180 • Introduction to Art Therapy
anything in art—from abstract ideas like freedom to feeling-states like panic. Art therapists
treat adults with a wide range of problems, including personality disorders, anxiety disor-
ders, and problems in adjustment (Fig u re 8 .11). Because images can bypass verbal censor-
ship, art therapy is especially helpful for those who use words defensively, like Laurie in
Chapter 4 and the family in Chapter 7.
While the majority of art therapists see adults, and much of the literature describes work
with people in the middle phase of life, only one book deals specifically with Adult Art
Therapy (Landgarten & Lubbers, 1991). Pioneer Margaret Naumburg’s seminal books that
followed her early work with children (1950, 1953, 1966) all include detailed case studies of
individuals in both young and middle adulthood. Like Freud, Naumburg was a good writer,
and these stories still read so well that they remind me of the title of a book by a Gestalt
therapist, Every Person’s Life Is Worth a Novel (Polster, 1990).
Other fascinating stories of people whose art was central to their therapy are told by
Baynes (1961), Harding (1965), Meares (1957), and Milner (1969). Like the account of a
woman who emerged from a psychotic regression in part via art (Barnes & Berke, 1971),
there is another fascinating story told by both the patient and the therapist (Dalley, Rifkind,
& Terry, 1993; Cf. Also Naevestad, 1979).
Art in Diagnosis and Therapy with a Young Adult: SALLY (22)
Sally was a graduate student in musicology and had always been an outstanding performer.
But when she confessed to her advisor that she was having a very hard time getting her work
Figure 8.11 A man working with clay.