1
What is art therapy?
Chapter summary
This chapter defines what art therapy is and discusses the value and importance of working therapeutically with images. Case material is presented by way of illustration.
What is art therapy?
Numerous and often conflicting definitions of art therapy – or art psychotherapy – have been advanced since the term, and later the profession, first emerged in the late 1940s. In the UK, the artist Adrian Hill is generally acknowledged to have been the first person to use the term ‘art therapy’ to describe the therapeutic application of image making.
For Hill, who had discovered the therapeutic benefits of drawing and painting while recovering from tuberculosis, the value of art therapy lay in ‘completely engrossing the mind (as well as the fingers) … [and in] releasing the creative energy of the frequently inhibited patient’ (Hill, 1948: 101–02). This, Hill suggested, enabled the patient to ‘build up a strong defence against his misfortunes’ (1948: 103).
At around the same time, Margaret Naumberg also began to use the term art therapy to describe her work in the USA. Naumberg’s model of art therapy based its methods on
Although the approaches to art therapy adopted by Hill and Naumberg were very different, and have been superseded by subsequent developments within the profession, their pioneering work has nevertheless exercised a significant and enduring influence. This is because art therapy in the UK has developed along ‘two parallel strands’ (Waller, 1993: 8): art as therapy, as advocated by Hill, and the use of art in therapy, as championed by Naumberg. The first of these approaches emphasises the healing potential inherent in the process of making art, whereas the second stresses the importance of the therapeutic relationship established between the art therapist, the client and the artwork.
The triangular relationship
The importance accorded to these respective positions is central to the whole question of where healing or therapeutic change in art therapy takes place. That is to say, whether this is due primarily to the creative process itself, to the nature of the relationship established between client and therapist or, as many UK art therapists would now argue, to a combination of these factors.
In art therapy this dynamic is often referred to as the triangular relationship (Case, 1990; Schaverien, 1990, 2000; Wood, 1990) (see Figure 1.1).
Within this triangular relationship greater or lesser emphasis may be placed on each axis (between, for example, the client and their artwork or between the client and the art therapist) during a single session or over time.
Towards a definition of art therapy
As the profession of art therapy has established itself, definitions have become more settled. From a contemporary perspective, art therapy may be defined as a form of therapy in which creating images and objects plays a central role in the psychotherapeutic relationship established between the art therapist and client.
The British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT), for example, currently defines art therapy as follows:
Other national professional associations provide similar, but also subtly different, definitions. The American Art Therapy Association (AATA), for instance, defines art therapy as follows:
In a similar vein, the Canadian Art Therapy Association (CATA) defines art therapy in the following terms:
While these collective, officially sanctioned definitions help clarify what art therapy is, as the following examples illustrate, individual art therapists often have their own.
The essence of art therapy lies in the relationship it is possible to establish between art and therapy. That this relationship between the two disciplines might contain the potential for conflict, as well as healing, has resulted in its being described as an ‘uneasy partnership’ (Champernowne, 1971). As M. Edwards comments:
It is important to note here that in art therapy this relationship is very specifically focused on the visual arts (primarily painting, drawing and sculpting) and does not usually include the use of other art forms such as music, drama or dance. While there may be some overlap between these different disciplines (see Hamer, 1993; Jennings and Minde, 1995; Levens, l994) in the UK the therapeutic application of these arts is undertaken by therapists who, like art therapists, have received a specialised training (Darnley-Smith and Patey, 2003; Langley, 2006; Meekums, 2002; Wilkins, 1999). This is not the situation elsewhere in Europe. In the Netherlands, for example, ‘these professions are known as creative therapy and are much more closely linked in terms of training and professional development’ (Waller, 1998: 47–8).
The aims of art therapy
In practice, art therapy involves both the process and products of image making (from crude scribbling through to more sophisticated forms of symbolic expression) and the provision of a therapeutic relationship. It is within the supportive environment fostered by the therapist-client relationship that it becomes possible for individuals to create images and objects with the explicit aim of exploring and sharing the meaning these may have for them; and it is by these means that the client may gain a better understanding of themselves and the nature of their difficulties or distress. This, in turn, may lead to positive and enduring change in the client’s sense of self, their current relationships and in the overall quality of their lives. As Storr (1972: 203) observes, creativity offers a means of ‘coming to terms with, or finding symbolic solutions for, the internal tensions and dissociations from which all human beings suffer in varying degree’.
How can art therapy help?
The aims of art therapy vary according to the particular needs of ...