164 • Introduction to Art Therapy
examine new and potentially helpful adjuncts, especially if they have primary responsibility
for treatment.
Linda Cohn’s combination of “Art Psychotherapy and Eye Movement Desensitization”
(EMDR), which has grown in popularity since she published her chapter, is one such exam-
ple (Virshup, 1993). Art therapists seem less rigid and doctrinaire as a group than others,
perhaps because of the openness that is necessary for a genuine creative process.
I once had the fascinating experience of putting together what I know about art therapy
with what Dr. Louis Tinnin was finding out about using video in what he called “Time-
Limited Trauma Therapy.” Tinnin, a psychiatrist who is also a true believer in art therapy,
was using videotaped feedback with clients who had dissociative identity (multiple person-
ality) disorder.
Thanks to his generous sharing of ideas and procedures, I was able to help one of my
patients to get to know a number of her alters who had so far eluded co-consciousness.
She first viewed a videotape of herself in each personality state, made while she was in the
hospital. Since she was also taped while watching the first video, she was then able to watch
the second tape as well. When we later videotaped the alters drawing and painting as well
as talking, the recognition and acceptance of her “parts” was greatly accelerated for the
patient. This was a truly multimodal approach, most useful for this hard-to-treat condition.
(See the story of Elaine in Chapter 9.)
Concluding Thoughts
I could go on and on, and that in and of itself is the most wonderful thing about technique(s)
in art therapy. There are so many different ways of using art to help people. Sometimes they
offer possibilities that would be impossible in any other way. For example, time can be col-
lapsed. A Life Line of colors and shapes can tell a person’s story, and a Life Space picture can
show how things are at any moment in time.
Figure 7.13 Eleanor Irwin, drama therapist.