Moving Beauty: A Review - Hampshire Art and Crafts Magazine - Artlit

Moving Beauty: A Review - Hampshire Art and Crafts Magazine
The ideas in this chapter are complex and we found the text often dense
and challenging, both intellectually and personally. Harris-Williams
argues from a position of considerable literary, philosophical and
psychoanalytical knowledge, referring frequently to the thoughts, ideas
and writings of her own cultural ancestors and internal good objects,
some of whom will be more or less well known to or read by her
readers. Yet it is precisely the scope of her creative attempt to explore
and develop these ideas, which must encourage the reader to
persevere, in spite of sometimes stumbling when trying to understand.
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By chance, as we were considering the possibility of reviewing this
chapter, we heard a radio programme, entitled Inside the Life Drawing
Class. During the programme, the presenter Anneka Rice interviewed
both drawers and models in a North London class, inviting them to
speak about their experience of life drawing. Although the class
featured neither dance nor music, the participants touched on several of
the themes raised in Harris-William’s chapter. For example, drawers
spoke about their feelings of responsibility towards, and empathy for,
the model; the fear of ‘messing up’ or producing a ‘bad’ drawing, one
the model would not like; the fear of making the first mark on their paper, and the question whether they could
achieve what they wanted. Others described a sense of privilege in being given permission to look, some seeing
it as an extension of the study of their own bodies or an opportunity to reconnect with their real selves by
responding in a direct and creative way to another human body. A model spoke about discovering himself
though the eyes of others. The class was described as an interaction, an ‘unravelling theatre of the moment’
where drawers could be in their own worlds yet connected and involved in a ‘voiceless conversation led by the
model’ where what is valid is in the moment.
These thoughts and experiences of ordinary drawers in an ordinary class connected considerably in our minds
with the thesis proposed by Harris-Williams and encouraged us to put pen to paper to recommend this most
thought-provoking chapter to both psychotherapists and those interested in life drawing.
Anne Bloom and Wendy Hatto
Glossary
Good object: an object in this context usually refers to a person who is loved by the subject and experienced as
benevolent.
Internal good object: this refers to a person who has been experienced by the subject as important and
benevolent, to the extent that he/she/the experience is ‘taken in’ and becomes part of the subject’s mental
structure.
Transference-countertransference: in this context the term refers to the relationship between a therapist and
patient, or any ordinary two-person relationship, in which one person (the patient) relates to the other (the
therapist) as though he/she were some formerly important object, usually from his/her early life. By contrast, the
countertransference refers to the emotional response of the second person (the therapist) to the behaviour of the
first person (the patient). These are perfectly ordinary interactions which occur in relationships but usually we are
not aware of what is happening at the time.
Analysand: a person who is being analysed but is also a student of psychoanalysis.
2 COMMENTS TO “MOVING BEAUTY: A REVIEW”
1. cecilia macagno says:
March 7, 2011 at 6:47 pm
I can’t write englishvery well. I’m an art psycotherapist, I read e and appreciate Meg Harris Williams. I
wonder if she Knows anything about Authentic Movement and psicodinamic art therapy.
But this is not the right way to ask her about, I suppose.
http://hantsarts.com/wordpress/?p=3259[20/04/2011 17:17:45]