Places We Practice • 223Sometimes making art is self-initiated, as in the work of Frida Kahlo, whose pain was
transmuted by the injured artist into haunting self-portraits (B). Ophir, a 5-year-old Israeli
boy, had never been interested in art before, but after an accident that left him “temporarily
handicapped,” drawing became his chief form of “self-rehabilitation.”^2 Since normal anxiet-
ies about being artistic are exacerbated by physical complications, however, most patients
need the encouragement and assistance of an art therapist.
The logistics of helping a bedridden patient in traction to create can be formidable.
However, even when a person’s faculties are greatly reduced, some kind of art expression is
usually possible, with creatively conceived adaptations and well-designed assistive devices.
Even quadriplegics can be enabled to create images by using computers.^3 When a young man
named Peter became so disabled that he could no longer hold a brush, art therapist Rita
Simon supported his hand, sensitively following his instructions.^4
Group art therapy can be especially helpful, since people with the same disorder ben-
efit from sharing feelings and frustrations and can often do something creative to cope. A
group of young adults in a rehabilitation institute formed a production company named
Wheelchair Accessibles. Together they made a videotape—an artistic way to deal with the
helplessness and anguish of their situation (Bejjani, 1993).
Led by art therapist Diane Rode, through Mt. Sinai’s Child Life & Creative Arts Therapy
Department, pediatric patients have been making videotapes about their conditions for over
a decade in Through Our Eyes Productions, as well as a child-operated closed-circuit TV
station, Kidzone TV (www.mtsinai.org).
At Bellevue Hospital, Director Irene Rosner-David (Figure 10.7) has led the Creative
Arts Therapy Department since 1978. It provides services for many patients, from those
with AIDS to those in isolation for tuberculosis (Malchiodi, 1999b), to those with spinal
cord injuries. In A Look at Medical Art Therapy (Kahn & Illusiorio, 1990), two graduate stu-
dent interns filmed Rosner working with a young man named Eddie, quadriplegic following
Figure 10.6 Mickie McGraw in the art studio.