Technique(s) • 151Like any other activity by the therapist, doing art can be harmful as well as helpful to
the patient. Frances Kaplan’s Drawing Together is a thoughtful discussion of working along
with a patient in art, noting those for whom it is beneficial, as well as those for whom it
might be disruptive.^4
Many art therapists have reported working along with a patient, group, or family (Kapitan,
2003; McNiff, 1981; B. Moon, 1995, 2006, 2007; C. Moon, 2002). My own concern is that the
art therapist has sufficient self-awareness, so that what she creates does not impinge on the
patient’s creativity. On the DVD (B), you can see Bruce Moon working alongside a student
during their final supervision session.
Another use of the art therapist’s artist-self is to draw a portrait of a patient, perhaps
while he is creating. On the DVD (C), both Vera Zilzer and Alice Karamanol are seen doing
this in groups. With her schizophrenic patients in a partial program, Zilzer gives her por-
trait as a gift to the model (1). With her adolescents in a special school, Karamanol does an
outline and invites the student to complete it (2). She comments in the excerpt that draw-
ing someone’s portrait is a very intimate kind of attention, “a way that I get to touch them
without touching them.”
Many of us have done this, as in my own experience of drawing and painting (Figure 7.3)
Ellen, an elective mute, when she was acting especially hostile. This same girl also stimulated
me to invite her to work together on a joint nonverbal drawing. Her story is told in Chapter
- Other clinicians have reported doing this with withdrawn patients of all ages, like Mardi
Horowitz (1983), who drew and painted with regressed schizophrenics. Drawing dialogues
have also been used as a way of “breaking the ice” (Landgarten, 1981).
Many of us have also found ourselves drawing “on demand” with the patient giving
instructions, like Irene Rosner did for Eddie, a quadriplegic who told her what and how to
create. On the DVD (D), you can see Irene doing this for him in the early part of his treat-
ment (1). Later, Eddie was able to hold a brush in his mouth and create his own drawings
and paintings (2).
Having developed a Boss-Slave game to deal with authority issues in work with mothers
and children (Rubin, 2005a), I have found it useful at times to “follow orders” with patients
Figure 7.2 D. W. Winnicott, squiggle game.