Collage therapy and an analysis of production process in collage work

Abstract

An application of collage as an art form has been made in clinical psychology, and has been established as collage therapy. This paper attempted to answer the following questions: What kind of behavior people show during production of collage work; how the production behavior differs from person to person; what causes the behavior differences. The framework of creative problem solving and behavior analysis technique with VTR were used, and behavior characteristics of mentally retarded subjects (N = 20) were compared with non-retarded adults (N = 20). Results revealed three behavior patterns: Whole linear type ([SEAF]n), partially repeated linear type ([SE]n and [AF]m), and circuit type ([SEA]n and [AF]m) from the analysis of transition probability of four fundamental action elements (search [S], extraction [E], arrangement [A] and fixation [F]) of collage work production. The difference in the production process of each subject may be attributed to the difference in proportions of the three behavior patterns. The proportion difference in turn appeared to reflect that on the global-local dimension in the work production plan.