ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an art therapy case study describing work that the author undertook in a correctional facility located in an urban area of the United States of America. This case study explores the use of the comic strip format in art therapy, and discusses whether this format could provide containment for the detainee concerned, who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Research undertaken by the dual trained art therapists and psychologists Gussak and Virshup (1997) has suggested that correctional populations benefit from the art therapy modality. Awareness of how the setting influences inmate behaviour and identity can shape how the clinician works within the correctional system, especially in relation to how the individuals therein use defence mechanisms. Gussak and Virshup (1997) discuss the concept of containment as a device that could be utilised to 'confront pain at a safe and manageable pace'.
