The Revealing Image: Analytical Art Psychotherapy in Theory and Practice
The present edition is published by London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers 1999 (ISBN 1 85302 821 5)
The Revealing Image is a seminal work about the role of the image in art psychotherapy and analysis. Since its first publication in 1991 it has become essential reading for all who work with imagery within the therapeutic frame.
This is a term first used in The Revealing Image which was published by Tavistock/Routledge in 1991. It describes a form of art therapy which is based on an analytical approach.
Quotes of central themes from The Revealing Image:
Analytical Art Psychotherapy was a new term introduced because ‘neither art therapy nor art psychotherapy satisfactorily expresses the full import of the pictured image as an object of transference itself, within the transference and countertransference dynamic’ (1991:6)
The Scapegoat Transference: The picture in analytical art Psychotherapy, as a result of a transference of attributes and states, may become a scapegoat within the therapeutic relationship’. (1991:30)
The Diagrammatic Image is an image that is often rudimentary or linear and is made to the tell something to the therapist. Although it may be very important in the sense of revealing previously unspoken about memories and bringing them into the interaction the picture itself changes nothing in the psyche of the artist.
The Embodied Image is one that is formative in a psychological sense. In its making it changes something in the psyche of the artist. It articulates states for which there are no words. Therefore words cannot substitute such an image.
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The Revealing Image: Analytical Art Psychotherapy in Theory and Practice,
First published in 1991 London & New York: Routledge (ISBN 0-415-04262-3)
Cover art by Peter Wilson Click here to see more of his work