ABSTRACT
Within every therapeutic modality, a supportive and healing relationship allows the client a safe venue to further develop his/her natural resources while improving upon inherent fragility; for it is the natural resources of the client which must be taken into account if change, growth, and insight are to occur.
This chapter incorporates an interdisciplinary approach to art therapy whereby case examples are analyzed from a range of counseling methodologies. Hence, successive case histories focus upon the interpretation of play, narrative, and artwork whereby coping mechanisms in the form of symbolic metaphors are explored. Many experienced clinicians incorporate a variety of healing approaches as a way to individualize treatment planning. Consequently, the integration of varied theoretical modalities, within the expressive arts, allows the client and clinician a venue to present and process critical issues. This chapter addresses treatment planning for a wide range of social/emotional and behavioral difficulties. It assists the mental health professional on ways to conceptualize clinical cases, how to integrate metaphorical imagery in verbal and non-verbal therapy, and reviews reflexive defenses which have served to protect and distance the client.
