Art therapy as a non-judgmental environment: facilitating emotional expression and healing

Abstract

This thesis accompanies and supports my art exhibition work, What I See When I Close My Eyes, which I created, in most parts, by drawing while keeping my eyes closed. The main corpus focuses on how I approached art and endeavoured to use it as a therapeutic tool for healing from my mental illnesses, mainly treatment-resistant depression. My thesis looks at art as a means of therapy and analyses its benefits, aiming to create a non-judgmental space for artistic expression. Apart from its therapeutic benefits, art can also be a research tool, both as an enquiry of the self and as a means of providing the data for analysis. The data being examined, in this case, is the scribbles being produced in a ritualistic sense of drawing every day, if possible. These drawings are almost akin to mood trackers, but instead of naming moods with emotion-based vocabulary, the tracking is done by artistically reflecting the mind’s content on a subconscious level. The artistic approach of drawing with eyes closed produces the data for the research commentary and provides an enquiry of the self through reflection of the mind. It focuses on battling judgmental art critique and instead, being free in self-expression and partaking in self-discovery. The Jungian psychoanalytic approach, Rogerian humanistic psychology, as well as Deleuzian and Guattarian schizoanalysis are chosen for the theoretical background.