ABSTRACT
This chapter will look back at the role of the ‘group’ within the ‘traditional’ form of art therapy as it was practised in long-stay psychiatric hospitals and at developments in groups in this rapidly diminishing setting. A small scale M.A. research project which I undertook in the early 1990s indicated a confusion of practice, but one in which some common features were discernible. Some of the findings from this research will be presented. Case material from an on-going (over many years) art therapy group of long-stay residents of a psychiatric hospital who are now awaiting resettlement outside will be discussed. Pivoting uneasily between hospital and ‘community care’ the group illustrates the difficulties of transition from long-stay patient to long-term client and the parallel transition and changes within art therapy practice in this setting.
