58 • Introduction to Art Therapy
were sophisticated in their reading and understanding of analytic theory, child develop-
ment, art, and education.
They were unusually well qualified to synthesize these understandings into a theoretical
basis for the newly emerging discipline of art therapy. And both were scholars, exploring
other domains like archeology and ethology, to deepen their understanding of art therapy.
Each of them was also extremely independent—as a person and as a thinker.
Although both relied on psychoanalytic theory, their definitions of art therapy were quite
different, one stressing the therapy and the other the art. Naumburg (Figure 3.5) saw art
as a form of symbolic speech, coming from the unconscious like dreams, to be evoked in a
spontaneous way and to be understood through free association, always respecting the art-
ist’s own interpretations. Art was thus conceived as a “royal road” to unconscious symbolic
contents, a means of both diagnosis and therapy, requiring verbalization and insight as well
as art expression. Kramer, on the other hand, saw art as a “royal road” to sublimation, a way
of integrating conflicting feelings and impulses in an aesthetically satisfying form, helping
the ego to synthesize via the creative process itself.
Margaret Naumburg was also influenced by her sister Florence Cane (1951), the analyti-
cally oriented art teacher mentioned earlier. Naumburg herself was a pioneer in education
as well as in art therapy (C). She founded the Walden School in 1914 explicitly based on
psychoanalytic principles, which, like the discipline she mothered, is still alive and well in
New York City (Naumburg, 1928).
A remarkable woman, she had studied with pioneer educators John Dewey and Maria
Montessori. Naumburg had also been so impressed by the infant field of psychoanalysis
that she had been analyzed by both a Freudian and a Jungian, using her own art as part
of the treatment process. Convinced that understanding oneself was essential in order to
liberate children’s creativity, Naumburg urged that all of the teachers at Walden be psycho-
analyzed (Naumburg, 1928). For several years, beginning in 1920, the art teacher at Walden
was Florence (Naumburg) Cane (1951).
Margaret Naumburg had the good fortune, as did several other early art therapists, to meet
a psychiatrist who already felt that art could be a useful tool in both assessment and therapy.
Figure 3.5 Margaret Naumburg as a young woman.