Page 128 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes

visibility allows the joint reflection of the art therapist and the client, leading to insights and awareness that may help formulate treatment objectives and art interventions. The relationship between the formal elements and mental health is most pronounced for positive mental health aspects, such as experiential acceptance, adaptability, and resiliency. This may have implications for art therapy assessment and treatment. The clients’ adaptability, flexibility, and resiliency may indicate the potential for change in therapy and art therapists in a previous study associated adaptability with clients’ prognoses in therapy (Pénzes et al., 2018). Several studies have also shown the therapeutic potential of diverse art material properties to create experiential interventions that allow change and ameliorate mental health (Hinz, 2009; Hyland Moon, 2010; Pénzes, et al., 2014; Snir & Regev, 2013). This assumption requires further longitudinal research, however.
Methodological considerations
In this study, art products made with diverse materials and instructions were included. The analyses of studies 3 and 4 were based on art products made with acrylic paint. This is a serious limitation of our study as the art materials and instructions may have influenced the results. For example, the formal element “filled space” might have emerged when art products were made on larger pieces of paper, with smaller brushes, and/or with more time allowed.
We excluded “mixture of color” from the analysis in study 4 because theoretically, it was not conceptualized as a “primary” formal element. The primary formal element “repetition” was also excluded from analysis, as it did not show enough resemblance to formal elements in art theories. Future research could include these formal elements to investigate if they influence the formal elements’ relationship with mental health measures. The relationship between the formal elements and mental health found in this work is based on a cross-sectional study design, which does not allow for insights into causality and effects over time. Longitudinal studies including a series of art products could investigate whether therapeutic experiential art interventions change the art making, i.e. material interaction and whether these are reflected in the formal elements of “movement” and “dynamic” and in the enhancement of experiential acceptance, adaptability, and resiliency.
In study 3 we compared formal elements from art theory to formal elements that art therapists in a previous study found relevant in clinical
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