The psychopathology of everyday art: a quantitative Study - World ...

contributors to the exploration of emotion through art have been comprehensively
discussed elsewhere 4 . The foci of investigation fall between two domains, closely
interrelated: those describing the process of creation and therapeutic benefit and those
describing the product.
This chapter introduces a number of popular views about the explanation and
investigation of pictures produced by psychiatric patients. When we talk about art
therapy, we refer to a belief that art is somehow expressive in itself or even healing 5 . Art
therapists are not united in their subscription to any explanatory theory but most agree
on these principles: disturbed people, particularly schizophrenics, produce artwork
which is communicative in a way that their language is not; the thoughts or feelings of the
patient are literally re-presented in concrete form; connections are made cognitively or
visually which approximate insight experiences; the paintings are described as powerful
and disturbing, often filled with bizarre imagery. These features have been related to the
artist's mental or emotional state. The commonly understood advantage in using art with
people who may not be able to fully express themselves in language is that as the painting
4
see, for example: Tessa Dalley (1984), Art as Therapy , London: Tavistock; T. Dalley et al. (1987), eds.,
Images of Art Therapy , London: Tavistock, giving a range of perspectives on the therapeutic aspects of
art; Joy Schaverien (1992) gives a very readable psychoanalytic breakdown of the relationship of affect and
transference and the development of the therapeutic relationship, The Revealing Image: analytical art
psychotherapy in theory and pra ctice , London: Routledge.
5
Joan Woddis (1992) comments on the belief of many art therapists in a "mythology concerning the
intrinsic healing properties of the art-making process" (Art Therapy: new problems, new solutions in Diane
Waller and Andrea Gilroy, eds., Art Therapy: A Handbook , Bristol: O.U.P. p.39). For example, to use
a standard text on art therapy, Dalley and Case (1992, Handbook, op.cit. p.54) acknowledge the split
between art therapists on this issue and also on the relevance of psychoanalytic theory. Whilst Dalley
generally emphasises the vital importance of the therapist in access to the image, elements of the healing
function of art do enter pervade into her writing: She explains her personal view of the function of the art
therapist as "providing a setting in which healing can occur". Another 'setting' argument: "The activity
of painting sets up a relationship between client and the paper, which can be exclusive of the therapist, but
the therapist... holds the safety of the scene, like the mother ever attentive to her infant" (p.59). Recent
papers which offer this view as an explanation for the therapeutic process are reviewed in Chapter 2.
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