ABSTRACT
In this chapter I will attempt to clarify some of the issues which distinguish art therapy from therapy where art is ‘employed’, such as when it is used as an ‘aid’ to psychotherapy. In art therapy the relationship between client and therapist may at times form a background, while the foreground of the therapeutic work is the picture. Pictures may reveal more than is clearly apparent in the dialogue; they may exhibit the transference, contain it, and powerfully influence the counter-transference. This is in distinct contrast to the pictures which are sometimes ‘employed’ in psychotherapy. Here they are a background, an aid to understanding, or an illustration of feeling, but are not considered to be central. Such pictures are peripheral to the main task, which may be considered to be the analysis of the transference. (In art therapy it is always important to be aware of the transference and counter-transference, but analysis of the transference may not always be the main aim, as the picture may carry some of that function.)
