Origin and Essence of Art Therapy
Art therapy, or therapy through art, is a relatively new method of psychotherapy. Adrian Hill first used this term in 1938 while describing his work with tuberculosis patients. Soon the term became widely used. Today it refers to all types of art activities, although many specialists in this field consider such a definition too broad and imprecise. In the context of treatment, the effectiveness of using art is based on the fact that this method allows one to experiment with feelings, explore and express them at a symbolic level.
In its early stages, art therapy reflected the concepts of psychoanalysis, according to which the final product of a patient’s creativity — something drawn with a pencil, painted, sculpted or constructed — is regarded as an expression of unconscious processes occurring in their psyche.
Art therapy acts as an intermediary in communication between patient and therapist at a symbolic level. Images of artistic creation reflect all types of subconscious processes, including fears, conflicts, childhood memories, dreams, that is, those phenomena that therapists of Freudian orientation explore during psychoanalysis.
Art therapy techniques are based on the assumption that the inner Self is reflected in visual forms from the moment a person begins to spontaneously paint, draw, sculpt, or play with sand.
Although Sigmund Freud asserted that the unconscious manifests itself in symbolic images, he himself did not use art therapy in his work with patients and did not directly encourage patients to create drawings. On the other hand, Freud’s closest student Carl Jung persistently suggested that patients express their dreams and fantasies in drawings, and viewed them as one of the means of studying the unconscious. Jung’s thoughts on personal and universal symbols and on patients’ active imagination had a great influence on those who practice art therapy.
Currently, art therapy is used not only in hospitals and psychiatric clinics, but also in other settings as an independent form of therapy and as a supplement to other types of individual and group therapy. The main difference between art therapy and other forms of psychotherapeutic work lies in the use of non-verbal communication as the primary way of conveying information to other people.
Today in Russia there are several domestic schools within the framework of arts therapy: therapy through creative self-expression (M. Burno), artsynthesis therapy (E. Belyakova), mask therapy (G. Nazloyan).
Goals of Art Therapy
In art therapy, three main approaches can be distinguished:
- Analytical art therapy (psychodynamic approach) is based on free self-expression, which helps to realize deep contents of consciousness, accelerates and facilitates the verbalization of experiences, provides additional opportunities for research and interpretation of images contained in products of creative activity, and extraction of significant meanings from them.
- Art therapy in the existential-humanistic approach focuses on a person experiencing the present moment of creativity and those feelings that exist here and now, highlighting the creative process itself as valuable, without attaching special importance to the final product.
- The peculiarity of clinical (medical) art therapy is its orientation toward providing corrective influence, that is, bringing problematic behavior (way of responding) into conformity with a certain norm.
The goal of art therapy is self-expression, expansion of personal experience, self-knowledge, internal integration of the personality and integration with external reality. Art therapy techniques are applied in interpersonal conflicts, crisis states, existential and age-related crises, traumas, losses, post-stress, neurotic and psychosomatic disorders, as well as for developing creativity, personality wholeness, when discovering personal meanings through creativity.
Advantages of Art Therapy
Positive psychotherapeutic results in art therapy are determined by the following factors:
- factor of artistic expression — embodiment of feelings, needs and thoughts of the client in their work, experience of interaction with various artistic materials;
- factor of psychotherapeutic relationships — dynamics of the relationship between client and therapist (transference and countertransference);
- factor of interpretation and verbal feedback, implying transformation, translation of material (process and result of creativity) from the emotional level to the level of understanding, formation of meanings.
At the intrapersonal level, the client:
- becomes aware of problems and ways to solve them;
- forms a positive attitude toward the surrounding world;
- creates and accepts the inner Self;
- forms an adequate self-assessment;
- acquires self-confidence;
- forms an individual image of the goal and ways to achieve it;
- acquires skills of choice and decision-making, strengthens volitional qualities, optimizes emotional state.
In the sphere of interpersonal relationships, they:
- acquire the capacity for empathy, for understanding the experiences, states and interests of other people;
- develop the ability to communicate adequately and as equals, to prevent and resolve interpersonal conflicts;
- get rid of maladaptive forms of behavior, learn adequate ways of responding in problematic and stressful situations.
Indications and Contraindications for Art Therapy
Art therapy is used both as an independent method of treatment, correction, rehabilitation, training, and as part of a general course of psychotherapeutic measures.
This method is especially successful in therapy of patients with pronounced difficulties in the area of awareness and verbalization of their own experiences (children, adolescents, depressed patients, patients with addictions, psychosomatic diseases).
Elements of art therapy in individual consultations when working with various categories of patients help create a safe atmosphere in the initial stages of treatment, help cope with resistance in crisis moments and record positive results at the end of the course.
The use of art therapy techniques in group psychotherapy allows accelerating group development, maintaining the necessary balance between tension and cohesion, involving participants in common work.
The use of art therapy must be justified by the general goal of therapeutic work and the plan of corrective measures. At the end, the process and result should always be discussed.
Psychotic disorders are not considered an absolute contraindication for art therapy. However, there is a danger of provoking strong experiences and unpredictable behavioral reactions. Therefore, special caution and deliberation are needed in working with such patients.
Individual characteristics of patients in the application of expressive methods should be taken into account. Expressive methods can also become a cause of regression to early traumatic experience in the process of artistic creation. This can cause deterioration of the patient’s condition, since severe mental disorders will not allow integrating the experienced experience. Art therapy in this case requires high qualification of the specialist not only in the field of art therapy, but also in psychiatry, psychotherapy of psychotic disorders.