Title : Arts therapy: From free expression in psychiatric asylums to currently therapeutic recognition
Abstract:
Mental health issues often lead individuals to express themselves through drawing, painting, clay modeling, wood and decoration, as well as writings, either spontaneously or guided by psychotherapists.
Within the psychiatric field, particularly in institutional settings, psychopathological expression took place notably during the sixties and seventies, becoming art therapy.
In this regard, artists such as Unica Zürn, Camille Claudel, Edvard Munch, Louis Wain, Francisco Goya, Yannoulis Chalepas, Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, and even Salvador Dalí have contributed to the recognition of psychopathological expression.
Within the confines of asylums, subjected to a state of forced passivity, were patients who were painters such as Aloïse Corbaz at the Lausanne hospital, Adolf Wölfli at Waldau-Bern, Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern in Berlin, Séraphine Louis of Senlis, and L. Ruiz at Toledo; as well as writers such as Daniel Paul Schreber, Louis Wolfson, and Antonin Artaud at Rodez, who, thanks to his long-standing relationships with famous Surrealists, notably André Breton, was able to expose the deplorable therapeutic conditions that still persisted into the 1950s.
Exceptional paintings became famous and mostly contributed to revealing the strength of the mental potential processes in art, as raw art, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Street Art, reciprocally.
It is to notice the particularism of the Vienna Secession, a pivotal movement in the late nineteenth century, standing for radical artistic innovation and cultural rebellion through its groundbreaking exhibitions. We also associate this geographic area with incredible architectural palaces such as Neuschwanstein Castle near Munich, Pena Palace near Lisbon, and the postman Cheval’s Palais Ideal in Drome (France).
Children naturally like to draw during therapeutic time, and we highlight the “squiggle game” as used by Donald Winnicott.
