Page 27 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes

INTRODUCTION
The aim of art therapy assessment is to gain a perspective on a client’s mental health, assess a client’s strengths and weaknesses and to gain an understanding of a client’s functioning. Assessment assists in decisions about further treatment. There is a great variety in art therapy assessment approaches, which are rooted in diverse perspectives and draw on diverse theoretical/historical discourses (Edwards, 2013; Gilroy, Tipple & Brown, 2012).
One important approach in art therapy assessment was developed within the context of “analytical art therapy”, also referred to as “art psychother- apy”. This approach draws on psychodynamic or psychoanalytical theory, and it originates from the perspective ‘art in therapy’, which was initially described by Naumburg (1950). The use of this perspective in art therapy assessment emphasizes the symbolic meaning of art products by assum- ing that the content of an art product represents the unconsciousness, psychological conflicts of a person’s mind (Hacking, 1999; Naumburg, 2001; Simon, 2001; Ulman & Bernard, 2001). The art product is seen as an object of transference and countertransference within the relationship between client and therapist (Schaverien, 1999; Wadeson, 1990). Several projective drawing tests were developed as assessment tools in the first half of the 20th century based on this perspective (Hinz, 2009) such as the House- Tree-Person Test (HTP) (Buck, 1948) and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (Murray, 1943). These tests only involved drawing, and the art materi- als and their role in art therapy assessment were restricted.
Quantitative research became more important with an increasing em- phasis on evidence-based practices in the health care system. Instead of focusing on the symbolic meaning of what clients drew, the focus of re- search shifted to the formal, more objective, elements of an art product, such as color, line and space. Several assessment tools and observation rating scales were developed based on this perspective, such as the Diag- nostic Drawing Series (DDS) (Cohen, 1986, 1994; Cohen, Hammer & Singer, 1986), the Person Picking an Apple from a Tree (PPAT) and the matching Formal Elements Art Therapy Scale (FEATS) (Gannt & Tabone, 1998). These tests focus on the production of a particular image using specific art ma- terials to assess a client’s functioning, formulate treatment goals, assess a clients’ strengths and gain a deeper understanding of a client’s presenting problems (Betts, 2006). However, attention to the role of art materials in
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