Methods systematic review first to examine which art

● Methods
○ Systematic review:
■ First, to examine which art therapy approaches were being practiced with people
who have mental health issues.
■ Second, to identify how art therapy approaches were used within the clinical mental
health system and aided in the improvement of client symptoms, relapse and
functioning.
● Findings
○ Depression
■ anthroposophic therapy approach (Hamre et al., 2006)
● Participation in creative activities
● Eurythmic movement exercise
● Rhythmical massage
● The combination of physical and artistic therapies either took the place of,
or accommodated medication for depression
■ art psychodynamic approach (Thyme et al., 2007)

■ The AAT component of the study was found to show a level of improvement in 91%
of participants from baseline to 12-month follow up (Hamre et al., 2006)
■ Findings showed that the psychodynamic verbal and art therapy approaches had
similar results such as improvement in reduced stress levels and decreased
number of depressive symptoms, and these were maintained at 3-month follow-up
(Thyme et al., 2007).
Collier, Jessica. "3 Man Unlock: Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind Art Psychotherapy With A Woman With Severe And
Dangerous Personality Disorder In Prison." Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 29.3 (2015): 243-261. Academic Search
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● This is an aesthetic concept that brings together the notion of witnessing an individual's experience
and feelings, while simultaneously being with them emotionally, of being present in their current
telling of events. Art psychotherapy brings these psychoanalytical, creative and aesthetic ideas
together.
● art is expressing one's universal wound, the wound of living a finite life of incomplete meanings’
(Perry, 2013Perry,G. (2013, November 5).
● “Images contain meaning implicitly which may make not knowing and holding uncertainty more
tolerable.”
● Author believes to be a good psychotherapist, she needs to feel what her patients feel
○ Needs to recognise the feelings
● “Art psychotherapy can reveal conflict, uncertainty, and contradiction”
○ But it can also hold intolerable emotions safely together in the images and within the
therapeutic relationship to be thought about and processed in due course.
● The feelings or identifications I perceive can inform risk assessment as well as offer what feels like
an authentic involvement that may help me to recognise what is happening.
● Hyatt Williams suggests that the transference relationship between therapist and patient is ‘…crucial
and in a very complex way it is THAT relationship that enables the contemporaneous situation to be
understood and any danger signs recognised’ (Hyatt-Williams, 1998Hyatt-Williams, A. (1998).
Cruelty, violence and murder. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson., p. 160).