cause he believed that individuation process required the exploration and integration of the spiritual dimension as expressed through the imagery of dreams and art (Jung, 1964). Florence Cane (1951) who developed the “scribble technique” (see Chapter 2, this volume), combined art activities with meditative awareness, also articulating the-ories that became the basis for a transpersonal approach to art therapy. Later, Garai (1976), who pioneered the humanistic approach to art therapy, also explored how art expression led to self-transcendence, and Joan Kellogg (1978) noted the value of artistic expression in accessing transpersonal aspects of the self through mandala drawings. Others have connected art expression with spirituality (Allen, 1995;
Malchiodi, 2002; B. Moon, 1997; C. Moon, 1989), linked it to models of shamanic healing (McNiff, 1981), and have looked at the relationship between spiritual beliefs and the practice of art therapy (Chickerneo, 1993; Farelly-Hansen, 2001; Feen-Calligan, 1995; Horovitz-Darby, 1994).
Many of the concepts on which the transpersonal approach to art therapy is based are reflected in humanistic approaches to treatment. For example, much of transpersonal work is similar to the person-centered approach that maintains the person’s intrinsic ability to achieve growth and health. The teaching of meditation is consonant with Carl Rogers’s idea of staying in the moment with the person and em-powering the individual to take charge of personal change and self-realization. Em-phasis on questions such as “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of life?” reflect an existential component in transpersonal art therapy. Mind–body techniques inte-grated within the transpersonal framework mirror current thinking about imagery as treatment (Achterberg, 1985) and are inclusive of physical symptoms as expressions of transpersonal aspects of the self.
A therapist working from a transpersonal approach to art therapy would ad-dress the person’s needs to improve other areas of life such as relationships or life sat-isfaction, but this approach also includes recognizing spiritual emergencies (Grof &
Grof, 1989) such as emotional crises, serious illness, or death. Art expression is seen as a way to explore that which is “beyond the self” and as a process to access to nonordinary states of consciousness. The following brief example illustrates some transpersonal approaches to working with an adult whose experience with cancer caused her to confront spiritual beliefs and the possibility of death.
cope with her feelings and thought that art expression and imagery work might be helpful to her. During our initial meetings I taught her some simple meditation prac-tices and suggested that she meditate at home on a regular basis to reduce stress. I also thought it might be helpful to keep a drawing journal and explained to her how drawing mandalas—images within a circular format—can be relaxing and could be helpful to decreasing her anxiety, in addition to meditation.
Meditation followed by mandala drawing helped Anna to gradually express is-sues relevant to her distress, such as fears of death and loss of hair (Figure 5.1) due to the chemotherapy. More important, it provided Anna with a way to relax and tran-scend her illness, at least momentarily. Anna reported that meditation and drawing allowed her to overcome pain and nausea, but most important, they made her feel again “like a whole person” and someone “who was not a cancer victim, at least for a little while.” Eventually, this experience of feeling whole transcending the self was reflected in a change in her mandala images from images representative of the experi-ences of illness to ones reflective of her growing sense of inner calm and balance (Figure 5.2).
Although we worked on many issues related to Anna’s anxiety and her personal search for identity and meaning during the course of therapy, the crisis she experi-enced in both “body and soul” was important to address. We both felt that her cur-rent panic attacks might in some way be related to the trauma of being diagnosed with cancer and the subsequent surgery and chemotherapy that quickly followed the diagnosis. Anna observed that “everything happened so fast, I did not have time to think, feel, or grieve.” I asked Anna to represent feelings in her body with color and
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FIGURE 5.1. Anna’s drawing of herself, representing fears of cancer and death.
imagery when her doctor told her that she had cancer. To facilitate the process, I of-fered Anna three simple body outlines to color, asking her to complete one to repre-sent where she felt “hearing the diagnosis” (Figure 5.3A); the second one, what her body felt like “after the surgery” (a lumpectomy to remove an isolated tumor; Figure 5.3B); and the third one, to indicate how and where she felt “the most intensity of her panic attacks” (Figure 5.3C).
Anna’s drawings revealed a pattern she felt all three experiences. It was not prising that she chose to use color in the area of the chest to describe her breast sur-gery; however, in two other drawings, Anna was surprised to see that her chest was the place she felt the shock of hearing her diagnosis and the intensity of panic attacks and that these images were somewhat similar to the one of her surgery. In subsequent sessions, we worked with additional body outlines to help Anna choose colors and images that she could use in meditation to soothe the parts of her chest and body that felt discomfort, particularly the panic that interfered with her life.
While Anna used art expression and imagery in many ways during the course of therapy, she most enjoyed the mandala drawing and continued to keep a drawing journal of images she created after meditation. At our last session, Anna brought in a mandala drawing (Figure 5.4) that she said represented an “epiphany” she had the morning after a wonderful dream. In that dream she was climbing up a mountain; to either side of her were all her friends either waving or lending a hand as she made her
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FIGURE 5.2. Mandala drawing by Anna.
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FIGURE 5.3. Three body drawings by Anna: (A) “Hearing the diagnosis”; (B) What her body felt like “after the surgery” (a lumpectomy to remove an isolated tumor); (C) How and where she felt “the most intensity of her panic attacks.”
A B
C
climb. What was most surprising to her as she climbed the steep slope was that she did not feel tired, only energized as she continued her hike. Anna said the ending of the dream was almost indescribable in words; when she reached the top of the moun-tain, she witnessed a brilliant light that enveloped her in warmth and comfort. The dream ended and she woke up with a sense of joy and peace she had not experienced for many months.
Anna’s dream image and mandala drawing represented a feeling that she found within herself as a result of renewed energy but at the same time experienced “be-yond” herself. It exemplifies the “peak experience” Maslow wrote about in his ex-plorations of human potential. Like many cancer patients, Anna’s diagnosis, surgery, and chemotherapy profoundly changed her life: They brought on an emotional crisis and, in a sense, a spiritual emergency, forcing her to reevaluate her life and what liv-ing life meant to her. A transpersonal approach to art therapy helped Anna to experi-ence ways to use art expression to eventually alleviate her anxiety; offered a way to make sense of the crisis of diagnosis, surgery, and medical treatment; and provided a modality to creatively cope with the impact of illness on body, mind, and soul.
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FIGURE 5.4. Anna’s mandala of an “epiphany” she had after a joyful dream that left her with a sense of peace.
CONCLUSION
Humanistic approaches to art therapy range from examining life’s existential mean-ing through the metaphor of art to more active, experiential techniques of Gestalt art therapy to the more contemplative methods such as those employed in transpersonal work. Unconditional regard, human potential, free will, actualization, and self-transcendence are concepts that complement the application of art expression in therapy because each underscores an element of the creative process. The common ground that connects these approaches is a respect for the person’s central role in the therapeutic process, an acceptance of all artistic expression as a will to meaning, and the belief in the individual’s ability to find wellness through creative exploration.
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