The Basics • 79the product. In addition to observing the creative process in order to learn more about the
person doing the work, art therapists help patients reflect on how it felt to use the materials
or to express the ideas and feelings involved. On the DVD you can observe Natalie Rogers
helping Robin, a young woman, to compare her two drawings (D).
Looking at and learning from art require skills that are highly developed among art
therapists. Art teachers know how to critique products in order to help students to improve,
and art historians know how to look at artwork in order to understand a style, period, or
artist. But those ways of looking at and learning from art are quite different from those that
are crucial in art therapy (Figure 4.4).
The challenge facing art therapists is to find the best way to help each artist understand
him- or herself by relating meaningfully to what has been created. This can happen non-
verbally, through gazing at or moving to the image, as well as verbally by talking or writing
about it. Indeed, both can occur in a number of different ways—a constant creative chal-
lenge. On the DVD you can observe dance therapist Carolyn Grant Fay’s client moving in
response to a drawing she has already made and discussed (E).
Working Artistically
Art therapists have a wide variety of approaches to all of the steps noted above, determined
by personality as well as by theory. There are individual differences in every area of actual
practice, from setting the stage to evoking and facilitating expression, to looking at and
Figure 4.4 Learning from the art product—Sandra Kagin.