Technique(s) • 161Video technology, on the other hand, allows instant replay, and is helpful for training and
supervision as well as therapy. A combination of art and video therapy is indeed remarkably
powerful, as Irene Jakab and I discovered when we conducted some video art therapy family
evaluations in the 1980s at a psychiatric hospital. Recent papers and presentations describe
using the medium not only for recording and playback, but also as an expressive tool. On
the DVD you can see some scenes (DVD 7.8) from the edited videotape (Jakab, 1982).
For a boy named Isaac, both art and film were central to his therapy as a young child, as
an adolescent, as a young adult, and eventually to his life.
Art and Film Therapy Help a Young Man Grow Up: ISAAC (DVD 7.9)
I had seen Isaac for five years in child analysis. He was a sad and preoccupied little boy, but
took to the use of expressive media with enthusiasm ( F i g u r e 7.11). Art and drama were his
prime modes of communication throughout his treatment (A). One of his favorite activities
was the making of animated films using clay, where the stories he often enacted with his
artwork could come alive (B). He made slow and steady progress, but had a hard time end-
ing therapy and saying goodbye when he was 11.
Three years later, Isaac returned for two months of art therapy, saying that he was
depressed because he felt rejected by other kids. When he began to express suicidal thoughts,
I referred him to a psychiatrist, and we all agreed on hospitalization and a trial of medica-
tion. After leaving the hospital, he enrolled in a creative arts high school, where he did a lot
of acting and began to make films and videos.
Toward the end of his senior year, Isaac returned once more for art therapy. Deeply dis-
couraged, he had been rejected from all of the colleges to which he had applied. Although
he blamed his guidance counselor, he had not applied to a “safety school” as he had been
advised. I thought he was probably having a hard time leaving his parents, who were not
only angry at him, but also loving and very needy.
Since Isaac was still deeply attached to me as a parental figure, I suggested that he work
with an art therapy intern I was supervising at the time. With her assistance, Isaac was able
Figure 7.10 Filming in an art–drama therapy group.