ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an exploration and reflection from clinical practice about the role of the borrowed image in art therapy, something that may lead to a qualitative research project in the future. It argues that the use of the borrowed image promotes the developmental process of internalization and contributes to strengthening psychic structure based upon clinical observation. Incorporation, considered the earliest form of internalization, is related to body-based or biological swallowing. The process of internalization strengthens the ego, and does so by quickening the ego functions. Such activation of ego functions is particularly important with a psychiatric population. In practical terms, mid-20th-century psychoanalytic theory declared that engaging the ego as organizing process remained a fundamental therapeutic aim in working with many patients with less than neurotic structures. The therapist contained and strengthened the fragile or insubstantial ego capacities of the disorganized patient through the therapeutic alliance.
