Approaches • 101to Art Therapy (Rubin, 2001). Another was Sadie Dreikurs (1986), wife of Adler’s best-known
American disciple, Rudolf Dreikurs. She began her work in a Chicago hospital in 1962, and
taught her approach in Adlerian institutes. Although Adlerian approaches to therapy are
much less common than they were 20 years ago, there is an art therapy training program
at the Adler School of Professional Psychology founded by Judy Sutherland (Cf. Kerr et al.,
2007).
Gestalt
Like many other humanistic approaches, Gestalt therapy also involved modifications of psy-
choanalytic theory and technique. Like Rogerian therapy, it emphasized the here-and-now.
Unlike that approach, it required a more active role by the therapist. Gestalt therapy was
the creation of an analytically trained psychiatrist, Fritz Perls, who integrated his dynamic
understandings with the findings of Gestalt psychology. The latter was an experimental
approach that focused on sensation and perception. A major area of interest was visual per-
ception, as in the work of Rudolf Arnheim (1954, 1967, 1969), who influenced many art
therapists, including his student, Shaun McNiff (1988).
Joseph Zinker (1977), a Gestalt therapist and sculptor, wrote about his multimodal use
of expression. Violet Oaklander, (1988) another Gestalt therapist, described her use of art
and other expressive modalities in therapy with children, adolescents, and families. On the
DVD (D), you can see her working with an angry boy (www.violetoaklander.org).
One art therapy pioneer trained by Perls also participated with him in the human
potential movement. Janie Rhyne (Figure 5.3) called her 1973 book The Gestalt Art
Experience, and led workshops in that approach (E). Later in her career, Janie Rhyne
became interested in George Kelly’s Personal Construct theory of personality. She
explored what she called “mind-state drawings” for her doctoral research. Rhyne
described her findings and their application in her clinical work, elaborating these
ideas in her chapter for Approaches (Rubin, 2001). Her later thinking is in the Foreword
and Afterword to the 1995 revision of her book, whose new subtitle—Patterns That
Figure 5.3 Janie Rhyne, Gestalt art therapy.