Dynamically Oriented Art Therapy: Its Principles and Practice

Dynamically oriented art therapy has been an established form of psychotherapy for over half a century, and it continues to gain recognition and support from psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. The procedures of art therapy as a distinctive form of psychotherapy have also received praise from art educators, occupational therapists, social workers & many others.

In this work, three case histories of emotionally disturbed women are used to illustrate the various ways in which the process of dynamically oriented art therapy can function in the treatment of depression, ulcers and alcoholism. The pictures created by these patients illustrate the application of transference, identification and free association in relation to the spontaneous pictures created during treatment by means of dynamically oriented art therapy.