Technique(s) • 157The advantages and disadvantages of directive and non-directive approaches have yet
to be evaluated in a systematic fashion. What seems evident is that the more non-direc-
tive approaches are more likely to be successful with high functioning clients, whereas the
more impaired recipients of art therapists’ services often seem to require more structured
approaches. As Waller (1993) noted, even those favoring open approaches have needed to
modify them for patients who function better with clear external structure, such as psychot-
ics, individuals who are cognitively challenged, or children with attention deficit disorder
(cf. Paraskevas, 1979).
What is evident in reviewing the literature is the creativity in the field. An experienced
art therapist is familiar with a wide variety of media and processes. She also has in her
armamentarium many different ways to offer materials, and tasks can range from unstruc-
tured to highly specific. The following vignette describes the thinking behind designing
some tasks in family art therapy.
Specific Tasks Help a Family to “See” Problems
A psychologist and I worked as co-therapists with a family on a weekly basis for 32 sessions
over the course of a year. We recommended this modality on the basis of their response to a
family art evaluation; and the fact that the boy Tim’s stuttering, which was virtually absent
in the children’s group he had attended at the clinic and at school, was still evident at home
and a source of distress for the parents (Rubin, 2005a).
Most of the time, the family members were free to use whatever they wanted, and to
make whatever they wished. Tim and his sister enjoyed using the art materials as did the
parents who were bright and articulate. With two therapists in a large space, we were able
to conduct some individual and couple therapy, as well as talking with the family as a whole
in the sharing time at the end of each session. In addition to free choice, we also assigned
certain topics based on our weekly post-session collaborations (DVD 7.3).
The first topic we assigned was “the Main Problem in the Family that you would like to
work on,” asking that they not look at each other’s drawings until the sharing time. Father
drew Mother abandoning him with the two screaming kids at the supper table, complaining
that “She never joins us” (A). Mother drew him reading, while the kids argue and she wea-
rily does the dishes, begging him to intervene in the children’s fight (B). Both were shocked
by the similarity in their feelings of abandonment and mutual resentment.
Several months later, feeling the continuing tension between the two, we asked them to
“draw things the way you wish they were.” Mother made a picture in which a maid is cook-
ing a meal in the kitchen, while she and her husband have a drink on the sofa. They are
romantically planning a trip to Africa, as she thanks him for the beautiful flowers he has
sent her. The children are notably absent (C). Father, however, had a very different wish-
ful image. In his picture, his wife is happily cooking the meal, both children at her side.
On the other side of his drawing she is sending him to work with a kiss, while the angelic
youngsters—complete with halos—wave goodbye from their windows (D). Their conflicting
images of perfection and their mutual dissatisfaction, poignantly evident in these drawings,
became an increasingly open topic for discussion.
Despite their ability to express how they felt, my co-therapist and I became increasingly
frustrated by how effectively this family could rationalize. One day we suggested that they
try to draw on the same sheet of paper without talking, a helpful task for highly verbal fami-
lies. They worked on the drawing for 45 minutes, Mother “taking over” almost half of the
space, even adding to the others’ pictures. Tim began by drawing a house in the center, but
soon gave up and left to work alone with clay at another table (E). He tried to get his father