Compelling images: a contribution to the theory of aesthetic countertransference

Abstract

In this paper, I describe my experience of the aesthetic countertransference in relation to one patient’s artwork in an Art Therapy group as part of a Therapeutic Community for people with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder within the NHS. The paper discusses how my practice became informed by Mentalization-Based Treatment which places a strong emphasis on clarifying intentional mental states. However, when looking at the artwork I encountered a situation whereby I could not easily put the experience into words. I provide a description of the patient’s overall trajectory within the treatment model, her progress in the Art Therapy group itself, and present a hypothesis for the function of the artwork which the patient produced. I draw upon a model of art therapy I have previously devised combining art psychotherapy theory, art critical theory, mentalization (MBT) and psychoanalytic theory. Drawing on Grotstein’s notion of formulations in the ‘Kleinian-Bionian mode’ I go on to elaborate my concept of the ‘art-psychotherapy object’ being the totality of the triangular relationship (creator/artwork/viewer), in itself unknowable, but the derivatives of which can be understood through the paradigm of transference-countertransference-projective (trans)identification-reverie, and used to explore the dimensions of its planes.

Keywords:

• aesthetic countertransference, art-psychotherapy object, psychoanalytic theory, MBT, BPD, art critical theory

Acknowledgements

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

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.