The emotional relationship we have with ourselves can be loosely described as our ‘inner world’. This compares to the physical relationships we have with other people that we need and rely upon to survive and develop in the ‘outer world’. Clients in art therapy often describe feelings of disconnection and alienation from themselves or other people. This can originate from difficult past relationships, however all these past experiences are incorporated into our ‘inner world’.
Regarding contemporary psychoanalysis and art therapy, the main theoretical model used to understand these internalised experiences are drawn from ‘Object relations theories’. According to Greenberg and Mitchell, The term ‘object relations theory’, in its broadest sense, refers to attempts within psychoanalysis to …confront the potentially confounding observation that people live simultaneously in an external and internal world…Approaches to these problems constitute the major focus of psychoanalytic theorising over the past several decades.
The concept of object relations originated as an inherent part of Freud’s drive theory. The ‘object’ parallels its dual usage which refers to a thing and to a target. Freud’s object is the target. The ‘object’ of psychoanalysis is an entity existing in time and space. Art therapy is a way of gaining access to and attempting to make sense of this unknown ‘inner world’ and psychoanalysis has played an important role in the development of art therapy because it offers a method of understanding the unconscious mind.
Freud’s keen interest in art and creativity arose from his belief that neurotic symptoms developed as a consequence of the conflict between the pleasure and reality principles. Freud named the unconscious mental process as ‘primary process’ thinking. In comparison, the mental functioning influenced by external reality was named ‘secondary process’ thinking. Freud believed that some aspects of life could only be represented using symbols. An important approach to Freud’s approach has been to view it like a dream, a symbolic expression of the inner world of the artist. He acknowledged that dreaming was predominantly visual, and focussed on translating the dreams into words; this split between words and images was therefore evident in his writings of visual art. According to Freud, the dream, like every psychic product, is a piece of work which has its motives and like any action is the outcome of a logical process. Dreaming has a meaning like everything we do. The impression that dreams are incoherent, obscure and sequences of confused messages is named by Freud as the ‘Manifest content’ of the dream. He believes that every existing element is a result of a psychic state and therefore is capable of analysis. Our current mental state depends on our past and previous experiences. Events that have no effect on us emotionally have little effect on our thoughts and actions whereas those that do have an effect on us are of great importance to our psychological development. Freud’s psychoanalytical theory is based around his belief that the dream is the product of all psychic activity which has the strongest influences. “Every dream represents the fulfilment of a repressed wish”. Sigmund Freud.
From his study of dreams, he realised that the unconscious could only reveal itself through the use of metaphors and symbols. Visual metaphors function in the same way as verbal metaphors but use imagery to represent an idea or an emotion. Psychoanalytical theory is bursting with metaphors and is evident through Freud’s portrayal of the mind as a physical apparatus. In art therapy clients frequently represent themselves metaphorically. If the client struggles with this, therapists may often employ visual exercises like imagining they are an animal or object to represent themselves. Symbols function in a very similar way to metaphors. Like a metaphor, a symbol stands in place of something else but can often have multiple meanings. Using symbols can often prove to be quite difficult as they can often be ambiguous and have multiple meanings depending on the context they are placed in. According to Freudian theory, the number of things to be symbolised can be relatively small and restricted to family, relationships, the body and sexual activity, thus reducing the amount of ambiguity. However, because psychoanalysis is a verbal practice it can be hard translating images into words. A key element to Freud’s psychoanalysis was the necessity to take into account the context of the client’s life when interpreting the dream. Sigmund Freud: “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind”. Freud introduced another term into psychoanalytic literature for the process by which impulses are re-shaped in the service of cultural development called ‘sublimation’. Charles Rycroft, a British psychoanalyst notes ‘All sublimations depend on symbolisation and all ego-development depends on sublimation’. It is the American art therapist Edith Kramer who has mostly used and applied this concept to art therapy. She believes this is what lies at the heart of the healing potential of art. In Kramer’s view, through drawing or painting feelings of frustration or anger may be transformed into something more constructive. Sublimation is no simple mental act, it embraces many mechanisms including; displacement, symbolisation and integration. It involves the postponement of instinctual gratification and therefore can be perceived as one of the defence mechanisms which serve the purpose of reducing anxiety. Sublimation is said to be more constructive than other forms of defence mechanisms.
There is a degree of scepticism regarding psychoanalysis. It has been criticised for being out dated, unscientific and accused of not paying enough attention to external reality. Laplanche and Pontalis criticise Freud’s theory on neurosis and claims “It is the disorder of contemporary life” and not “Important events of the past life”. Susan Hogan, a feminist art therapist is particularly critical of art therapists that use psychoanalytic theory in their practice as she believes they impose ‘Ridiculous, arid, outdated and often misogynistic ideas about psychic development’. She believes it is important that the art therapy process be capable of ‘Enabling women to understand, question and challenge the social and cultural conditions which are responsible for definition as …deviant’. She feels that psychotherapy will affect our approach to the approach of feminist art therapy. In addition Rycroft felt that ‘the psychoanalytic establishment took too reductive a view of symbolization’. He sees dreaming as an involuntary imaginative activity that are private and therefore need not make sense to anyone else.
Carl Ransom Rogers derived a theory called the ‘Person centred approach’ based around the total focus of an individual to empower themselves, make their own choices and become aware of their own personal strengths. This is the approach that Liesl Silverstone developed as a way of combining images of art and the person centred approach. She suggests that art therapy uses the person centred approach:
“An integration between the thinking and the knowing mode, between conscious and unconscious material, could take place. I brought the person centred mode of facilitating to the world of art therapy- allowing the client to know what the picture meant. No interpretation. No guess work.” Silverstone 1997. She refutes the theoretical frameworks and clinical practice that are psychoanalytic in orientation as they are open to much ‘interpretation’, whereas the person centred approach avoids this issue, which she suggests can hinder the clients personal development. “Person centeredness aims to empower the individual, interpreting does the opposite”. These are the two key contrasts between Rogers’s approach and that of the psychodynamic.
For all the criticism it has received it is evident that the influence of psychoanalysis on art therapy has been extensive. It depends on the individual therapist as to what approach they take regarding their practice, however art therapists have drawn upon psychoanalytic theory in some way or another. There are three main ways that psychoanalysis has been incorporated into art therapy. It has established therapeutic boundaries, it has influenced the understanding of the therapeutic process and has certainly had an effect on the way images made by clients have been interpreted.
According to psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, knowledge is a process, not an individual property but a function of a relationship. In the process of thinking we try and retain knowledge by a way of ‘containment’. For Bion “Knowledge is produced in a relationship between container and contained…Thought is completed and constructed as a form of knowledge which is formed as the contained within a form of container”. This theory is based around an inner space being filled with feelings and thoughts, similar to the function of a ‘container’. Referring back to metaphors, everyday speech is based around this concept as we describe being ‘self-contained’, or ‘out of your mind’, and in art therapy, the therapist’ studio may also assume a ‘containing’ function.
The writings of Donald Woods Winnicott are of particular interest to me as his main focus is psychoanalysis with children. His approach focuses on bringing relief to the child to make them happy once again, well functioning, and moving towards independence and self-sufficiency. With his extensive contact with young patients, Winnicott adopted an object relations developmental theory in his work. His primary concern when meeting a new child patient was to make a diagnostic evaluation on their physical and emotional development. Then before deciding on the therapeutic approach he would take, he would assess the parent’s ability to offer the child the environmental provisions they needed. Having concluded this intervention, he would decide whether the child required a long-term therapeutic form of therapy or a brief intercession. In his book Therapeutic consultations in child psychiatry he emphasises that his aim was not to discover a cure, but rather, to report “examples of communication with children”. This directly relates to my visual communicative practice, which I am keen to explore through therapeutic practice involving children. In his therapeutic consultations with children he brought to light the unconscious conflicts through a method called “The squiggle game”. This was a simple game that involved Winnicott drawing a few simple, random lines, also known as Squiggles and then passing them on to the child to transform into a picture. As the game progressed it opened up an entire communicative dialogue between him and the young patient. With these drawings the child was able to open up, and express feelings which had previously been impossible to put into words. Although this was a method that enabled him to have access to the child’s unconscious, it was not the main feature. His primary focus was to understand the complex nature of the child’s experience. Another psychotherapist writes: “There was something ‘magical’, his critics thought, in the fluency of his contact with the children he saw, as though all one could learn from his clinical accounts was that one was unable to be Winnicott”. Winnicott was a firm believer that therapy “Is done in the overlap between the two play areas, that of the patient…and therapist. If the therapist cannot play, then he is not suitable for the work. If the patient cannot play, then something needs to be done to enable the patient …to play, after which psychotherapy can begin.” Winnicott, 1980. He believed that through playing, the individual is able to be creative and utilise their whole personality, and only through being creative can you discover yourself. However in contrast, Freud considered imaginative activities like dreaming and playing and the creation of art as transforming reality into new and more interpretable forms. In his ‘Creative writers and day dreaming’ he writes; “That every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that they create a world of their own, or, rather, re-arranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him?” Freud, 1975. For Freud, the unreality of imaginative activity is of crucial importance. He also believed that in growing up, the individual has to stop playing and engage in the realities of life. Therefore he concludes that an adult fantasises rather than playing. His belief that play and other forms of imaginative practice are a way of avoiding reality and therefore a symptom of neurosis, this leads him to reject the positivity that D.W. Winnicott believes.


To conclude, are two images that Jacob, 3 and Molly, 6 have created. I decided to try out the ‘squiggle game’ on them. It was the most interesting experiment to see how two children could interpret a simple squiggle in such diverse ways. Molly immediately began colouring in the lines and creating patterns with the different colours. However Jacob drew himself, which he later scribbled over in purple. He claimed “That is me and my Dad”, in response to this, I said, ‘Where’s Mummy?’ to which he said “Now it is my Mum, my Dad is going to be big”, then he drew his Dad. I thought it was very unusual that, firstly he scribbled himself out, and secondly redrew his Dad looking angrier than he had previously drawn and very tall in relation to himself. This suggests that he may feel inferior and insignificant around him, and that he is a more dominant figure in his life, as compared to his Mum, who appears vague and despondent. It is fascinating to see how the two children used the initial squiggle in very contrasting ways, Molly coloured within the lines, whereas Jacob drew his design entirely out of the box. This could relate to their ages, and stages within the education system, Molly has been taught the ‘rules’ of colouring in the lines, where Jacob is still at an experimental stage, and has not yet been taught the ‘regulations’ of drawing. Winnicott described psychoanalysis as specialist form of playing. He regarded it as “facilitating growth and therefore health; playing leads into group relationships; playing can be a form of communication in psychotherapy”, Winnicott 1980.
Bibliography
http://www.atiss.co.uk/Images/triangle.gif
GREENBERG, J. R., & MITCHELL, S. A. (1983). Object relations in psychoanalytic theory. Cambridge, Mass. u.a, Harvard Univ. Pr.
Freud By Jonathan Lear
Freud and Psychoanalysis, Vol. 4 By C G. Jung, R. F. C. Hull
Time and value By Scott Lash, Andrew Quick, Richard H. Roberts
Gender issues in art therapy By Susan Hogan
Metaphor and Meaning in Psychotherapy By Ellen Y. Siegelman
ROGERS, C. R. (1980). A way of being. Boston, Houghton Mifflin.
Time to listen to children By Pat Milner, Birgit Carolin
PARKER, I. (1997). Psychoanalytic culture: psychoanalytic discourse in Western society. London, Sage Publications.
Approaches to Art Therapy By Judith Aron Rubin
LAPLANCHE, J., & PONTALIS, J.-B. (1973). The language of psycho-analysis. New York, W. W. Norton.
BRAFMAN, A. H. (2001). Untying the knot: working with children and parents. London, Karnac Books.
GOSSY, M. S. (1995). Freudian slips: woman, writing, the foreign tongue. Critical perspectives on women and gender. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment