Approaches • 113allowing himself to interact playfully with other group members. His products for the next
two weeks were not much to look at (P), but the process he engaged in was vital to his
eventual recovery. He followed this aggressive/regressive phase with a freer kind of order
in his work.
After the eight-week group had ended, Don continued in individual art therapy for sev-
eral months. When he terminated treatment, he selected a tempera painting with movement,
color mixing, and clear-but-not-rigid boundaries as a gift for his therapist (Q). It reflected
the integration of freedom and order that he had been able to achieve internally as well.
Art/Image-Based Approaches to Art Therapy (DVD 5.5)
All art therapists share the common ground of art. Some have tried to apply aesthetics to
assessment as well as to treatment. Rita Simon (1992, 1997) developed a theory based on the
formal elements of graphic style. Simon analyzed style as archaic, linear, traditional, and
massive, suggesting a unique way to look at pictures, which served the author well in both
diagnosis and in therapy. For her it was a coherent and useful system.
Creative analysis was developed by psychologist Ernest Zierer and art therapist Edith
Zierer. Although presumably based on psychoanalytic ego psychology, it was unusual for an
analytic approach in that there were many specific interventions. The art therapist chose,
from among a number of possible artistic tasks, those considered most appropriate for each
patient, for the purpose of diagnosis as well as for therapy. Looking at the form rather than
the content of the oil paintings created in their studio, the Zierers assessed the degree of
color integration in the artwork. This was thought to reflect mental health, while its absence
(color disintegration) was seen as reflecting mental disorganization or disturbance. Both the
Zierers and Simon focused on what they could learn from the art and used their idiosyn-
cratic systems during long careers in art therapy.
There are other more communicable approaches to art therapy that emphasize the art
or—as some prefer—the image. Art-centered theories usually stress either the creative pro-
cess, the visual imagery that results from it, or both. Since art itself is theory free, these
approaches are compatible with a wide variety of theoretical orientations, including Freudian
(Lachman-Chapin, 1994; Robbins, 1987, 1989), Jungian (Wallace, 1990), Gestalt (Rhyne,
1995), Cognitive (Lusebrink, 1990), Phenomenological (Betensky, 1995), and Existential
(Moon, 1995, 1996).
Pat Allen (1995) focused on the power of art to create meaning in Art Is a Way of Knowing
(A); Shaun McNiff (1994) stressed its healing potency in Art as Medicine (B). As noted ear-
lier, the return to the art studio has brought a renewed interest in art and the image as
the core of our work, with a renewal of studio art therapy approaches (C. H. Moon, 2002).
Cathy Moon (C), author of a book by that name, is currently the chair of the art therapy
master’s degree program at the Art Institute of Chicago, founded by Don Seiden (D), who
published his Artobiography in 2006. It is perhaps the most rapidly growing orientation
within the United States and is often linked with the other prominent trend, that of spiritual
approaches. Like with art- or studio-based approaches, its proponents come from a wide
variety of theoretical orientations.
Spiritual Approaches to Art Therapy
A strong current in contemporary American art therapy has to do with the spiritual aspect
of our work. Shaun McNiff, for example, wrote a book about inanimate objects as Earth