Art as subjective solution: a Lacanian theory of art therapy

ABSTRACT

Lacanian psychoanalysis is not frequently mentioned in discussions of art therapy. Yet its premises offer intriguing possibilities for art therapists. Lacan was engaged with art and artists and often turns to artworks in his essays and seminars, not only as illustration for psychoanalytical concepts but also as sources of new knowledge for psychoanalysis. Lacanian psychoanalysis also highlights the inherent link between creativity and solutions individuals find for their suffering, as do theories of art therapy. This article proceeds upon the recognition that the fields of art therapy and Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis, especially in its consideration of creativity and the arts, have much to offer one another. Combining theories of expressive therapies and Lacanian psychoanalysis, this article works towards a systematic articulation of a Lacanian theory of art therapy.

KEYWORDS:

• Intermodal
• psychoanalysis
• Lacan
• Freud
• polyaesthetics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Shirley Sharon-Zisser is an art therapist and psychoanalyst. She practices psychoanalysis in Tel Aviv, Israel, and is a member of the New Lacanian School (NLS) and World Association of Psychoanalysis (AMP). She teaches psychoanalysis at the ‘Lacanian Network’ in Israel (under the auspices of the Department of Psychoanalysis, University of Paris 8) and is an Associate Professor of English at Tel Aviv University. Her work focuses on the interrelations between rhetorical theory, art and art theory, and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Her publications include The risks of simile in Renaissance rhetoric (2001), ‘Death is the mother of beauty’: On the death drive in the arts (2015, with Efrat Biberman), Critical essays on Shakespeare’s ‘A lover’s complaint’: Suffering ecstasy (2005, ed.), Lacanian interpretations of Shakespeare (2009, ed), and Art, death, and Lacanian psychoanalysis (forthcoming 2017, with Efrat Biberman).

Notes

1. A notable exception is the work of J. Schaverien (1995) in the field of visual art therapy, which draws on Lacan’s concept of the gaze. Schaverien’s work, however, does not adopt clinical principles of Lacanian psychoanalysis for the field of art therapy as I do in this work. Most recently, M. Himes (2013) has provided a precise and compelling account of the affinities between Lacanian psychoanalysis and art therapy, in particular where the notion of the creation of the symptom instrument or ‘sinthome’ at the end of the treatment is concerned. What I offer here is a clinical-theoretical account of a combination of principles of Lacanian psychoanalysis and art therapy in the course of the treatment as well.

2. Levine bases his claim on ‘Lacan’s critique of the imaginary’ in his early articles (Levine, 2009, pp. 119–122). See also Knill, Levine, and Levine, 2005, p. 61. Neither in these early articles nor in his later works, however, does Lacan maintain that ‘art is always subject to captivation by the imaginary’ (Levine, 2009, p. 120). Indeed, in his late work, on Joyce, Lacan explicitly states that it was by means of his art that Joyce forged a way of life for himself, a singular solution to his suffering (Lacan, 1975–1976). For a similar view regarding Lacan’s notion of the sinthome as a ‘highly singular and particular’ creation and its relevance to art therapy, see Himes, 2013, p. 33.

3. See also Levine and Levine (1999, p. 11) and Estrella (2005, p. 194).

4. On Lacan’s concept of the phantasm, see the seminar on the logic of the phantasm (Lacan, 1966–1967), and the discussion of its function in relation to Holbein’s The Ambassadors in the seminar on the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis (Lacan, 1977d).

5. For consonant statements within the particular modalities of drama therapy and narrative therapy, see Erwin (2000, p. 45) and Dunne (2000, pp. 112–116).

6. Lacan’s distinction between full and empty speech in the twenty-fourth seminar supplants his earlier distinction between empty speech as the conscious speech of the ego and full speech as what emerges in the formations of the unconscious, in ‘The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis’ (Lacan, 1977c, pp. 45–46). In what follows, I refer to the later distinction only.

7. See also Halprin (2002, p. 132) regarding movement, body posture and gesture on rhythm (involved in music, voice work, movement and poetry, as well as in drawing, painting and sculpting); Rogers (1995, p. 53) on movement in its relation to sensuality and sexuality; and Chodorow (1991, pp. 114–118) on the visceral aspect of movement.

8. See also Himes (2013), p. 33.