172 • Introduction to Art Therapy
therapy can work. In addition, the edited video clips on the DVD will bring it even more
alive for the reader.
Children
There is a widespread notion that art therapy must be used mostly with children, since most
adults have more verbal facility and can discuss what’s bothering them. There is, of course,
some truth in the title of a book about children’s art, They Could Not Talk and So They Drew
(Levick, 1983). But art therapy is actually used more often with adolescents and adults. One
of art therapy’s greatest assets is that making art comes naturally to youngsters (Figure 8.5)
and can be helpful in therapy even before a child can work representationally, as in the fol-
lowing example.
Art and Sandplay Help a Grieving Toddler: BILLY (2)
Billy was a two-year-old whose young father had suddenly disappeared. Because he had
committed suicide, the family had a harder time than usual dealing with the death, and an
even harder time helping poor little puzzled Billy.
As this formerly cheerful, independent boy became increasingly depressed, clingy, and
oppositional, his distraught young mother found herself unable to comfort or to control
him. Her sister, a therapist, suggested that maybe Billy needed to see someone outside the
family, in order to work on his confused feelings and fantasies about his father’s death. So
he came to see me (DVD 8.2).
Figure 8.5 A preschool child absorbed in creating.