Maps and Mess: Group Members’ Experience of the Relationship between art and talk in an Art Therapy Group

This chapter describes a research project in which women and their therapist in an art psychotherapy group were interviewed and given questionnaires in order to explore their experience of art-making and interactive talking. Whilst exploration of their interpersonal relationships emerged as the most important therapeutic factor, art was also key, although it was experienced as frustrating due to time limits. The chapter discusses the adaptation the group made to ensure that the art could be a useful resource without compromising the interpersonal work. Implications for practice are discussed, the suggestion being that the distinction between types of art made in art therapy could be used as a means of keeping the group in a state of creative disruption.