Group Analytic Art Therapy

Gerry McNeilly

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781846424571
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Group Analytic Art Therapy, written by an internationally renowned psychotherapist, provides readers with a practical and theoretical framework for using group art therapy in a range of settings.

Based on over 20 years' experience of conducting group art therapy, this book is packed with suggestions for group art therapy practice and many explanatory diagrams. The author also explores the dynamics and psychological effects of diverse group situations, based on examples from his own clinical practice, and offers an illuminating insight in to his own theories and practical applications of group art therapy in the context of the developments in the field.

Group Analytic Art Therapy is both a comprehensive reference and an inspiring text for practising and trainee art therapists, psychotherapists and group therapists.

Part One

The Origins

Chapter 1

How I started

‘I come before you to stand behind you to tell you something I know nothing about.’ This was a saying that my father used when I was a child, but I never knew whether he made it up. I trust that this book will act in a similar way. It is before you, and as my work is complete I stand behind you. In telling you something, there are times when I have felt I know nothing, but I hope that what I offer is enough to describe group analytic art therapy in its theory and practice. I am sure that I am not alone, as most therapists will oscillate between knowing and not knowing.

Some of my earliest memories revolve around groups. During my childhood, these groupings were the gangs I belonged to in which I became either the ringleader or the clown. On reflection, I can see I was happiest when I adopted archetypal roles, although I was ignorant of this at the time. When my schoolfriends called me professor, this was not in respect of my intellectual abilities but because I wore glasses.

In those early days, our street was our playground; the neighbouring streets belonged to other gangs, whom we either joined forces with or fought against. The shed at the back of our family house was often the meeting point for the ‘Harryville Gang’, with varying shades of innocent fun and mischief being brewed and set in motion. These group experiences allowed me to play out my exhibitionism and enthusiasm. Other activities such as the boxing club and the army cadet force were strong group experiences. In my early to mid-teens, on Sunday nights, groups of between 100 and 200 teenagers would embark on mystery walks into the surrounding countryside. Each week, a small core, of whom I was one, would make the decision for the mass regarding our destination. There was a struggle, because the person who made the decision always had to have a surprise card up their sleeve to make the trip worthwhile. This could have been anything from hide-and-seek in the local haunted house or a boys-and-girls chase. We would set up the chase in such a way that those who had romantic or sexual ambitions had good chances of success. We used to call the trips ‘pants’, but I never did remember why – possibly because they filled us with expectation to begin with and exhaustion once it was finished.

Being a young teenager in the 1960s, and with an increasing interest in music, I was soon rocking and rolling with the excitement of the many new musical groups that emerged. By my seventeenth birthday, I had mastered four scales on my saxophone and become a musician. Much earlier, between the ages of seven and ten years, I recall going into public houses with my father and drawing portraits of the old men in there. I made what I felt was a fortune at the time and all the lemonade I could consume.

In trying to view these early experiences from a group analytic perspective, I think that such strong group experiences had a containing capacity that helped me deal with my own childhood experiences. My artistic and musical strivings were, in part, a creation from, and reaction against, these early experiences. Many of the happy memories I have from my childhood were in relation to different groups. There was also an awareness that even though the pictures of my memory are placed in group settings, I still needed time to be on my own. At such times, I was seen to be rather odd, especially if I didn’t talk to anyone for a day or two. It is with these two aspects in mind that I will explore the balance of tensions between the individual and the group.

I recall with fondness my training in art therapy in St Albans, England. As this was my first step into the world of academia and art combined, I was unaware of what would develop over the next 30 years. Although I was unconscious of it, the question of myself as an individual with the images I produced in my artwork and the ‘group as a whole’ were beginning to formulate. In this context, the large group was that of my fellow students and the college staff.

The art therapy training course went some way towards looking at group dynamics, but this was confined mainly to experiential verbal groups, apart from one art group. With the other experiential art therapy groups, little or no attention was placed on the group processes. I will focus upon two aspects of those groups that I believe set me on course for working with groups and that ultimately contributed to my own group analytic approach. These two points were based on my experiences in these groups, which were led by two originators and renowned art therapists in England – a man and a woman leading different groups. Although much is owed to each of them, my own experiences left me with many doubts and questions. I recall sessions with the male group leader when it was as if he wasn’t there. The value in this approach was that I had the freedom to tap into parts of myself that previously had not been opened. I remember him walking around the room; when he approached me to talk with me about my work, I recall only short comments such as ‘That’s interesting’. I don’t recollect any conversation; I was often inquisitive about what he said to others. This technique could be seen as non-intrusive, but somehow I felt something was missing. There was an isolation and preciousness about it all. The artwork was seen to be the most important component, and verbal communication with the whole group was absent.

The second illustrative point was to be seen in the female group leader’s art group. This was a better group for communication, but this communication was primarily channelled through her. In this setting, I found a freedom for expression of pictorial image. The leader had a gentle, non-intrusive manner. As far as I recall – difficult after 30 years – she structured her sessions by introducing themes. The strongest memory I have of one of these sessions was that I portrayed a dream and spoke about it. After putting it into words I recall a look of blankness (I assumed fear and disapproval) on her face, and then she walked away. I felt that I had been asked for something, and in responding I was left with an impression that it was too much for her to handle. The truth of my impression is irrelevant but both these group leaders with their valued techniques and qualities left me feeling that they had missed something.

My impression is that such forefathers in art therapy established themselves primarily with a structure that I believe was founded on uncertainty. The uncertainty is in how they pioneered into a Victorian attitude to mental illness and handicap. I would hypothesize that a degree of suspicion may have existed in the creation of a therapy that focused on the power of the individual’s intrapsychic/interpersonal struggles in the production of the image through the art therapeutic process. Less attention was given to the spoken word and group communication in the early art therapeutic settings, as far as I know. Historically speaking, it appeared that some art therapists acted as go-betweens for the patient and psychiatrist. In these early days, and for some art therapists today, there was an elevation of the image through excessive interpretation from a psychiatric perspective.

I now turn to the birth of my views on groups, as derived from my own positive reactions to the group of art therapy students that I belonged to. Approximately half of the students lived on the same campus; this community had the effect of bringing together the vibrant energy that was an intricate part of our group. There were many culinary, musical and creative activities in the groups. Then there were two major issues that brought us even closer. The first was in the winter of 1975, when one of our fellow students died suddenly in our midst. The second was the extremely hot summer of 1976, when our group seemed elated. These two points clarify the power of life and death forces in close proximity and their effect upon the same group. Although such memories have idealistic or exaggerated qualities, I feel that my art therapy student days were the first rewarding group experiences in art and learning.

These group developments led me then, almost by fate, into work in a therapeutic community. In developing my style, technique and theories, I had the new-found power of being an art therapist. I swung from the omnipotent to the omniscient position, where I felt I understood the world with access to a cure. With my later group analytic training, I came to realize just how much power exists in groups. I became less engrossed in gratifying my own desires and gradually recognized that I didn’t have a monopoly on power; therefore, it wasn’t mine to give. Assumptions are often made about giving more power to the patient, rather than assisting people to locate their own power.

My theoretical formulations and clinical methodology first began taking shape within the confines of the psychotherapeutic community and then moved on to experiential groups with student art therapists and allied professionals. With this variety of settings, it became clearer over a period of 15 years that there were many universal processes within all the groups that I conducted. During that time, my work in individual art therapy and psychotherapy also took form. I hope to show in Chapter 10 that there is much to be learned and cross-fertilized between individuals and groups.

My work as an art therapist has been enhanced greatly by my group analytic training; likewise, my verbal group analytic work has been enriched by the added dimension of image-making in the group. As this book is primarily about group art therapy, I have used sparingly examples and theoretical exploration of my individual art therapy work. However, as Foulkesian group analysis sets the individual in the centre of attention within the group process, attention will be given to the individual within that context.

It is with some regret that I chose to write this book at a time when I am not practising primarily as an art therapist. Having held the position of director of a therapeutic centre along with further senior psychotherapy positions, I do not have an abundance of pictures to reproduce in photographic form for a book. When one works for many years in art therapy the shelves of the art room become laden with clients’ pictures and the good intentions of the art therapist to take snapshots for the elusive book that is always in the pipeline. When reality strikes, there are no pictures – only vague memories and written accounts.

It would be impossible to trace the many people with whom I have worked, whether as patients, clients or students, in the groups I have conducted. Any use I make of my experiences as I reproduce them here are statements about my views with theoretical implications. I have endeavoured to express myself in such a way as to safeguard the anonymity of those people I have known. These group experiences, although portrayed in a formalized way, have been very personal to me. I thank those who have inadvertently taught me through accepting me as their therapist or teacher. Although I have been able to use some actual illustrations relating to imagery produced by patients, a substantial number of these are fictional. However, these fictions are based upon real events, people and groups.

Now I want to move on to a more personal view of the history of British art therapy and where I have entered into this.

I hope that art therapists, group analysts and psychotherapists will benefit from this book. It is not my intention that it becomes a book of dogmatic technique. The book is based upon my own thoughts about group processes and dynamics as I have experienced them along with group analysis as its principal theoretical modality.

Historical review

The evolution of art therapy in the UK only came about in the relatively short period since 1942. I present here a brief account of its lifespan in order to focus at a later point on how my own theoretical and practical approach differs from how art therapy originated. The roots of art therapy are not as deep as those of psychoanalysis, the former tending to be surface-soil runners as a result of the many clinical fields of application they have moved into. I offer an early hypothesis (which I will address from different angles at different points throughout the book) that two types of art therapist have evolved:

•those who place their methodology foremost on the image, viewed as a creative act with natural healing capacities

•those who place emphasis on the imagery as a psychological projection or external manifestation of inner disturbance and relationship problems.

I would venture that with the onset of training courses in art therapy, and since the early 1970s, art therapists who emphasize closer links between both of these positions are evolving. This moves the focus to a more integrated approach of the two.

I do not intend to explore the causality of such splits within the brief of this chapter. As a result of my work and discussions with colleagues over the years, it would appear that some art therapists who have placed the emphasis on the art and symbolic side dismiss links with earlier psychoanalytic–psychotherapeutic models for fear of contamination, which is seen as debasing the whole creative/artistic life of the individual. On the other hand, the art therapist within the psychological model, with mixed alliances to early psychiatric–psychoanalytic origins, is perceived as explaining the imagery as ‘sick’ productions with access to the therapist’s interpretive techniques. In Britain today, I believe the trend is healthier, because the definition of art therapy is more encompassing. There is a greater acceptance of the dynamic forces between art and therapy.

Returning to my analogy of art therapy being a set of surface-running roots, these have moved into hospitals, day centres, family centres, child guidance, prisons, schools, therapeutic communities, and many other clinics and institutions. The list of patients/clients with whom art therapy has been used is extensive. Although high praise is justified for the art therapy movement in Britain, I feel that the profession as a whole has suffered from a dilution of potentially exciting theoretical models, with a limitation upon new schools of thought emerging. In recent years, art therapists have given more consideration to a need to consolidate theory within their own specialized fields. Art-therapy books have tended to take the form of collected papers by various authors, for example Dalley (1984), as well as single authors, for example Waller (1993) and Schaverien (1999)).

In earlier art-therapy papers, either there tended to be an adherence to the art side, with the study of symbolism and aesthetics, or the theory was presented as psychopathological images derived from case studies. Little was written about the intricacies inherent at the interface between the therapist and the patient/client. Transference and counter-transference were rare currency in print until the late 1970s. Between the late 1980s and today, the British art therapy literature has come more into its own, with various theoreticians and clinicians laying claim to particular schools of thought.

I have purposely presented a simple snapshot of primarily individual art therapy history from the two positions cited: the art expression being linked to aesthetics, symbolism and art activity as a healing agent in itself, and the art expression that conveys inner turmoil and relationship difficulties. I have resisted focusing upon the range of theoreticians and practitioners who have been central in these developments, as it would unduly lengthen the introduction.

Institutional aspects

At the beginning of the twentieth century, throughout the British Isles, large institutional buildings were erected to house mentally ill people. These large Victorian prison-like buildings were, on the whole, placed on the outskirts of major cities and towns. One of the purposes of this was to remove such people from society, but also the influence of nature was felt to have curative effects. These institutions could each accommodate over 1000 patients. Until the 1940s–50s, people with mental illness, mental handicap, autism, physical handicap and, at times, misdiagnosed mental impairment often were housed together. Some women were hospitalized for having illegitimate children. Not until the 1959 Mental Heath Act did different diagnoses begin to be considered to have their own criteria for treatment.

It was into this renaissance of treatments for mental illness and mental handicap that art therapists emerged in the mid-1940s, including such pioneers as Adrianne Hill, Edward Adamson, Dianne Halliday and Rita Simon. In my early days as an art therapist (the mid-1970s), the art therapy jobs in hospitals were few and far between. Although there is now a greater expansion into many clinical settings, the market is still limited for art therapy positions. Within psychiatric hospitals, art therapy departments were often found in some rather strange locations, such as a disused laundry or bakery, a cellar, an abandoned...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Of Related Interest
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Foreword
• Part One: The Origins
• Part Two: The Portuguese papers – new developments
• Final remarks
• References
• Subject Index
• Author Index