Making sense: towards a unified theory of art psychotherapy through the formulation of an aesthetic grid

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I discuss how ‘sense’ is made in art therapy regarding three uses of the term: that of ‘meaning’, ‘somatic experience’ and the capacity for ‘sensing’. I suggest that the patient in an art therapy session produces actions and artefacts which come into contact with the mind of the therapist/group. This allows for a dream to be generated between the creator and the observer, that the artwork can tell us something about internal mental states within the creator. I propose a theory of observation by application of an Aesthetic Grid – an adaptation of Bion’s Grid of genetic epistemology. This is an attempt to bring together ‘three waves of art therapy theory and practice’, and incorporates the function of the art object, as well as the phases of art making and looking/talking. The Aesthetic Grid is not intended for use in sessions but rather to be utilized after the event, in order to reflect upon the status of the ‘art-psychotherapy object’ - the totality of the triangular relationship, creator-artwork-viewer, and whether this constitutes development and growth or its inverse.

KEYWORDS:

• Aesthetic grid
• sense making
• art theory
• psychoanalytic theory
• art psychotherapy

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the reviewers at the Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review for their comments and suggestions in the preparation of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Patient anonymization statement

Potentially personally identifying information presented in this article that relates directly or indirectly to an individual, or individuals, has been changed to disguise and safeguard the confidentiality, privacy and data protection rights of those concerned, in accordance with the journal’s anonymization policy.

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Notes on contributors

Liam Bierschenk

Liam Bierschenk originally trained as an art psychotherapist. He works in the UK as a psychoanalyst in private practice and as a psychotherapist in personality disorder services in the NHS.