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

Controlled Studies. Comparison and Analysis
Problems in categorising the data for analysis
Several factors limit the conclusions which can be drawn from this review of controlled
investigations into patient art. The tendency of the research was towards clinical tools,
and there was little replication or validation of the plethora of instruments proposed.
Speculative studies and unpublished, unvalidated measures were often cited by other
studies as though they were proven instruments; some studies did not even specify
which scale they were using and others did not explain or validate measures developed
for the study.
Inappropriate statistics were frequent, and test design and results often bore little
relation to the intentions, conclusions and interpretations of the author. This meant the
orientation of the researcher and the relation of the description or purpose of the
instrument to what was recorded had to be considered. In many studies the focus on the
interpretation of the work dominated the description of the objective phenomena, and the
opinions and involvement of the therapist were also treated as objective phenomena. The
use of subjective or interpretive criteria was often erroneously described as formal, or
objective. Behavioural and other changes occurring in the patient, were attributed to the
art therapy even though it may have been geared towards a totally different goal, and
other therapeutic influences were ignored.
There were two stages to this analysis:
(1) to find out what kind of techniques, orientation and concepts produce results or no
results of whatever kind in art therapy; and
87