Page 63 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes

The participants received information about the size of the original art product, the used art materials and that the client received minimal instruction by the art therapist. Each case was discussed separately and the participants were asked to discuss (in this order): 1) what formal elements they could observe, 2) how they thought the client made the art product (the material interaction), 3) what this information told them about the client’s psychological characteristics and 4) which information was important in art therapy assessment.
They did not receive a list of formal elements or the categories of material interaction, as we wanted to examine how the participants answered these questions based on their own perspective. The answers to these questions were analysed and compared with the information in Table 2.
Results
The four participants used the following formal elements in describing all three art products: style, shape, line, colour, rhythm and dynamic (see Table 3). ‘Used space’, ‘suggestion of space’ and ‘front/background’ were mentioned twice.
Based on the observation of the formal elements the participants were able to deduce the clients’ material interaction in line with the categories of material interaction as developed in Study 2 (see Table 1). No input was given that could be related to the category ‘grip’, probably because ‘grip’ is hard to determine based on formal elements. Only Case 2 provided input that could be related to the category ‘physical contact’, probably because this was very prominent in this art product. The categories ‘tempo’, ‘rhythm’ and ‘space’ were mentioned in Case 1 and 2. All other categories of material interaction were related to the participants’ descriptions of all three cases. The descriptions of material interaction show great overlap with the description of the art therapists of the clients in Table 2.
Based on the material interaction the participants could describe the clients’ rational and affective characteristics. Even though the descriptions of the art therapists in this study were not as extensive as the descriptions in Table 2, the key elements were mentioned. According to the participants, to observe a client’s dialogue with the art materials’ properties was important to gain insight in a client’s flexibility.
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