An exploration of art therapy process with a detainee diagnosed with schizophrenia in a correctional facility with reference to the use of the comic strip

Art Therapy

April 2021

Full Citation

Hagert, E. (2017). An exploration of art therapy process with a detainee diagnosed with schizophrenia in a correctional facility with reference to the use of the comic strip. Art therapy for psychosis: Theory and practice, 181-202. Retrieved from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315762340-9/exp…

Abstract

This chapter is an art therapy case study describing work that the author undertook in a correctional facility located in an urban area of the United States of America. This case study explores the use of the comic strip format in art therapy, and discusses whether this format could provide containment for the detainee concerned, who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. As Day and Onorato and Fenner and Gussak have shown, inmates often employ defence mechanisms to maintain an experience of safety when adjusting to incarceration. I will explore some defensive strategies that can be observed among inmates and how these affect the use of art therapy. Riley and Fernandez have shown that the comic strip format has the potential to hold threatening emotions by providing a sense of security, and Liebmann has shown that this format allows the artist a feeling of control and agency. The chapter proposes that the imagery that resulted from the use of this approach articulated the needs of this highly defended detainee, for whom I will use the pseudonym 'Jeremiah', who was adaptively surviving in an emotionally restrictive environment. It seems to me that through his attempts to avoid emotional states and libidinal impulses, Jeremiah used the comic strip template as a coping mechanism to explore his fantasies of controlling his experience. Psychoanalytic theories of containment will be referred to in my discussions of the intentions of my approach in general and the use of the comic strip format in particular. Throughout our sessions Jeremiah's environment, his delusions and our therapeutic relationship required complex forms of containment, and these will be described. The concepts of 'holding' and 'containment' will be discussed to explain the intentions of my approach, with reference to the work of Ogden. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)