The importance of art therapy in the integrative treatment of recurrent depressive disorder – case study

Abstract

An integrative treatment of patients with affective disorders during hospitalisation also includes art therapy. Art therapy, as a form of expressive therapy, uses the creative process to encourage communication, expression of feelings and offers the space for mutual mirroring. This paper presents a patient who has been treated for approximately five years under the diagnosis of a recurrent depressive disorder (F33) and mixed personality disorder (F61). The patient has been experiencing unrecognised and untreated problems of the depression spectrum since 1993, when he took part in the Yugoslav war. The main issue was the somatic symptoms (headaches, nausea etc). Another major problem during his psychiatric treatment and an additional cause of unsatisfactory therapeutic effect was his inability to verbalise his feelings. In the course of art therapy, when the patient was given a topic “How I see myself in five years”, he drew a man who appeared to be sleeping and explained that he could not see himself in five years’ time, since he would not be alive at the time and that he could not see a way out of the current situation. With the help of a supportive group, for the first time since the beginning of his treatment, he spoke about his thoughts and feelings of hopelessness, sorrow, alienation and loneliness. This enabled new insight into the patient's depression. This clinical example shows how art therapy and reaction of the group, which was supportive and highly associative, can turn the non-verbal into verbal and non-communication into communication.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.