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

communication, but ignored the fact that these paintings apparently represented highly
successful communications of content. The act of illustrating coherently and effectively
in a familiar medium was not usually impaired.
Conclusion
Artists are hard to work with and the meagre evidence suggests art therapists do not feel
comfortable with their technical skill. It is difficult to assess how many actually
succeeded in using art for therapy (despite the reporting) as the analytic process rests on
an unconscious use of compositional relationships, where an artist is all too aware. The
evidence suggests artists too are uncomfortable with this use of their work 111
(professionally, their own explanations are rarely accepted as the best interpretations).
The style and aim of these studies relates to speculations on a possible positive
aesthetic effect on creative output, thus is contradictory to that of studies of untrained
psychiatric patients which tries to identify visual elements of individual
psychopathology from the work. That art has therapeutic qualities is mentioned, but
although the benefits of expression as a way of externalising conflict and communicating
with the unconscious are described in both cases, there seems no supporting evidence
relating concrete visual elements to remission of symptoms or better communication in
other forms for the artist.
111
Leslie Gertler (1985) Therapy with an aging artist, Am. J. Art Therapy , V.23(3):93-9 (study 28),
recommends methods of removing the concerns of content, as does D.C. Muenchow, J. Aresenian (1974)
An artist in turmoil during art therapy, Am. J. Art Therapy , V.14(1):18-23 (study 29); The author of study
9, too, advises readers that the work often goes beyond the interpretation of the artist.
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