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Emotionally disturbed young people: The value of their pictorial expression and of its promotion
The Arfs in Psychorkrapy. Vol. 19. pp. 9%104, Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.
EMOTIONALLY
1992 Copyright 0
DISTURBED YOUNG PEOPLE: THE VALUE OF THEIR
PICTORIAL
EXPRESSION AND OF ITS PROMOTION
CHRISTINE
FABRE.
As a specialized instructor for 17 years, I have organized special activities for emotionally disturbed young people and have dealt with painting artwork in particular. The importance and usefulness of art in therapy are accepted fact. However, there are differences in ap preach, and this paper will attempt to describe the differences between my approach to the use of art in therapy and the more traditional view. I shall enlarge on the therapeutic function of the artwork produced by patients. Although there is a consensus on the cathartic function of self-expression through works of art, there is no consensus on the therapeutic potential of the finished work. Generally, art therapists are interested mainly in the message of the work of art, through analysis of the symbols expressed and its unconscious content, rather than the personal and social meaning of the finished work and its positive feedback for patients. At present, there are very few exhibitions of works by patients and, unfortunately, it is evident that this remains a fairly “ad hoc” affair in the process of treatment. In most workshops, group leaders or facilitators far too often still think that the therapeutic function of their work is only the liberation of emotions. In their view, this is a delicate process that would be corrupted if it were in any way an attempt at communication with the public. According to such therapists, actually keeping and showing the finished
*Christine
01974556’92 S5.00 + .OO 1992 Pcrgamon Press Ltd.
Fabre is Maitre de Conffrenccs
PhD*
works would be blocking the development of the personality and stifling creative freedom; it would be impeding the cathartic work. They insist that artworks should not be exhibited, at the risk of completely destroying the therapeutic work in process. In my view, there is also another important therapeutic function I wish to stress that is derived from the exhibiting of the completed artwork. This is a function that has a meaning and exists alongside the cathartic aspect. With the permission of the patients, their final art can be used to be just as therapeutic, in a different way. of course, as the process of expression and creation involved at the outset. What I have learned from my research with emotionally disturbed teenagers is that, if we favor the promotion of the artwork with a therapeutic dimension, we can observe that this function in practice does not interfere with the cathartic expression, and, in fact, can encourage a feeling of self and social wonh in the patient. But to make it more apparent, I shall put my experience into context and show how taking into account the needs of the emotionally disturbed young people led me to develop an educational system that allowed the blossoming of their potential and their self-expression. There are 70 teenagers, between the ages of 14 and 18, some of whom are live-in patients and other outpatients, in our medico-vocational institution. They present personality disturbances, unstable behavior, and they are all emotionally disturbed. In common, they have all been expelled from school for extremely
(Sciences de I’Education)
in the Depamnent
Cam&es
Sociales of the lnstitut Univcrsitaire
de
Technologie. which is pm of the UniversitC des Sciences Sociales of Grenoble, France. where she directs the training of specialized instructors and teaches educational psychology.
99
CHRISTINE poor grades and general unmanageability. After a long series of failures, they end up at our institution, where they stay for about 3 years. They are given prevocational training and basic academic instruction. Our institution promotes what we call a “pedagogic institutionnelle.” which means that all the teachers and staff work in very close contact for the benefit of each patient. Consequently, we mainly aim at promoting self-worth. In order to do this, we put our young people in situations where, as often as possible, they can only succeed, so that their self-image is no longer so negative. This is how they gain in selfesteem and gradually lose their anxiety. Before coming to us, these young people have all been so subjected to treatment that they have lost all self-esteem, which in turn becomes a source of inhibition and anxiety, and creates very serious character defects in the development of their affective, cognitive, creative, and relational life. All this makes the possibility of social integration very difficult. This is why I set up a painting workshop that the teenagers attended 2 hours per week. every fortnight, small groups (less than 4 adolescents) lasting on average for the 3-year period. I insist on the 3 years because this means long-term work. It would be an illusion to hope that people can blossom or that their self-image can be changed after only one or two sessions, no matter how good the method may be. How can we influence these young people who are so disturbed, so opposed to learning, so convinced that painting is either for small children or something for a very few geniuses? How can we convince them that they can participate and be creative, that they can produce something in the workshop? To motivate these particular teenagers, something that cannot be improvised has to be done. The majority of facilitators or group leaders who decide to promote selfexpression, who try to stimulate creativity and promote spontaneity, authenticity, and freedom in creation, very often have the worst problems in maintaining the motivation of these teenagers. It is difficult to ask young people who are emotionally disturbed, who are in such conflict with themselves and with existence, to express their ego, or what they think their ego is. How can one expect them to be creative and to express their desires and needs when they do not know the language, the painting language, the drawing language? They do not have the right techniques, the right “vocabulary.” And how can they be set free, when for them to be free means lack of interest in them or abandonment by the adult
FABRE world? They risk once again a fall into the abyss of menacing failure. I am not going to question these principles (necessity of creativity, self-expression, and freedom), but for such young people, who are permanently in a state of conflict with themselves, it is my experience that we need to keep our priorities in proportion, or rather to know how to modify them within a different chronological framework. Otherwise these teenagers very rapidly lose interest and give up. On the other hand, when the educator does dare to change his or her priorities and defer any thought of creativity, selfexpression, or freedom, these young people show a keen interest in the activity, and they participate enthusiastically. At this point, the priority of the instructor is to take into account another need-the need to be respected, that is for the youngsters to be no longer put down because of their failures and their personal faults, but to be respected for their potential and their successes. This is why these adolescents must be able to see the point of the painting exercise immediately. so as to be able to see how they can profit from their efforts. From this point of stability, they can then allow themselves to dare to “dive into the water and swim.” It is regard for this need, which serves to steer and maintain the educational direction in the workshop, that will permit of some self-respect, which we have to understand as both the need for a restored self-image and the desire to reintroduce themselves into society. In real terms, this means that the adolescents are going to choose their subject matter, and are going to paint their work, with the knowledge that: (a) their painting can be successful and that it will be; (b) that their success, in accordance with their wishes, will be appreciated, photographed, and carefully preserved in the library of photograph albums that mark the life of the workshop from year to year; and (c) that their paintings will be exhibited in the institution and also and, more importantly, outside in the world, in any place or at any possible opportunity. As such, they are offered to an audience, and this audience will then be able to discover what these adolescents are capable of. The way the audience then looks at these people will have changed, and this change will be translated in a dialectic movement to the teenagers, so that they will, in turn. modify the image that they have of themselves. Their paintings will not only bear individual recognition for each of them, but also an honest social recognition. What is success for these young people? It is their
PICTORIAL EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED YOUNG PEOPLE profound, internal satisfaction first in their own eyes-the fact of having been able to hurdle obstacles, to have understood, to have created. to have perfected, and to have finished something. To have, therefore, arrived at the goal they fixed for themselves-to make something new and beautiful that will give them pleasure, and that will also give pleasure to others. “Beautiful” here signifies to be in accord with their own esthetic criteria, with reference to their own cultural norms, but this refers also to the cultural norms that the adolescents themselves imagine exist in the society that they want to be part of. This reference to an imagined culture must not, however, be understood as a sop to conformity and the sterilization of creative capacities. It is a witness of the desire to make oneself accepted. to be like the others, and to get out of the ghetto of one’s failures and social exclusion, even if it is badly expressed. This is why the first thing to do when teenagers come to the workshop is to reassure them, to help and to instruct them very quickly, so that they can have visible proof, concrete proof that like the others who have preceded them, like their friends who are around them, they also can succeed. Put briefly, the educational system used in the workshop is characterized by constantly taking into account the ravages gcncrated by a past of failures for these adolescents, with their consequent fear to show themselves at first as they really are. This is why it seems nccessaty to respect their need to pass through the stage of using documents, models, tracing paper, guides in order to stimulate. to liberate progressively their creativity, as little by little they gain confidence in themselves. Also, it is worth noting that this need for frequent recourse to documents contributes profoundly to their stock of imagery, thereby enriching their imagination and their cultural background. This is why, at this level, the discovery of pictorial works offered in abundance. and the variety of the iconographic documentation in the workshop play such an important role. This teaching is very individualized education, and relatively interventionist from the very beginning in the workshop. However, as it is also very long-term, the message the adult transmits constantly to the adolescent is “You will get there, little by little, by yourself.
and we will do everything
to make it possi-
This is a source of security for the adolescents as it does not limit their potential, yet indicates that they are able to count on the help of the educator, and that they will progressively become autonomous. Fible.”
101
nally, I think that the importance given to the comfort and material quality of the workshop (materials and furniture of very high quality), in an environment that is very attractive (walls covered with cork, large windows, etc.), with music (radio very quietly playing their favorite songs) is also a deliberate educational gesture that shows that the establishment is serious about the activity and also about the adolescents. I would like to return to the fact that if these adolescents, in spite of all their difficulties-instability, impulsiveness, aggression, absence of any resistance to frustration, and their omnipresent anxiety toward the terrible prospect of never being able to get out of the infernal cycle of failure-if they do dare to plunge into the adventure (I believe they must and therefore insist that they do) it is because they need to prove to themselves and the world that they exist, that they want to occupy a place that is theirs, among others, and not to be left among the marginalized and excluded of society. It is because this need for social recognition and integration into the community is so strong, and that they know that here it will be taken into account very seriously, that they accept the effort they need to make in the workshop. This effort, in terms of learning, attention. concentration, application, is immense for them. They discover, step by step, the pleasure, the joy of creating works that evolve from their fingertips, becoming beautiful in their eyes-works that reassure them about who they are, that encourage them, and that give them the motivation to invest their energy, no longer in acts of destruction, but in acts of creation. Observe these adolescents while they paint, and notice what they want from the exhibition of their paintings. Listen to them when they look through the photograph albums where they find the traces of their first pictorial steps and discover the progress that they have made since. These paintings have an importance for these adolescents, in their eyes and also in the eyes of others, as the witnesses of the evolution of their lives and new traces of their actions, as indubitable witnesses of what they have become able to do and to be. In creating the pictures, they achieve a concrete modification of their former traces. They leave behind, therefore, something other than the record of the succession of failures that until now had marked their course in life. In effect, for them, these former traces played a negative role because, in their minds, they have been registered and put down only for the problems that they have created: traces of their faults at home, at school, or in the neighborhood (breakages.
CHRISTINE FABRE destruction, vandalism, graffiti, etc.), all witnesses to their difficulty with communication and integration. These traces let them down, in suggesting their res~nsibili~ or their guilt. in acts that were not honorable, confirming, and, worse, sometimes reinforcing the precariousness of their socialization or their current marginalization. These adolescents do not know how to get out of their rut, and this is why an education that allows them to fulfill their need to create, to succeed and to be respected can offer them this chance, as much symbolic as real, to at last create positive traces of themselves. If we are honest with ourselves. we acknowledge that we all feel this need, as much as the generations of men and women who have preceded us, from all countries, from all cultures-the need to leave our traces. If we reflect on this need, we can ask ourselves, where does it come from? How can it permit us to understand better the needs of these adolescents, and also of those who for diverse reasons find it extremely difficult to integrate among us’? It is the question I wish to bring to light before making any conclusion about what these reflections could bring to our preoccupation with art therapy training in our “European Future.” To understand the origin of this need to create and to leave a trace, WCmust go back to our first prcsencc on earth, our origins, at first sight so distant from our present preoccupations. As Edmond Buchet (1975) wrote: “Man, once he is ‘Man,’ is the only creature * . 1 to have developed more and more abstract thoughts . . . He distinguishes himself already from the animal world in the realization of death, of his death, and in looking to protect himself from it.” It is, therefore, in realizing his very existence and his death that man also discovered that his life in this world is nothing but a short moment of passage. In a difficult and hostile environment, where the daily battle was the price of survival, he has always had to fight to impose himself and resist natural phenomena that were often for him unforeseeable, inexplicable, and sometimes terrifying. Man, at the same time, could also observe that the constant transformations caused by these manifestations (climatic variations, fires, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc.), while m~ifying his environment, never totally upset or destroyed it. “Life” always continued. It is probable, then. that he would have felt that he also could not be completely destroyed, that something of him would survive his death after the decomposition of his body, that he would have had a need to believe this,
to support the anxiety generated by the uncertainty of his end, and to give his end a reason, a sense (Fabre. 1989). This is why, as we go back in the history of man, we always find in his myths and in his religions his belief in another life that proiongs it, his need for immortality. As the first step to find immortality, he would certainly have made an attempt to leave behind a trace of his life, of his actions, a trace that would witness his passage. This trace of his existence has been placed on diverse objects, in his prayers or his home. He has created this trace, invented it, so that it survives him. The need to create and to leave a trace may correspond, therefore, to the need that we have to control and limit our anxiety in the face of the unknown, of our future, in prolonging us, in projecting us into the beyond. At the same time, in a symmetrical movement, the trace also permits us to go back to our beginnings because it is the mark of the existence and of the actions of those who have preceded us. It is, in effect, this vertical “fil d’Ariane” (this “spider’s thread”) that links generations to each other throughout the ages, suggesting and witnessing, by its form and its content. that which has preceded. It is this that gives it its emotional power (think, for example, what WCfeel in front of the frcscocs of the caves of Lascaux.) These traces give to modem people a feeling of our roots and origin. They place us in an historical perspcctivc. Because they transmit, because they communicate, whether it be through graphic, pictorial, sculptural means, they offer to the onlooker the presence of their authors, the mark of action, a witness to what they were or are, to what they did, and sometimes even to what they thought. This is why it is also a place for meeting, for exchange, a mediator between people. This is how it aids integration into history, and also into the human community. There is a second function of the trace. It is not only this vertical thread between generations that I have evoked. It is also a horizontal link among people, promoting communication, their action in the world, and their mutual respect. As I have shown, the traces, because they are the witness of the identity of their authors and of their relationship with the world, are also the tangible, visible, and durable proof of their membership within a human group. As much as the animal that instinctively marks its territory, humans have a need, by their traces, to confirm their identity and existence among others. Here, I believe, is where one can understand the necessity of giving artwork done by mal-integrated people a concrete
PICTORIAL
EXPRESSION
OF EMOTIONALLY
worth. I have mainly referred to my own experience with a very narrow group-emotionally disturbed young people. But this experience is certainly applicable to other marginalized people. To give them the opportunity to create is, as we already know, to give them the possibility to discover their potential and to blossom. It is to permit them to use, in a fertile way, the energy that they have liberated in the expression of their emotion. However, it is also, as I have just shown, to offer them the opportunity to respond to the need to leave a trace of oneself, to fight against the anxiety generated by their difficult and unsatisfactory relationship with themselves, with their environment, and with life, in giving them points of reference that integrate them into time, into a duration, and into a place. These new traces, their works, evidence of their identity, can also play the role of mediator, because they are around them; by the modification of the regard in which they hold themselves they can reorganize their relational life. These traces put them in a place, in history, a place where they can at last be recognized and respected. And it is this that has made me feel that we need to introduce, in our art therapy practices, this dimension of the worth of their creation. Not systematically, but each time that it corresponds to a need in the persons we want to help. In this way, we can respond to their desire for social recognition, because this is an indispensable precondition for their re-integration into society. Concerning art therapy training, we need at all costs to alert future art therapists not only, as is the case today, to the therapeutic function of selfexpression, but also from now on to that which can focus the spotlight on works created by those who have such a need for social recognition and to confirm their identity. It is indispensable for our students to be trained, not only in art techniques, but also in psychosocial, medical, and educational subjects. I believe that we all realize that in order to build contidence and to be effective for patients, the therapist must first be competent, trained to be able to teach knowhow, and to give real, high quality assistance, both technical and relational. Even on the assumption that his or her public is often ignorant of art techniques, it would be wrong to think that the therapist need have only a few rudimentory techniques together with a good heart and the ability to get along with his or her patients. In the training of therapists, it would also be dangerous to gloss over the indispensable basics of psychosociology. medicine, and teaching
DISTURBED
YOUNG PEOPLE
methods that their profession
103
demands. This has been shown previously concerning the need for social recognition and the confirmation of identity. In this respect, when considering works of art by patients, a therapist whose training is too selective runs the risk of concentrating only on the patients’ expressive abilities, their technique and creativity, thereby underestimating the very real efforts that have been made by the patients, efforts that will have tested, individually or simultaneously, their ability for elaboration, abstraction, synthesis, “mentalization,” psychomotor control, space and time organization, material conditions, and sometimes the reorganization of their lives in relation to others. All these elements, if they have been taken into account, can be deliberately integrated into teaching practice, and can therefore help the patients move toward understanding their own progression and their conquest of self. Training must also alert future art therapists, who are often isolated in their therapeutic workshop, not to forget that, if for the patients their short, medium, or long-term objective is the “cure,‘* this has a corollary-their social i-e-integration. This is why the art workshop, in spite of being a place apart, is a jumping-off board; the therapist must not forget that there will also be a future for the patient somewhere else. Leading from this, it is, therefore, necessary for the training sessions and placements to give art therapy students the opportunity to think about what creative activities can offer, not only on the level of cathartic and artistic expression, but also on the level of socialization and confrontation with reality (Choices: individual or collective work? alone or with the therapist? under the eyes of others or not? presentation for the artist or for others? exhibition or not? inside or outside the institution? with respect to reality or not? . . . All these choices being also made according to the availability of the therapist, other users, the respect of timetables, of the place, the materials. the institution’s regulations, etc.). Consequently, it appears that during their studies, future art therapists must take into account not only the specific emotional, creative, and affective views, but also the global view incorporating the cognitive, psychological, cultural, relational. and social aspects that the process of creation can carry in the global economy of the personality. They must understand that these are all as important as the sense and form of the message carried by the patients’ creation, which is usually of prime and spontaneous interest. This training would, of course, be incomplete if it
104
CHRISTINE
did not have a parallel personal training that leads the therapists to discover, understand, and better control their personal educative and relational touch. As well as this, they must also be aware of: (a) the need to work in a team, with a multi-disciplinary approach; and (b) the importance of the institution’s involvement, by its nature and functions, in the life of those who use the workshop and the way in which it may or may not complement the workshop’s action. In addition, the students must never forget that their training does not stop at the end of their formal studies, and that they should always take advantage of: (a) the knowledge of colleagues (in their own or other spheres). (b) their experience with their patients, and (c) any part-time or full-time courses in the future, in order to keep up-to-date. To summarize, as well as giving an in-depth artistic training, we must teach future art therapists to better understand and recognize the needs and the potential of the people that they help (while being conscious of their own abilities), and also to pay serious attention to the institutional and social dimensions of their work. In this way, the wellbeing and the evolution of the public in question can really bcncfit. So that the patients can achieve the best possible re-integration into their own original community. I insist that students must be aware of responsibilities other than their assistance in artistic activity, for example: (a) to recognize the need to play an active part, as far as possible, in the modification of how society classifies
the patients, and (b) to take into account the
FABRE
needs of the individuals to be recognized as effective members of their community, to be living, present. and creative, in the same way that they have, it is hoped, just been experiencing through art therapy. It is in this direction that the social recognition and exhibiting of their work can play such an important part. As Pierre Tap. wrote (1980): “The need to be recognized and have a social worth exists in every individual, perhaps even more with the maladjusted. As long as it is true that the worst case of marginalization is not exclusion, but affective indifference and their negation of identity . . . It is in taking roots from the production and the making of art work . . . It is by self investment by the taking of responsibility, by creating something, by one’s effect on one’s environment and by social co-action, that the identity is affirmed and consolidated.” If we decide to be ready to hear this need, it is probable that our actions will not only help patients to live better with themselves, but also to live better with others. Therefore. WC can hope to truly work toward the ultimate goal of their rc-integration among us. Refcrenccs Buchct. E. (1975). L’ffomme rrCufeur (p. 16). Paris: BuchcrCastcl. Fahrc. C. ( 1989). Apporrs psycho-peJuKoKiyues de I’expression pirrurule. “Rcchcrche aup& d’adolcscents en difficultt?.” Thc\se de Nouveau Doctoral en Scicnccs dc I’Education. Grcnoble (p. 31X). Tap. P. (1980). /lm~irC ef per.wmndi.surion (p. 389). (C. Fabre. Trans.) Toulouse Privat.
EMOTIONALLY
1992 Copyright 0
DISTURBED YOUNG PEOPLE: THE VALUE OF THEIR
PICTORIAL
EXPRESSION AND OF ITS PROMOTION
CHRISTINE
FABRE.
As a specialized instructor for 17 years, I have organized special activities for emotionally disturbed young people and have dealt with painting artwork in particular. The importance and usefulness of art in therapy are accepted fact. However, there are differences in ap preach, and this paper will attempt to describe the differences between my approach to the use of art in therapy and the more traditional view. I shall enlarge on the therapeutic function of the artwork produced by patients. Although there is a consensus on the cathartic function of self-expression through works of art, there is no consensus on the therapeutic potential of the finished work. Generally, art therapists are interested mainly in the message of the work of art, through analysis of the symbols expressed and its unconscious content, rather than the personal and social meaning of the finished work and its positive feedback for patients. At present, there are very few exhibitions of works by patients and, unfortunately, it is evident that this remains a fairly “ad hoc” affair in the process of treatment. In most workshops, group leaders or facilitators far too often still think that the therapeutic function of their work is only the liberation of emotions. In their view, this is a delicate process that would be corrupted if it were in any way an attempt at communication with the public. According to such therapists, actually keeping and showing the finished
*Christine
01974556’92 S5.00 + .OO 1992 Pcrgamon Press Ltd.
Fabre is Maitre de Conffrenccs
PhD*
works would be blocking the development of the personality and stifling creative freedom; it would be impeding the cathartic work. They insist that artworks should not be exhibited, at the risk of completely destroying the therapeutic work in process. In my view, there is also another important therapeutic function I wish to stress that is derived from the exhibiting of the completed artwork. This is a function that has a meaning and exists alongside the cathartic aspect. With the permission of the patients, their final art can be used to be just as therapeutic, in a different way. of course, as the process of expression and creation involved at the outset. What I have learned from my research with emotionally disturbed teenagers is that, if we favor the promotion of the artwork with a therapeutic dimension, we can observe that this function in practice does not interfere with the cathartic expression, and, in fact, can encourage a feeling of self and social wonh in the patient. But to make it more apparent, I shall put my experience into context and show how taking into account the needs of the emotionally disturbed young people led me to develop an educational system that allowed the blossoming of their potential and their self-expression. There are 70 teenagers, between the ages of 14 and 18, some of whom are live-in patients and other outpatients, in our medico-vocational institution. They present personality disturbances, unstable behavior, and they are all emotionally disturbed. In common, they have all been expelled from school for extremely
(Sciences de I’Education)
in the Depamnent
Cam&es
Sociales of the lnstitut Univcrsitaire
de
Technologie. which is pm of the UniversitC des Sciences Sociales of Grenoble, France. where she directs the training of specialized instructors and teaches educational psychology.
99
CHRISTINE poor grades and general unmanageability. After a long series of failures, they end up at our institution, where they stay for about 3 years. They are given prevocational training and basic academic instruction. Our institution promotes what we call a “pedagogic institutionnelle.” which means that all the teachers and staff work in very close contact for the benefit of each patient. Consequently, we mainly aim at promoting self-worth. In order to do this, we put our young people in situations where, as often as possible, they can only succeed, so that their self-image is no longer so negative. This is how they gain in selfesteem and gradually lose their anxiety. Before coming to us, these young people have all been so subjected to treatment that they have lost all self-esteem, which in turn becomes a source of inhibition and anxiety, and creates very serious character defects in the development of their affective, cognitive, creative, and relational life. All this makes the possibility of social integration very difficult. This is why I set up a painting workshop that the teenagers attended 2 hours per week. every fortnight, small groups (less than 4 adolescents) lasting on average for the 3-year period. I insist on the 3 years because this means long-term work. It would be an illusion to hope that people can blossom or that their self-image can be changed after only one or two sessions, no matter how good the method may be. How can we influence these young people who are so disturbed, so opposed to learning, so convinced that painting is either for small children or something for a very few geniuses? How can we convince them that they can participate and be creative, that they can produce something in the workshop? To motivate these particular teenagers, something that cannot be improvised has to be done. The majority of facilitators or group leaders who decide to promote selfexpression, who try to stimulate creativity and promote spontaneity, authenticity, and freedom in creation, very often have the worst problems in maintaining the motivation of these teenagers. It is difficult to ask young people who are emotionally disturbed, who are in such conflict with themselves and with existence, to express their ego, or what they think their ego is. How can one expect them to be creative and to express their desires and needs when they do not know the language, the painting language, the drawing language? They do not have the right techniques, the right “vocabulary.” And how can they be set free, when for them to be free means lack of interest in them or abandonment by the adult
FABRE world? They risk once again a fall into the abyss of menacing failure. I am not going to question these principles (necessity of creativity, self-expression, and freedom), but for such young people, who are permanently in a state of conflict with themselves, it is my experience that we need to keep our priorities in proportion, or rather to know how to modify them within a different chronological framework. Otherwise these teenagers very rapidly lose interest and give up. On the other hand, when the educator does dare to change his or her priorities and defer any thought of creativity, selfexpression, or freedom, these young people show a keen interest in the activity, and they participate enthusiastically. At this point, the priority of the instructor is to take into account another need-the need to be respected, that is for the youngsters to be no longer put down because of their failures and their personal faults, but to be respected for their potential and their successes. This is why these adolescents must be able to see the point of the painting exercise immediately. so as to be able to see how they can profit from their efforts. From this point of stability, they can then allow themselves to dare to “dive into the water and swim.” It is regard for this need, which serves to steer and maintain the educational direction in the workshop, that will permit of some self-respect, which we have to understand as both the need for a restored self-image and the desire to reintroduce themselves into society. In real terms, this means that the adolescents are going to choose their subject matter, and are going to paint their work, with the knowledge that: (a) their painting can be successful and that it will be; (b) that their success, in accordance with their wishes, will be appreciated, photographed, and carefully preserved in the library of photograph albums that mark the life of the workshop from year to year; and (c) that their paintings will be exhibited in the institution and also and, more importantly, outside in the world, in any place or at any possible opportunity. As such, they are offered to an audience, and this audience will then be able to discover what these adolescents are capable of. The way the audience then looks at these people will have changed, and this change will be translated in a dialectic movement to the teenagers, so that they will, in turn. modify the image that they have of themselves. Their paintings will not only bear individual recognition for each of them, but also an honest social recognition. What is success for these young people? It is their
PICTORIAL EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED YOUNG PEOPLE profound, internal satisfaction first in their own eyes-the fact of having been able to hurdle obstacles, to have understood, to have created. to have perfected, and to have finished something. To have, therefore, arrived at the goal they fixed for themselves-to make something new and beautiful that will give them pleasure, and that will also give pleasure to others. “Beautiful” here signifies to be in accord with their own esthetic criteria, with reference to their own cultural norms, but this refers also to the cultural norms that the adolescents themselves imagine exist in the society that they want to be part of. This reference to an imagined culture must not, however, be understood as a sop to conformity and the sterilization of creative capacities. It is a witness of the desire to make oneself accepted. to be like the others, and to get out of the ghetto of one’s failures and social exclusion, even if it is badly expressed. This is why the first thing to do when teenagers come to the workshop is to reassure them, to help and to instruct them very quickly, so that they can have visible proof, concrete proof that like the others who have preceded them, like their friends who are around them, they also can succeed. Put briefly, the educational system used in the workshop is characterized by constantly taking into account the ravages gcncrated by a past of failures for these adolescents, with their consequent fear to show themselves at first as they really are. This is why it seems nccessaty to respect their need to pass through the stage of using documents, models, tracing paper, guides in order to stimulate. to liberate progressively their creativity, as little by little they gain confidence in themselves. Also, it is worth noting that this need for frequent recourse to documents contributes profoundly to their stock of imagery, thereby enriching their imagination and their cultural background. This is why, at this level, the discovery of pictorial works offered in abundance. and the variety of the iconographic documentation in the workshop play such an important role. This teaching is very individualized education, and relatively interventionist from the very beginning in the workshop. However, as it is also very long-term, the message the adult transmits constantly to the adolescent is “You will get there, little by little, by yourself.
and we will do everything
to make it possi-
This is a source of security for the adolescents as it does not limit their potential, yet indicates that they are able to count on the help of the educator, and that they will progressively become autonomous. Fible.”
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nally, I think that the importance given to the comfort and material quality of the workshop (materials and furniture of very high quality), in an environment that is very attractive (walls covered with cork, large windows, etc.), with music (radio very quietly playing their favorite songs) is also a deliberate educational gesture that shows that the establishment is serious about the activity and also about the adolescents. I would like to return to the fact that if these adolescents, in spite of all their difficulties-instability, impulsiveness, aggression, absence of any resistance to frustration, and their omnipresent anxiety toward the terrible prospect of never being able to get out of the infernal cycle of failure-if they do dare to plunge into the adventure (I believe they must and therefore insist that they do) it is because they need to prove to themselves and the world that they exist, that they want to occupy a place that is theirs, among others, and not to be left among the marginalized and excluded of society. It is because this need for social recognition and integration into the community is so strong, and that they know that here it will be taken into account very seriously, that they accept the effort they need to make in the workshop. This effort, in terms of learning, attention. concentration, application, is immense for them. They discover, step by step, the pleasure, the joy of creating works that evolve from their fingertips, becoming beautiful in their eyes-works that reassure them about who they are, that encourage them, and that give them the motivation to invest their energy, no longer in acts of destruction, but in acts of creation. Observe these adolescents while they paint, and notice what they want from the exhibition of their paintings. Listen to them when they look through the photograph albums where they find the traces of their first pictorial steps and discover the progress that they have made since. These paintings have an importance for these adolescents, in their eyes and also in the eyes of others, as the witnesses of the evolution of their lives and new traces of their actions, as indubitable witnesses of what they have become able to do and to be. In creating the pictures, they achieve a concrete modification of their former traces. They leave behind, therefore, something other than the record of the succession of failures that until now had marked their course in life. In effect, for them, these former traces played a negative role because, in their minds, they have been registered and put down only for the problems that they have created: traces of their faults at home, at school, or in the neighborhood (breakages.
CHRISTINE FABRE destruction, vandalism, graffiti, etc.), all witnesses to their difficulty with communication and integration. These traces let them down, in suggesting their res~nsibili~ or their guilt. in acts that were not honorable, confirming, and, worse, sometimes reinforcing the precariousness of their socialization or their current marginalization. These adolescents do not know how to get out of their rut, and this is why an education that allows them to fulfill their need to create, to succeed and to be respected can offer them this chance, as much symbolic as real, to at last create positive traces of themselves. If we are honest with ourselves. we acknowledge that we all feel this need, as much as the generations of men and women who have preceded us, from all countries, from all cultures-the need to leave our traces. If we reflect on this need, we can ask ourselves, where does it come from? How can it permit us to understand better the needs of these adolescents, and also of those who for diverse reasons find it extremely difficult to integrate among us’? It is the question I wish to bring to light before making any conclusion about what these reflections could bring to our preoccupation with art therapy training in our “European Future.” To understand the origin of this need to create and to leave a trace, WCmust go back to our first prcsencc on earth, our origins, at first sight so distant from our present preoccupations. As Edmond Buchet (1975) wrote: “Man, once he is ‘Man,’ is the only creature * . 1 to have developed more and more abstract thoughts . . . He distinguishes himself already from the animal world in the realization of death, of his death, and in looking to protect himself from it.” It is, therefore, in realizing his very existence and his death that man also discovered that his life in this world is nothing but a short moment of passage. In a difficult and hostile environment, where the daily battle was the price of survival, he has always had to fight to impose himself and resist natural phenomena that were often for him unforeseeable, inexplicable, and sometimes terrifying. Man, at the same time, could also observe that the constant transformations caused by these manifestations (climatic variations, fires, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc.), while m~ifying his environment, never totally upset or destroyed it. “Life” always continued. It is probable, then. that he would have felt that he also could not be completely destroyed, that something of him would survive his death after the decomposition of his body, that he would have had a need to believe this,
to support the anxiety generated by the uncertainty of his end, and to give his end a reason, a sense (Fabre. 1989). This is why, as we go back in the history of man, we always find in his myths and in his religions his belief in another life that proiongs it, his need for immortality. As the first step to find immortality, he would certainly have made an attempt to leave behind a trace of his life, of his actions, a trace that would witness his passage. This trace of his existence has been placed on diverse objects, in his prayers or his home. He has created this trace, invented it, so that it survives him. The need to create and to leave a trace may correspond, therefore, to the need that we have to control and limit our anxiety in the face of the unknown, of our future, in prolonging us, in projecting us into the beyond. At the same time, in a symmetrical movement, the trace also permits us to go back to our beginnings because it is the mark of the existence and of the actions of those who have preceded us. It is, in effect, this vertical “fil d’Ariane” (this “spider’s thread”) that links generations to each other throughout the ages, suggesting and witnessing, by its form and its content. that which has preceded. It is this that gives it its emotional power (think, for example, what WCfeel in front of the frcscocs of the caves of Lascaux.) These traces give to modem people a feeling of our roots and origin. They place us in an historical perspcctivc. Because they transmit, because they communicate, whether it be through graphic, pictorial, sculptural means, they offer to the onlooker the presence of their authors, the mark of action, a witness to what they were or are, to what they did, and sometimes even to what they thought. This is why it is also a place for meeting, for exchange, a mediator between people. This is how it aids integration into history, and also into the human community. There is a second function of the trace. It is not only this vertical thread between generations that I have evoked. It is also a horizontal link among people, promoting communication, their action in the world, and their mutual respect. As I have shown, the traces, because they are the witness of the identity of their authors and of their relationship with the world, are also the tangible, visible, and durable proof of their membership within a human group. As much as the animal that instinctively marks its territory, humans have a need, by their traces, to confirm their identity and existence among others. Here, I believe, is where one can understand the necessity of giving artwork done by mal-integrated people a concrete
PICTORIAL
EXPRESSION
OF EMOTIONALLY
worth. I have mainly referred to my own experience with a very narrow group-emotionally disturbed young people. But this experience is certainly applicable to other marginalized people. To give them the opportunity to create is, as we already know, to give them the possibility to discover their potential and to blossom. It is to permit them to use, in a fertile way, the energy that they have liberated in the expression of their emotion. However, it is also, as I have just shown, to offer them the opportunity to respond to the need to leave a trace of oneself, to fight against the anxiety generated by their difficult and unsatisfactory relationship with themselves, with their environment, and with life, in giving them points of reference that integrate them into time, into a duration, and into a place. These new traces, their works, evidence of their identity, can also play the role of mediator, because they are around them; by the modification of the regard in which they hold themselves they can reorganize their relational life. These traces put them in a place, in history, a place where they can at last be recognized and respected. And it is this that has made me feel that we need to introduce, in our art therapy practices, this dimension of the worth of their creation. Not systematically, but each time that it corresponds to a need in the persons we want to help. In this way, we can respond to their desire for social recognition, because this is an indispensable precondition for their re-integration into society. Concerning art therapy training, we need at all costs to alert future art therapists not only, as is the case today, to the therapeutic function of selfexpression, but also from now on to that which can focus the spotlight on works created by those who have such a need for social recognition and to confirm their identity. It is indispensable for our students to be trained, not only in art techniques, but also in psychosocial, medical, and educational subjects. I believe that we all realize that in order to build contidence and to be effective for patients, the therapist must first be competent, trained to be able to teach knowhow, and to give real, high quality assistance, both technical and relational. Even on the assumption that his or her public is often ignorant of art techniques, it would be wrong to think that the therapist need have only a few rudimentory techniques together with a good heart and the ability to get along with his or her patients. In the training of therapists, it would also be dangerous to gloss over the indispensable basics of psychosociology. medicine, and teaching
DISTURBED
YOUNG PEOPLE
methods that their profession
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demands. This has been shown previously concerning the need for social recognition and the confirmation of identity. In this respect, when considering works of art by patients, a therapist whose training is too selective runs the risk of concentrating only on the patients’ expressive abilities, their technique and creativity, thereby underestimating the very real efforts that have been made by the patients, efforts that will have tested, individually or simultaneously, their ability for elaboration, abstraction, synthesis, “mentalization,” psychomotor control, space and time organization, material conditions, and sometimes the reorganization of their lives in relation to others. All these elements, if they have been taken into account, can be deliberately integrated into teaching practice, and can therefore help the patients move toward understanding their own progression and their conquest of self. Training must also alert future art therapists, who are often isolated in their therapeutic workshop, not to forget that, if for the patients their short, medium, or long-term objective is the “cure,‘* this has a corollary-their social i-e-integration. This is why the art workshop, in spite of being a place apart, is a jumping-off board; the therapist must not forget that there will also be a future for the patient somewhere else. Leading from this, it is, therefore, necessary for the training sessions and placements to give art therapy students the opportunity to think about what creative activities can offer, not only on the level of cathartic and artistic expression, but also on the level of socialization and confrontation with reality (Choices: individual or collective work? alone or with the therapist? under the eyes of others or not? presentation for the artist or for others? exhibition or not? inside or outside the institution? with respect to reality or not? . . . All these choices being also made according to the availability of the therapist, other users, the respect of timetables, of the place, the materials. the institution’s regulations, etc.). Consequently, it appears that during their studies, future art therapists must take into account not only the specific emotional, creative, and affective views, but also the global view incorporating the cognitive, psychological, cultural, relational. and social aspects that the process of creation can carry in the global economy of the personality. They must understand that these are all as important as the sense and form of the message carried by the patients’ creation, which is usually of prime and spontaneous interest. This training would, of course, be incomplete if it
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did not have a parallel personal training that leads the therapists to discover, understand, and better control their personal educative and relational touch. As well as this, they must also be aware of: (a) the need to work in a team, with a multi-disciplinary approach; and (b) the importance of the institution’s involvement, by its nature and functions, in the life of those who use the workshop and the way in which it may or may not complement the workshop’s action. In addition, the students must never forget that their training does not stop at the end of their formal studies, and that they should always take advantage of: (a) the knowledge of colleagues (in their own or other spheres). (b) their experience with their patients, and (c) any part-time or full-time courses in the future, in order to keep up-to-date. To summarize, as well as giving an in-depth artistic training, we must teach future art therapists to better understand and recognize the needs and the potential of the people that they help (while being conscious of their own abilities), and also to pay serious attention to the institutional and social dimensions of their work. In this way, the wellbeing and the evolution of the public in question can really bcncfit. So that the patients can achieve the best possible re-integration into their own original community. I insist that students must be aware of responsibilities other than their assistance in artistic activity, for example: (a) to recognize the need to play an active part, as far as possible, in the modification of how society classifies
the patients, and (b) to take into account the
FABRE
needs of the individuals to be recognized as effective members of their community, to be living, present. and creative, in the same way that they have, it is hoped, just been experiencing through art therapy. It is in this direction that the social recognition and exhibiting of their work can play such an important part. As Pierre Tap. wrote (1980): “The need to be recognized and have a social worth exists in every individual, perhaps even more with the maladjusted. As long as it is true that the worst case of marginalization is not exclusion, but affective indifference and their negation of identity . . . It is in taking roots from the production and the making of art work . . . It is by self investment by the taking of responsibility, by creating something, by one’s effect on one’s environment and by social co-action, that the identity is affirmed and consolidated.” If we decide to be ready to hear this need, it is probable that our actions will not only help patients to live better with themselves, but also to live better with others. Therefore. WC can hope to truly work toward the ultimate goal of their rc-integration among us. Refcrenccs Buchct. E. (1975). L’ffomme rrCufeur (p. 16). Paris: BuchcrCastcl. Fahrc. C. ( 1989). Apporrs psycho-peJuKoKiyues de I’expression pirrurule. “Rcchcrche aup& d’adolcscents en difficultt?.” Thc\se de Nouveau Doctoral en Scicnccs dc I’Education. Grcnoble (p. 31X). Tap. P. (1980). /lm~irC ef per.wmndi.surion (p. 389). (C. Fabre. Trans.) Toulouse Privat.