The Arts and Psychotherapy

By Shaun McNiff, Endicott College, Beverly, Massachusetts. A unique perspective of expressive arts as psychotherapy is presented. The author stresses the unity of the arts therapies in a theoretical and operational approach that is firmly rooted in the historical continuities and essential meaning of art. He shows how contemporary therapies involving oral and written language, movement and dance, sound and music, visual imagery, and drama correspond to ancient, cross-cultural, even universal attempts at psychic healing. Current practices in all of the arts therapies are described in light of this theoretical framework, as are such therapeutic concepts as safe expression, perceptual focusing, enactment and emotional clarification, aesthetic order and personality balance, sublimation, and transvaluation. The relationship of shamanism to modern arts therapies, motives and needs, obstacles to expression, and preparation for therapy also receive detailed analyses. Enlightening and provocative, this book will appeal to all expressive arts therapists and to psychologists, psychiatrists, artists, students and theorists of art, and others interested in the arts and psychotherapy.