Page 122 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes

STUDY 4: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FORMAL ELEMENTS AND ADULT MENTAL HEALTH
According to art therapists, mental health should be described in terms of balance and adaptability (Pénzes, et al., 2018). This is in line with the perspective of positive health (Huber, et al., 2016). Balance refers to the ratio between thought and feeling, with most mental health clients out of balance because of high levels of emotion (feeling) or high levels of cognitive control (thought). Adaptability consists of openness, self-management, creativity, and flexibility.
In other words, being out of balance refers to mental illness and adaptability refers to positive mental health. Both concepts are considered to be closely related, i.e. the severity of the problem and the potential resources of the client are seen as two sides of the same coin. Art therapists relate the combination of formal elements to mental health (see study 3), specifically the primary formal elements of “dynamic”, “movement”, “contour” and “repetition”. As “repetition” was not similar to the formal elements from art theories, however, it was excluded from analysis in this study.
Method
Clients’ art products
Forty-six adult clients in nine different mental health settings participated in this study. These were the same clients and art products examined in the final round of study 2. Client inclusion criteria included being aged between 18 and 65 years, being able to read and speak Dutch, and having no or minimal experience in making art and art therapy. Clients with psychotic disorders or in manic episodes were excluded. Art products were made with standardized instructions (see the final round in study 2). The two raters in the final round in study 2 independently rated the formal elements.
Measurements
During the same week that the client made their art product, they filled in the Dutch version of the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) (De Beurs & Zitman, 2006), the Resilience Scale (RS-nl) (Portzky, 2008), and the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire - II (AAQ-II) (Jacobs, Kleen, de Groot & A-Tsjak, 2008). The BSI was used to assess the level of the clients’ mental illness/ psychopathology, while the RS-nl and the AAQ-II were used to assess the
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