Page 126 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes

experiential acceptance and resiliency. These results are in line with other art therapy studies that stress the importance of positive mental health in art therapy assessment (Betts, 2012; Haeyen, Van Hooren, Van der Veld and Hutschemaekers, 2017; Hinz, 2009; Pénzes et al., 2018). Rather than focusing on DSM diagnoses or symptoms, art therapists often emphasize clients’ strengths and resources, embracing a perspective of mental health that is in line with the idea of positive health (Huber, et al., 2016) and the recovery approach (Anthony, 1993; Jacob, Munro, Taylor & Griffiths, 2017). As the results showed a slight trend between the formal elements and BSI total score, this raises the question of whether a distinction can be made between mental illness and mental health. Haeyen et al. (2017) looked at the effect of art therapy on patients with personality disorder cluster B/C and found that art therapy reduces symptoms of mental illness and promote positive mental health. This inter-relatedness is also seen in other studies that question the distinction between mental illness and mental health (Lukat et al., 2016; van Erp Taalman Kip & Hutschemaekers, 2018). Theoretically, mental illness and mental health can be described independently. In clinical practice, however, these seem to be two interrelated concepts. The results of a previous study also indicate this interrelatedness as art therapists in clinical practice saw health and illness as two sides of the same coin (Pénzes et al., 2018).
The results of sub study 4 indicate that the combination of formal elements is related to mental health and that the involved formal elements are strongly interrelated, e.g. an increased presence of “dynamic” and “movement” is related to a decreased presence of “contour”. This is in line with existing studies that have argued that individual elements mean nothing unless considered as a cluster (Gantt, 2001) or specific combinations of “primary” formal elements that construct the “structure” of the art product are conceptualized (Pénzes, et al., 2018).
“Movement” and “dynamic” are strongly interrelated, indicating that an increase in “movement” is related to an increase in “dynamic”. When relating these elements to mental health measures, however, “movement” is negatively associated with mental health and “dynamic” is positively related. A possible explanation for this can be found in a previous study in which the concept of “variation” emerged (Pénzes, et al., 2018). “Variation” refers to the diversity that can be recognized in one or more formal elements within the art product. Art products with low “dynamic” and low “movement” or high “dynamic” and high “movement” have less “variation”. In contrast, art
124 | Chapter 5