Art Therapy
The primary goal of art therapy is to understand the internal world of our patients. We strive to make it accessible for exploration and then search for meanings that will ameliorate physical and psychological pain and foster growth. If we are to communicate effectively with our patients, it is essential to discover a common language. Long before the development of language, the infant experiences his/her self and its own world in images and sensory events. Even after the development of language when the ability to communicate verbally is established, many of our internal states are very deep, very private and beyond the world of words. Thus the true essence of these states becomes less accessible through verbal communication, but can be expressed through art.
In art therapy, we stage a meeting between the inner world of the patient and the external reality represented by the art therapist. The picture exists in the area between the two in the transitional space, and becomes a transitional object, a bridge between the inner and the outer world of the patient. Both worlds contribute to the creation of the picture. It is the picture that helps the person to keep inner and outer reality separated yet interrelated and connects the physical world with the emotional world, the body with the mind.
According to Winnicott (1971), the English pediatrician and psychoanalyst, the transitional object and the various transitional phenomena that succeed it later in development form the foundation for all creative activity.
Through their pictures, adults, adolescents and children express and project their inner images. The created picture can then be investigated and interpreted together with the art therapist or just accepted as a great creative project. This particular kind of "experiencing together" provides psychological support within the protected confines of the creative process and facilitates mutuality between patient and art therapist. A primary partnership can then develop similar to the relationship between the playing child and its available, yet unobtrusive, mother.
On the one hand the patient can express her anxieties by painting. On the other hand the therapist can demonstrate her bondedness to the patient by accepting these pictures and mirroring them back. For both, patient and art therapist, the drawings created in the course of this process does represent this bond.
In the process of confronting a patient with chronic pain, trauma, chronic and potentially fatal disease, or psychological stress, the self-worth of the patient is continually threatened by the disintegration of his/her body. The long, painful treatments of chronic pain or cancer can contrast strongly with the ideals of a dignified life. This gap constitutes for many patients of all ages a significant narcissistic injury, which can become the source of deep psychological pain. Reparative processes that reestablish the integrity of the self in the patient can give rise to extensive creative output and productivity. Some patients develop the strong need to work creatively throughout the process of their illness into their recovery. In the creative act they wish to make new sense out of the aspects of their inner and outer world which they have temporarily lost or which causes them pain, in an attempt to take control and gain insight.
Who can benefit from Art Therapy:
• Children and adults who have chronic pain.
• Children and adults who have cancer or are cancer survivors and experience emotional stress or want to work through their fears, anxieties and problems related to cancer, changing bodies and new family dynamics.
• Children and adults who are struggling with anxieties, depression, OCD or Bipolar Disorder.
• Adults who would like to explore their inner world and gain insight into their personal relationships in an attempt to improve them.
