Identifying conflicts of anorexia nervosa as manifested in the art therapy process

Abstract

While working as an art therapist treating anorectic patients in an in-patient Eating Disorder Department at a major medical center in Israel, I became aware of a wide range of issues that arose within my art therapy sessions. Although, the eating disorder of anorexia nervosa has been explored extensively and a variety of psychological explanations have been proposed, the perspective taken by these theories did not seem to address directly the art therapy process for the patients with whom I was involved. As we know, anorexia nervosa is a multifaceted disorder. Over the years of my work as an art therapist, I realized that there was a need to provide a fuller understanding of the phenomenon of anorexia nervosa and the way it manifests itself through art work and from an art therapy perspective. I wanted to follow the central themes that arose in art and the art therapy process while working with anorectic patients. As proposed by Schaverien (1994), art and art therapy may symbolically replace food in the negotiation of the underlying causes of anorexia nervosa. As I followed the themes that emerged in the art therapy process I was involved with, I found that my patients were trapped in a pattern of conflicting themes. I therefore chose to focus on these conflicts directly. In this paper, I will concentrate on the conflicts that were identified in the artistic process and art products of 10 anorectic patients treated over a period of 6 months. The definition of the conflicts and the ways they appear in the art therapy sessions may be a useful tool for assessment and treatment of patients with anorexia nervosa. This study may also provide a more com