As an art therapy is considered of having three features, which are an art therapist, the art, and a client, during art therapy sessions, these features do not exist individually; they rather interact with each other. During the session, a client work...
As an art therapy is considered of having three features, which are an art therapist, the art, and a client, during art therapy sessions, these features do not exist individually; they rather interact with each other. During the session, a client works on his or her art work using artwork materials with an art therapist together and the art therapist intervenes therapeutically by managing the client’s whole art producing process, which is expressed, discovered, and incorporated by the client.
There are many studies regarding clients’ artworks in the art therapy research. These studies focus on finding meanings from the forms or context of artworks of a client (Kaplan, 2013), and the majority of them deal with the effectiveness, advantages, and distinctiveness of the client’s artworks have. Compared to these studies, qualitative research regarding various phenomena of a whole process that a client expresses, explores, and incorporates through his or her artworks during sessions is rather insufficient.
If the art therapist, the artwork of a client, and the client form a triangular relationship and interact with each other, the art therapist’s process of interacting and treating the client’s artwork becomes vital. Therefore, it is necessary to study the meaning the art therapist assigns to the client’s artwork and how the therapist felt toward this experience.
The purpose of this study is to describe the experiences of therapists, who acquired Master’s degree in art therapy, during art sessions that come from dealing with clients’ artworks, and to explore the therapists’ diverse experiences.
Therefore, the question that this study asks is “What do art therapists experience regarding the artworks of clients during art therapy sessions and what are the meaning and the nature of them?”
To discover the answer to this question, this study followed Max van Manen’s Hermeneutical Phenomenological Research Method to study the vivid experiences of art therapists when they work with clients’ artworks during sessions. Also, this study conducted eleven steps of research which are consisted of focusing on the nature of the experience itself, discovering existential experience study, and reflecting and writing in hermeneutical and phenomenological way.
A total of thirteen people have participated in this study, who all have acquired Master’s degrees or above in art therapy from six graduate schools. They are experienced art therapists who have been working in the field at most seven years and are continuously working in art therapy field; this enables them to explain their diverse experience regarding the subject of this study in a detailed manner.
The data for this study was collected from May to December 2016. In addition to the interview data of the participants, writings about clients’ art works and their reactions were acquired as well and additional materials from literature and art that are related to the topic of this study are included for reference.
By analyzing the collected data according to Max van Manen’s Hermeneutical Phenomenological Research Method, the following nine essential themes and twenty-six sub themes were concluded.
<The art therapists guide the client to have active experience through art producing>, <The art therapists felt that the artwork was the link between the client and them>, <The art therapists noticed how the client was being expressed in many ways through the artwork>, <The art therapists discovered the powerful advantage that only could come from artwork>, <The art therapists realized how the client started to grow as the art producing sessions progressed>, <The lives of the art therapists influenced the mind of art therapists when they work with clients’ artworks>, <The art therapists are in need of care as well since they often felt overwhelmed by the artworks of the clients>, <The art therapists endeavored to lead the art producing process to make it helpful for the clients>, <The art therapists became more comfortable with the clients’ artworks as they gained more professional experience as art therapists>
Based on these essential themes, existential experience study, and writings, conclusions about the nature and the meaning of the experiences of art therapists as they dealt with clients’ artworks during art therapy sessions are the followings:
First, art therapists communicate with clients through their artworks, which are the language of the clients, and from this process, they acquire the experience of understanding their clients more.
Second, art therapists experience the therapeutic advantages of artworks as they see the clients visualizing their psychological troubles through art and resolving inner conflicts. The art therapists apply this experience to their upcoming sessions and discover the growth of their clients.
Third, the art therapists notice how their life experience influence the way they work with the clients’ artworks; in turn, the experience the therapists gained from working with the clients’ artworks influenced the lives of the art therapists.
Fourth, art therapists felt the necessity of a professional training in the process of treating the clients’ artworks. As the therapists go through continuous training, they became more comfortable when dealing with clients’ artworks and became capable of leading art therapy flexibly, experiencing their growth as art therapists.
This study contributes to art therapy as a discipline and art therapy as fieldwork in the following way.
First, this study looked into the relationship between the art therapist and the artwork of the client in a triangular relationship of an art therapist, artwork of a client, and a client, which are the three features of art therapy. This study is significant in the way that it is a lived experience study, which has discovered the importance of the relationship between an art therapist and a client’s artwork once again.
Second, this study is a qualitative research, which reveals the experience of the art therapists regarding the clients’ artworks that contributes to art therapy by expanding the diversity of the research about clients’ artworks.
Third, for the training of a student in a Master’s degree program in art therapy, this study could be used as a basic educational tool for establishing one’s identity as an art therapist. It can emphasize the significance of an artwork that is created during sessions.
The following is the limitation of this study.
The participants of this study have all acquired a Master’s degree in art therapy. However, the study did not categorize the undergraduate majors or doctorate majors of them in a strict manner when conducting in-depth interviews and collecting other data. The art therapists’ experience with the clients’ artworks can vary depending on their undergraduate or doctorate major.
The following is the proposal for this study.
This study did not classify the four detailed types of an art therapy. It researched in the incorporated way to study the experience of an art therapist with a client’s artwork. For a follow-up study, classifying clients according to the four detailed types of art therapy is necessary. In addition, the lived experience of an art therapist regarding this matter is needed as well.