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The second stream, the “art-as-therapy” model, has the purpose of expressing
meaning, to relax and console, as well as to let off steam. In this model, the client can
alternate between recreation and confrontation. For a traumatised patient, this means
the possibility to “draw away from traumatic memories, as well as address them”
(Wertheim-cahen, Van Dijk and Drozdek 439). From the outside this may seem to
reflect this thesis. However, that “art therapy occurs in the presence of the trained
therapist” (Edwards 2) points to a significant departure between art practice and art
therapy. Another is Wertheim-cahen’s observation that art may provide a temporary
distraction (247, 421, 429, 553), with the possible inference that art has no intrinsic
value in art therapy other than to serve a therapeutic objective, whereas those
engaged in a serious arts practice view the process of art-making as one of inherent
value. Because the processes and purposes of art therapy and arts practice are
fundamentally different from each other, so too are their effects and affects.
Art therapy has, for some, become shorthand for the arts in the context of wellbeing,
reflecting Frank Furedi’s claim that the “therapeutic culture” has become inculcated
into the vernacular, as well as the lived experience, of the developed world. Furedi
argues that therapeutic culture has allowed a distinctly passive response to prosper,
leaving people feeling they have little control over their lives (128). His claim that the
“decline of agency” risks limiting human potential has some correlation with my own
observations of some participants who, after years of participating in therapy-based
treatments, were yet to achieve some of its rudimentary aspirations (130). This
observation raises questions regarding the impediments to reaching a place of
wellbeing and, important to this thesis, how and what art and the artist can contribute
to overcoming those impediments.
Art and wellbeing in the shadow of trauma, loss and grief
Researchers Arthur P Bochner and Carolyn Ellis ask: What is awakened or evoked by
an engagement with art? How is it used to create meaning and, importantly, to what
uses might art be put? What new conversations could be opened up and what hidden
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