Content area
Full Text
Abstract
Among the unique attributes of art therapy has been the ability to retain a lasting reminder of each session through the creation of an art product. The permanent and enduring quality of the art has offered notable contributions to the continuity and recapitulation of the therapeutic process. Accordingly, two vignettes demonstrate how retrospective review of art work allowed patient and therapist to view the therapy as it unfolded. By reviewing the art chronologically, patients and therapist were able to identify links and emerging patterns which might not have been apparent had artwork been viewed separately.
Furthermore, the patient's artwork served as a permanent record of the therapeutic process and provided tangible evidence of the patient's recovery.
Introduction
Many art therapists have described the distinct advantages of using art therapy. These have included expressing feelings that are difficult to put into words, thereby releasing feelings in a safe and acceptable way and promoting spontaneity and creativity. Liebmann (1986, 1994), Malchiodi (1998a, 1998b), Rubin (1999), and Wadeson (1980) have provided a comprehensive overview of these and other benefits.
Among the unique attributes of art therapy is the ability to record a lasting reminder of each session through the creation of an art product. Wadeson (1980) has stated, "Unique to art therapy is the permanence of the object produced" (p. 10). Others have recognized art therapy's creation of a lasting record through the production of a tangible product. This permanence and tangibility of the art product gave art therapy a dimension that verbal therapies did not possess; for, once completed, the art object existed beyond the session and was not subject to distortion or flawed memory. Rather, it remained intact for days, weeks, months or, if necessary, years (Byers, 1992, 1998; Case & Dalley, 1992; Malchiodi, 1998b; Schaverien, 1987, 1992; Wadeson, 1980; Wilks & Byers, 1992).
The art product's physical quality was unique in capturing moments and experiences otherwise short-lived, allowing the therapist and the client to revisit them at a later juncture (Hall, 1987; Malchiodi, 1998b). Case and Dalley (1992) contended, "The images survive over time and so even if these issues cannot be talked through immediately, and might remain on an unconscious level, it is possible to return to them in later...