The composite image: An exploration of the concept of the ‘embodied image’ in art psychotherapy

Abstract

This paper examines Shaverien's concepts of the embodied and diagrammatic images and argues that these are valuable tools for the understanding of aesthetic phenomena but suggests that without extra conceptual dimensions, this can lead to an oversimplification of the dynamics towards and within images in the art psychotherapy context. Two additional concepts to the ‘embodied image’ and ‘diagrammatic image’ are introduced and illustrated through case examples, which help to convey the otherness of the image that the author refers to as ‘unstructured’ and ‘disembodied’. The last part of the paper explores the aesthetics of the embodied image as having its origins in Langer's account of a modernist pursuit of universal truth. The author argues that the concept of the embodied image has not, until now, been brought up to date with contemporary debate within a post-modern era. Barthes’ ‘death of the author’ is used as an example of the way that post-modernism has reframed experience beyond a ‘monotheistic’ perspective. The paper describes an aesthetic matrix which allows greater scope for the acknowledgement of internal difference in parallel with social diversity

Keywords:

• Embodied
• disembodied
• diagrammatic
• unstructured
• image
• art psychotherapy
• modernism
• post-modernism

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Central and North West London Mental Health Foundation Trust for supporting art psychotherapy treatment for severe mental health disorders, Dr. Michael Sinason for his hard work in my supervision, and my wife Eleanor Havsteen-Franklin for her perseverance, patience and proof reading.

Notes

1. All references to names of patients, including ‘Seraphima’ and ‘Hattie’ are have been fabricated for the purposes of confidentiality.