Art therapy and the concept of internal cohabitation

Abstract

This article explores the significance of the concept of internal cohabitation for art therapy. The article begins with an introduction to the background to this concept. Initially developed by Sinason and others, it offers a different way of approaching phenomena which would usually be understood through the notion of splitting. The concept proposes that within each person, two minds are always in operation, each with a radically different perspective on life. One mind is attuned to the world of human relationships, while the other is a survivalist with a hatred of dependency on others and is referred to as the internal other or the anti-relational mind. The dominance of this mind will lead to a disastrous breakdown in relatedness, both inner and outer. Through a series of clinical examples, drawn from work in an NHS outpatient setting, some central implications of this dual perspective for the therapeutic process and for the fate of the client s artwork are examined. Out of this arise important questions in relation to how we think about creativity in general, which are explored in the discussion section. The emphasis in this section is on how the anti-relational mind uses art as a means of perpetuating its worldview rather than as an open, playful exploration of reality.