The function of the art object: art-psychotherapy theory and practice

Abstract

This paper addresses what I perceive to be the underlying assumptions of art psychotherapy theory, drawn from observation of my own clinical work, which I believe inform practice descriptions that were proposed as guidelines by the The British Association of Art Therapists’ Special Interest Group in Personality Disorder for the practice of art psychotherapgy with individuals with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. It is hoped that these assumptions or elements, could be seen to be applicable to all forms of art therapy practice. From these assumptions I derive the hypothesis that the art object serves a function and that it is the therapists task to determine what this function is. In order to provide a conceptual framework on which to base this task I propose the concept of the ‘art-psychotherapy object’ being the totality of triangular relationship. I explore the concept of the function of the art object through reference to that of defense both because I believe it to helpfully illustrate my thesis and as it seems to me an area of art psychotherapy theory and practice which has not been sufficiently studied.

Keywords:

• art psychotherapy
• psychoanalytic theory
• art critical theory
• borderline personality disorder
• mentalization
• art-psychotherapy object

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank J.H. Bierschenk, Pamela Melliar and the reviewers at Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy for their comments in the preparation of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.