Art therapy involves the use of painting , drawing and other art forms in a therapeutic setting. The symbolic quality of art imagery is highly conducive to the exploration of ideas, feelings and issues evoked by the creative process. The process of art therapy aids healing by providing a channel for expressing heretofore hidden thoughts and feelings. Though clients learn to master art techniques and may well develop a high level of competence in art, knowledge of art or art skills are absolutely not required to participate in art therapy. The art therapist, on the other will have a thorough knowledge of the art making process and fully understand the complex link between materials, media and expressive forms in a psychotherapeutic context. Art provides the framework for the organisation of complex thoughts and feelings from early life to the present day. This includes polarities of love and hate, good and bad, closeness and distance, inclusion and exclusion etc.To cope with the subtlety of the process and the vulnerability of the client the art therapist needs to develop insight and caring and be able to instill trust.
The process of art therapy
allows the client to
- recognise feelings previously
unacknowledged
- express or release a variety
of feelings
- state ideas and thoughts
no matter how disconnected
- gradually develop a sense
of competency
- move towards mastery of
some feelings
- work through symbols and
metaphors ( for example a collision of cars at an
could
represent the collision of powerful forces in the clients life)
VISUAL
& COMPOSTIONAL ELEMENTS of psychological
organisation
As the famous English
philospher-mathematician Alfred North Whithead put it, "The canons of art
are none other than the requisites of depth experience" . Elements
of art run parallel with the language of our emotional life : Color , Space,
, Line/Direction, Texture(Smooth,Rough), Closed/Open
Static/Dynamic Soft/Hard. Thin/Thick
Tentative/Bold Tender/Tough Free/Rigid Clarity/AmbiguityUpwards/Downwards
Dark/Light Transparent/Opaque. Every element at work in any
image has a feeling associated with it .
"Landscape
of the Dragon " or
ART
THERAPY & EDUCATION
This is an article based on a talk given
to the the World Education Fellowship,
Waverley City Gallery, Victoria. The title of the
talk was Landscape
of the Dragon
(includes
how Colour, Shapes, Lines etc work )
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