History • 59Dr. Nolan D.C. Lewis had in fact published two papers himself in the 1920s on the use of art
in psychoanalytic treatment. As director, he was able to open the doors of the New York State
Psychiatric Institute to Naumburg from 1941 to 1947, during which time she worked with
individuals using art, and published a series of case studies in psychological journals (D).
Naumburg then collected her child case studies and was able to publish them in a mono-
graph that reached psychiatrists and psychologists. (Naumburg, 1947) She was intent on
presenting her research as scholarly, since she wanted art therapy to be taken seriously
(Figure 3.6). Naumburg remained a tireless ambassador for art therapy throughout her life,
lecturing far and wide in order to acquaint other professionals with this new field (E). She
published three more books (1950, 1953, 1966), as well as many book chapters and catalogs
for exhibitions of patient art.
Naumburg was something of a rebel, no doubt an essential quality for anyone choosing
to challenge the establishment. In her theory too, she was unusually eclectic for the period.
Having experienced both a Jungian and a Freudian analysis, she saw values in each that
were relevant for the use of art in therapy. She was also open-minded about the meaning of
visual symbols, choosing to rely primarily on the artist’s own associations.
The other most influential writer and theorist was Edith Kramer. An artist who fled
Prague just before the Second World War, Kramer had been exposed to a rich diet of psy-
choanalytic thinking, as well as to Lowenfeld’s ideas about art education (F). Having already
seen the value of art for the refugee children she taught before leaving Europe, Kramer was
ripe for a job in 1951 as an art therapist at Wiltwyck, a residential school for disturbed
children in New York (Figure 3.7), obtained with the help of an analyst from Europe, child
psychiatrist Viola Bernard. Her first book, Art Therapy in a Children’s Community (K ra mer,
1958), was inspired by this work (G).
Kramer’s thinking was different from that of Naumburg, whose theory of art therapy
reflected the emphasis in early psychoanalysis on making the unconscious conscious. Kramer
learned analytic theory in a milieu that stressed ego psychology. It is also relevant that
Kramer’s work was always as an adjunctive therapist, allowing her to freely concentrate on
Figure 3.6 Margaret Naumburg as a mature woman.