Page 20 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes
P. 20

Problem definition
Common in all art therapy perspectives is the assumption that the art form is related to the client’s mental health. Even though this assumption is so fundamental for art therapy assessment and art therapists in practice, it lacks empirical evidence. Instead of evidence, there are different points of view on the use of the art form in art therapy observation and on how to interpret it in terms of mental health. Some perspectives assume that the art product reveals psychopathology in terms of symptoms or complaints. Others claim that the art product reflects the way clients cope with their problems in daily life, including healthy strategies in addition to dysfunctional strategies. This leads to diversity in opinions about how art therapy observation should be done. Some approaches have developed standardized assessments to analyze the content or pictorial elements of the art product, such as projective drawing tests and art-based assessments. Other approaches claim that the drawings made within these assessments remove the drawings from their context, implying loss of meaning; they emphasize the importance of observing the client’s interaction and response to the art materials’ properties during the art- making process.
It is remarkable that our understanding of how the art form represents aspects of mental health in art therapy observation and assessment is so poor despite its claimed diagnostic value. Despite the fact that this assumption is so fundamental for art therapy, since the development of art therapy as profession, and that all art therapists – regardless their approach – agree on this. As art therapy is increasingly applied in adult mental health care, our present knowledge about the most fundamental assumption of art therapy and art therapy assessment remains tacit and questionable. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the art form and mental health. If empirical evidence indeed shows the existence of this relationship, the next question will be how the aspects of mental health are related to the art form: are some aspects related to clients’ symptoms or psychopathology? Do they concern mainly the way clients cope with them, or are other possibilities more feasible? Elaborating on this question implies analysis of how this process is done in clinical practice. Do art therapists mainly observe the art-making process, the art product, or both? And, if the therapist observes the art product, should they pay attention to the ‘what’, the content of the art product, or
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