Observing mentalizing art therapy groups for people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article describes video-based observation of three mentalization-based treatment (MBT) art therapy groups in services for people who have received a diagnosis of personality disorder. Four focus groups (service user researchers, MBT trained psychologists, MBT trained art therapists, and the three art therapists who submitted videos) developed descriptions of the practice they observed on video. A grounded theory method was used to develop a proposition that if the art therapist uses art to demonstrate their attention, this tends to help potentially chaotic and dismissive groups to cooperate, whereas if the art therapist gives the appearance of passivity, it tends to increase the problematic interactions in the group.