158 • Introduction to Art Therapy
to join him, and his dad did so for a while (F), but then went back to the table where his wife
and daughter were still at work (G).
When all were seated, it was safe for Tim to go up and add some more details to his house
(H). For the first time, Mother understood what the others had been trying to tell her about
how intrusive and controlling she could be, albeit with loving intentions. The picture—
because it so vividly recalled the process—was used by the family, posted on the wall at
their request, as a dramatic reminder for many months. It was a visual record of some of the
interaction patterns causing stress in the family system.
Family art therapy continued. By the latter part of the work, the focus had shifted from
the boy and his now-absent symptom to stresses in the marriage. When it ended, the parents
agreed to our recommendation of individual and/or couples therapy, both of which they
pursued with positive results. The parents’ marriage continued and each of the children
went on to become successful adults, earning advanced degrees and functioning at high
levels both professionally and personally.
Selecting the best option(s) for any particular therapeutic situation is not that difficult—
as long as the clinician’s imagination is unclogged, her repertoire is broad, and the purpose
is clear. A critical variable in effective therapy is the worker’s ability to be open-minded and
flexible. For art therapists, this means being sympathetic to a wide range of approaches and
materials. The most common modalities in art therapy are the fine arts of drawing, paint-
ing, modeling, and constructing—in both two and three dimensions. Since these are well
known, the rest of this chapter is devoted to descriptions of several of the many possible
Variations on the Visual Arts
Variations on the Visual Arts
Sandplay
For generations, children have played with miniature life toys, and people of all ages have
built castles in the sand. Since I always had a sand table in my playroom, the idea of sandplay
(Kalff, 1980; M. Lowenfeld, 1971, 1979) seemed natural. And although the majority of sand
tray devotees are Jungian analysts, the technique itself is used by a variety of practitioners
(Bradway et al., 1990; Bradway & McCoard, 1997; Carey, 1999; Homeyer & Sweeney, 1998;
Labovitz & Goodwin, 2000; Markell, 2000; McNally, 2001; Mitchell & Friedman, 1994;
Ryce-Menuhin, 1992).
Many art therapists, such as Zweig and Caprio (Virshup, 1993), Lusebrink (1990), and
Steinhardt (2000), have also found the sandtray to be a useful adjunct to their work. On the
DVD (7.4) you can see Kalff doing sandplay with a child (A), Carolyn Grant Fay doing it
with an adult (B), and both talking about the procedure.
Hypnosis and Guided Imagery
One aspect of sandplay is that doing it usually creates a dreamy state of mind. Like most
art therapists, I am not trained in clinical hypnosis. But reading fascinating work about
painting and modeling while hypnotized (Meares, 1957, 1958, 1960) long ago impressed
me with the potential value of creating in an altered state of consciousness. Watkins (1992)
devoted a book chapter to what he called “hypnography and sensory hypnoplasty.” On the
DVD (7.5), Karen Clark-Shock is shown describing her use of both hypnosis and art in what
she calls Hypno-Art Therapy (A) (c f. also Jim Consoli’s use of hypnosis in his technique,
Psychimagery (DVD 7.1) (I).