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

and indeed throughout the literature without further explanation to identify a goal for
therapy and also as a benefit in itself. Few papers questioned whether feelings were
expressed or what expression was or how they identified that it had occurred; the
identification was always global and subjective. Thus these studies were separate from
those which offered specific interpretations for expressive content, which appear later
in this thesis. The interpretation of expression of feeling was often not particularly
related to the drawing medium, but rather to the personal experience of the
therapist/researcher. These studies argued the importance of psychotherapeutic method;
they illustrated their papers with drawings by the patient, but were vague as to specific
exemplars; they confirmed personal theories with reference to the illustrations and
emphasis on the relationship with the therapist. They especially referred to the
idiosyncrasies of the individual unconscious mind of the patient. The purpose of this
analysis was to identify how patients are said to express feelings through art and in what
way their art output contributes to the benefits which are said to derive from that
expression.
Who benefits?
Demographics: The total number of subjects over the 67 studies was 180: 28 studies
dealt with males, 26 with females and 13 with mixed groups. One study used 42
subjects, but 67% of studies (n=45) were single cases, the other 21 had up to 10 subjects.
Age ranged from 8 to 90 years, but only 37% (n=21) studies dealt with under 16 year
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