A phenomenologic research study of a client's experience in art therapy

Abstract

A phenomenological research approach to a client’s experience in art therapy is described and illustrated here with a description and discussion of the findings of the artmaking phase. Research investigations in art therapy commonly focus on the potential usefulness of the art product for assessment purposes and the effectiveness of art therapy. Nevertheless, what art therapy is and how it occurs does not appear to be well understood or articulated. “Meaningful theoretical constructs have not yet been developed from the matrix of art therapy itself” (Rubin, 1984, p. 190). Instead, art therapy tends to be viewed and understood from the theory and language of other disciplines. Phenomenology calls for a return to the subjective-the experience as it is lived-to gain understanding. Previous studies in art therapy that have used phenomenological principles have tended to focus on the subjective experience of a particular psychological disturbance (i.e., schizophrenia and manic depression) (Wadeson, 1980) or the resolution of bereavement issues in children (McIntyre, 1987, 1988) and have used client’s art products and verbal descriptions to arrive at a greater understanding of these experiences. The purpose of the study described in this article is to gain understanding of a client’s experience in art therapy and to demonstrate a research approach that may be useful in gaining knowledge of phenomena that occur in art therapy. This research differs from previous research in that it attempts to overcome the tendency to focus on the art object apart from the person, to tease out the art therapy experience itself from the rich detail of the narrative and to describe what is given versus interpreting it from a particular theoretical perspective. This research study is grounded in a client’s verbal descriptions of her experience in art therapy versus an art therapist’s observations of a client’s nonverbal descriptions and focuses on the art therapy experience itself versus a particular issue or mode of art therapy. The study constitutes a contribution to art therapy research through a research design that uses the verbal descriptions of the client as the main source of data, subjects them to a systematic analysis and tries to stay close to the experience and meaning systems of the client. The research question was: What meaning is revealed in a client’s descriptions of her experience of artworks created in art therapy over time? Specifically: