Page 36 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes

interconnected, and together these factors formed the art making process.
Material experience
Material experience refers to the client’s emotional and cognitive experience during material interaction. All art therapists linked the client’s material experience to aspects of the client’s mental health. For example, clients who tended to control the art materials often became anxious, angry or frustrated when working with fluid materials that are difficult or impossible to control. Clients who tended to rationalize had trouble experiencing the material at all, i.e., they had difficulties connecting the properties of art materials and their feelings. Most therapists spoke about the influence the client’s experience had on material interaction, e.g., when a client was positively surprised by the experience, it motivated the client to interact more and experiment with the art materials. Therefore, the properties of art materials and the way in which a client interacted with them evoked experiences that provided additional information about the client’s mental health.
The art product
All art therapists spoke about the importance of the art product in art therapy assessment. All art therapists said the art products reflected aspects of the client’s material interaction, specifically in the formal elements, such as line, shape and color.
Therapist 3: “The art product is the reflection of what the client did.”
The art product was used to reflect with the client on the art making process. All therapists stated that the art product created distance from the art making because of the visibility and tangibility of the art product. The art therapists often experienced that clients were surprised by what they made, especially how much it told them about themselves. The client and art therapist jointly explored different aspects of the art making, such as choices the client made, the client’s material interaction and how the client experienced the art materials. This reflection allowed an assessment of the clients’ ability to reflect.
Therapist 1: “The essence is that the client sees what he is doing in his art product. He can look at it with distance. The experience that comes along with that is also very important.”
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