Approaches • 109and group art therapy (Riley, 1999). Indeed, there are many different schools of thought in
both areas.
Most early art therapists were influenced by the dominant psychodynamic thinking
about groups, including families. Since then, however, the developing fields of group
dynamics, cybernetics, and systems theory have spawned a whole new set of conceptu-
alizations about people in plural. These ideas have greatly affected contemporary art
therapists who work with families (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2007) and groups (Yalom
& Leszcz, 2005).
Family Art Therapy
One of the most influential art therapy pioneers was Hanna Kwiatkowska, who worked on
an inpatient unit for adolescents with schizophrenia at the National Institutes of Mental
Health (NIMH), one of the key centers for the development of family therapy itself during
the middle of the 20th century. Although other art therapists were seeing families too, this
gifted therapist was the undisputed pioneer of Family Therapy & Evaluation Through Art
(Kwiatkowska, 1978). On the DVD (5.4), you can observe her (A) conducting an early (B)
and a later family art evaluation (C).
Many followed in her footsteps, often learning by observing and consulting with her,
like Helen Landgarten (Figure 5.12), who worked in an outpatient clinic for children and
families (D). She described work with families in her first book (Landgarten, 1981), and
later devoted an entire book to the topic (Landgarten, 1987). Sobol, who was trained by
Kwiatkowska at George Washington University, wrote the part of the chapter on family art
therapy in the second edition of Approaches to Art Therapy. (Rubin, 2001).
Riley (E), who commented on that chapter in Approaches, studied art therapy with
Landgarten, and later wrote a book titled Integrative Approaches to Family Art Therapy
(Riley & Malchiodi, 1994). Linesch, a student of both Landgarten and Riley, also edited
a book that included a variety of approaches to family art therapy titled Art Therapy with
Families in Crisis (Linesch, 1993).
Figure 5.12 Helen Landgarten, family art psychotherapy.