of as deriving from a first mold from which others are patterned. Examples of archetypes are images of mother, father, self, shadow, trickster, and hero, as well as hundreds of others. Through these symbols, matter and energy meet and psyche and body connect across time and space (Rowland, 2015).

Artwork is not an alien encounter; rather, we meet the artwork in the world and the world in the artwork. We come to understand ourselves in it and through it, and for this reason, we must come into a relationship with it (Gadamer, 2012). The art presents both an immediate reality of the individual and a historical context of the human condition. As Gadamer (2012) states, “art is knowledge and experiencing an artwork means sharing in that knowledge” (p. 84). Through the creative process, the artwork is not just an object but instead an experience—an experience that changes both the creator and the viewer. This transformation occurs through play or through the peak experience sometimes described as flow, which has its own essence, outside of consciousness. Art uses the language of symbols, metaphors, and relationship to best express itself. Art is not science. While each makes significant contributions to awareness, they are different modes of knowing.

Psychological assessment and treatment are often described through a particular lens, theory, or technique, such as cognitive or behavioral, and are often tied to fluctuating criteria for mental illness. Few of these frameworks approach images as a means of expression, health, or psychological function. Because an image enables us to consider and reflect on personal, familial, and societal health, meaning, and significance and to include relevant historical, cultural, and individual factors, the image and its expression in art in a therapeutic setting are crucial to psychological assessment and treatment. As a theoretical frame, depth psychology appears to fully encompass the human condition. This approach encourages the use of art and imagery due to their ability to hold a multitude of aspects including personal, cultural, historic, imagistic, archetypal, religious, and mythic frameworks. I concur with Schaverien (1992), who states that the process is generally equally as important as the product, although the relative importance varies across particular persons and their expressions. I also believe the relational aspect of the therapeutic process is essential because it provides the framework that holds space for the emergent material to manifest.

Through this text, I hope to present a full representation of the significance and impetus for using art in the psychotherapy process and the importance of the historical and cultural context of this material. Dunn-Snow and Joy-Smellie (2000) agreed with Congdon (1990) and Jung (1968b) when they said, “An exemplary art experiential also needs a historically based component that art therapists can refer to when discussions about artwork evolve [and] that art experiential steeped in history brings both a personal and collective meaning to the art therapy experience” (p. 125). A part of the personal process and artistic expression is the emergence of Image. Image and symbolism are integral parts of psychoanalysis. From the beginning, psychology has addressed imagery, such as through Freud's theories of dreams and through Jung's images and his encouragement of his patients to create art about their dreams and fantasies. The way imagery is regarded is of great significance, but often, due to its esoteric nature, imagery has come to be minimized in the current trends in many mental health practices to purport positivist science or empiricism. According to Berry (2008), a Jungian analyst,

What we don't learn is a psychology of the Image, comparable to what students of archeology, iconography, aesthetics, or textual criticism would learn about the image in their fields. But we can't even discover what would be a psychology of the image so long as we in psychology are exploiting the image for what we take to be our therapeutic aims. Perhaps the other way around would be more appropriate: discover what the image wants and from that determine our therapy [p. 76].

The current text focuses on the use of image and art, or graphic representations, as a means of self-exploration and therapeutic insight and change. Although there are merits in empiricism, the many efforts to quantify the image are unable to capture the essential contribution that it makes in work with individuals and their emergent symbolism. In this book, I attempt to hold the dialectical ideas of human struggles, such as those with truth, beauty, good, evil, dread, and hate as it emerges in an image form. Such an image contains wonder and awe within its confines. I intend this text to provide readers with some of the essential history and contextual importance of image and art. The history of art predates its use for human development, regulation, and mediation, and it underpins well-being and specifically art's application in psychotherapy practice. I will explain the distinction between image and picture and give examples of their application within a therapeutic construct.

Each chapter describes a popular art medium, including a summation of its origin, its cultural and technological advances, and how it may be thought about and applied in psychotherapy. Most chapters also provide a brief illustrative case example highlighting some considerations for the use of art in psychotherapy. The number of chapters in this text is limited to ten. Although this is a humble beginning, I hope to provide depth more than breadth. In this book, I discuss the use of art in therapy but in no way do I intend this text to substitute for specific education and training in psychotherapy processes, nor do I mean it to be used as a replacement for professional help and mental health services. It is, however, a deep and well-supported view into the rich and transformative use of art and the art-making process as means to understand human creativity and its role in healing and transformation.

Drawing on the historical context of art, I describe art psychotherapy's inclusive psychological framework, symbolism, and functions. I discuss the inception of specific art media as well as how significant cultural changes have influenced their methods. This book does not merely provide a list of activities but does describe many methods commonly used in art therapy within an interpersonal psychotherapy practice of a trained clinician. Attention is given to the importance of context in the psychotherapy practice utilizing art. Any specific interventions that are given in this text are done so out of necessity because there are times when additional support or directions are helpful to the patient. The times I find more direct intervention helpful are when patients feel paralyzed by self-doubt or present as psychically impoverished due to neglect of their inner world or the result of traumatic events. Again, context is key in delivery and method. This text is meant to encourage individuals to connect to the creative process as a means of igniting their own creativity and ability to navigate many of life's challenges and to support well-being. It is also meant to open discussion of the arts as a larger psychological construct that has historical roots in human development and phenomena. Art in psychotherapy is focused on relational aspects and expressive elements, and it promotes intra/interpersonal connectivity through the therapeutic relationship (Hass-Cohen & Carr, 2008).

I begin this book by describing some of the psychological and aesthetic frameworks and influences that I find compelling because they have laid the foundation for contemporary thinking about the arts and creative process. Their inclusion is by no means a comprehensive discussion of the philosophical ideals but is meant to build a framework upon which a rationale is supported for incorporating the arts in therapy and for enhancing well-being. I hope this discussion will also shed light on the historical influences on image, art, and aesthetics as seen today. Discussion of aesthetics in the field of art therapy is minimal, with few exceptions. However, because artwork changes both the creator and the viewer by being as much an experience as it is a product, aesthetics must be considered for its emotional and subjective aspects.

I am advocating for the arts to be used in psychotherapeutic practice as a means for greater consciousness and awareness, which can sometimes only be achieved through an image, which is a source of thought and knowing. Congruent with this belief, I have found a natural affinity with the theory and teachings of depth psychology. Written with an analytic focus, many of the psychological references in this book pay homage to Jung and post-Jungian thought, as well as early philosophical writers who contemplated the roles of aesthetics and art in people's lives. Attention to image and symbolic function has been included in places. And although image and picture are often used interchangeably, there is a difference. It can be easy to conflate the picture, or product, with function, or the image creation process, and thereby inadvertently degrade the distinct value of the image and its creative expression in educational and psychotherapeutic work, which is as a potent, emergent deliverer and holder having significant psychological process.

This book jettisons the idea of a formulaic cookbook of activities. Although some might want to view a cookbook approach to therapy as a simple solution meeting the current demand for standardized methods of therapy, such a perspective would undermine the individual and his or her creative process if these activities were applied without thought. I caution that a cookbook method is dishonest to both the patient and the therapist and misses essential opportunities for connection, reverie, and emergent psychological material that are highly personal, idiosyncratic, and possibly esoteric. Clinicians and student clinicians who might reach haphazardly into a bag of tricks, grab for worksheets, or rattle off activities and techniques to keep patients busy will hopefully use this book to ground their understanding of the arts in psychotherapy with theories and ideas that have long historical, analytic, and relational roots. I believe such grounding can be an antidote to the compulsive frenzy of busywork, which is so pervasive today in mental health settings, that stresses looking at limited aspects of human functioning, often the cognitive function due to its fit with the current trends and its ability to distance the clinician from the therapeutic relationship. I hope that, by understanding the inherent nature and function of art along with its specific characteristics, origins, and capacity for expression and relatedness, mental health therapists will find meaningful applications in the therapeutic process and beyond. I encourage therapists to use this book to implement art-based interventions that arise from psychologically minded and clinically astute choices, informed with depth and integrity, which honor patients and the tradition of imagistic knowing and not knowing. By the not-knowing aspects of art, I am referring to the numinous: elements that surpass comprehension and understanding and may have spiritual and synchronistic factors.

This text supports the concept of authentic relational and transmutative opportunities in a psychotherapeutic framework by providing an integrated and contextual understanding of the origins of each art form and some insightful applications. I aim to provide thoughtful and well-researched implementations of art forms along with their historic uses in societal, cultural, and clinical contexts for engaging in personal and collective emergent material for personal psychic and collective archetypal realms. Presenting the historical context in an accessible manner informs the applicability of the art media and its ability to express, contain, and document or bear witness to suffering, and it provides opportunities for the reader to more fully grasp the potential for transcendence and transformation in a therapeutic setting. It provides for an alive-ening or awakening personal experience—a process for questioning and a kind of knowing that is personal and simultaneously a collective, archetypal awareness and knowledge. Life is a creative process, which integrates many philosophical questions about how we live it. The arts are a practice and as such are able to teach us much about discipline, affect regulation, patience, organization, imagination, relationships, and engagement. The image-making process can be akin to meditation and spiritual practices, offering mental and physical health benefits. Image is everywhere: in our waking life, in our dreams, in our memories, and in our language. Imagery is exulted in ou...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Author’s Note
• 1 Introduction: The Use of Art Media in Therapy
• 2 Printmaking: Variations on a Theme
• 3 Drawing: Engaging the Image
• 4 Painting: Fluidity of the Creative Unconscious
• 5 Therapeutic Art Books: Sacred Texts
• 6 Therapeutic Journals: What’s Lost Is Found
• 7 Mask Making: Self-Concept and Its Illusive Nature
• 8 Spatial Relationships: Three-Dimensional Work
• 9 Shadows in the Box: Dioramas and Boxes
• 10 Conclusions
• Appendix A: Vendors and Suppliers for Art Materials
• Appendix B: Recipes for Book Binding and Paste Papers
• Appendix C: Themes for Web Writing
• References
• Index