Art Therapy for Psychosis

This book represents a compelling case for contemporary art therapy to have a substantive place in community psychiatry for people who experience psychosis. It contains an impressive range of international contributions with detailed clinical and theoretical accounts, some by psychiatrists. The book deserves careful attention from practitioners of all mental health disciplines who work with psychosis. - Dr Brian Martindale, Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist, Past Chair of the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis, Honorary President of the EFPP, Honorary Member of the World Psychiatric Association Art therapy began in studios in asylums, many of which housed people experiencing psychosis. It's come a long way since then. This book shows how, bringing a welcome contemporary and international perspective to art therapy with this client population. Practitioners draw on different kinds of theoretical scaffolding - from phenomenology and cognitive analytical therapy to neurophysiology and psychoanalysis - to develop their approach, unpack how making art becomes a 'healing agent' and show how the context and relationship within which this occurs is another. The book shows just how much art therapy now has to offer to the care and treatment of people prone to psychotic states. - Andrea Gilroy, Emeritus Reader in Art Psychotherapy, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK I felt touched and inspired by the case narratives that illustrate the role of art therapy in helping patients recover their ability for communication and engagement with others, which is usually profoundly compromised by intolerable psychotic anxieties. The book powerfully conveys the capacity for art therapy to minimize the requirement for forms of interpersonal relating that are to a greater or lesser extend impossible in psychotic states. -Swapna Kongara, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Journal