Art Psychotherapy & Narrative Therapy: An Account of Practitioner Research

Following from the broad introduction to my fields of research and modes of enquiry in chapter 1, chapter 2 is the first part of an expanded and more specific account of the theories that inform this book. In this chapter, I introduce some of the poststructural theorists, particularly male French philosophers from the second half of the 20th century, whose work is to be put into play in relation to my exploration of art therapy and narrative therapy. I do this in a playful and writerly way through an extended metaphor of browsing through the men's clothing section of a large department store, trying on various garments/ theories to see if they fit. While I engage a range of poststructural ideas and theorists in this book, I do not take all up in an equal fashion. My bias is reflected in this chapter, which concludes with an extended consideration of Foucault's philosophy and an exploration of how his late work on ethical subjectivities, ethical substances and arts of self can inform my enquiry into the subjects and practices of art therapy and narrative therapy.

This chapter raises a set of philosophical puzzles that calls into question what therapy is and does. The theoretical and fictocritical explorations of the previous chapter are taken, metaphorically and philosophically, to another level. I explore the possibilities of the Women's and Other departments of the Store of Poststructural Theory, extending the notion of the fabrication of subjectivity and playfully critiquing the practice of ‘shopping around’ for ideas. I introduce theorists working at the intersection of poststructuralism with feminist and postcolonial theory, and consider what their work might offer to an exploration of art psychotherapy and narrative therapy. As suggested by the leading quotation from Cixous, an acceptance of the Otherness within others and oneself becomes crucial, in this chapter, for thinking beyond the binary of the psyche and the social, particularly as it is staged in the apparent opposition of art psychotherapy and narrative therapy. Butler's work in particular becomes central to my project of thinking art psychotherapy and narrative therapy together. I note how something akin to Butlerss insight that the reiteration of the subject and of language is both citational and productive of difference informs both narrative therapy and (art) psychotherapy, but informs them very differently.

Chapter 4 orients the reader to this book's unusual approach to practitioner research through engaging with questions of poststructural research methodology, especially with the writing methodologies that have emerged from the work of a number of contemporary poststructural feminists. In this chapter I also engage with the discursive character of the visual and the contemporary ‘aesthetic turn’ in art therapy, in relation to the project of shaping a narrative and poststructural approach to art therapy.

Both this chapter and the following chapter ground the theoretical and creative explorations of the first part of the book in the specifics of clinical practice. This chapter gives an extended account, through poetry, story, memoir, visual images and discursive analysis, of arts-based and narrative therapeutic work with a particular child and her family whose lives were affected by domestic violence and the abuse of alcohol and other drugs. The chapter describes in detail how I became an apprentice to the ways this family responded to their difficulties, and involves ethical reflection on my therapeutic engagement and process with a family whose stories resonated closely at times with aspects of the biographies of myself and my family. I begin with a poem that tells how I first met the young girl whose story is at the heart of this chapter.

This chapter engages with the question of working with ‘the Other’, and especially with those who are Othered by colonialism, through an account of therapeutic work with two Indigenous Australian children who have been removed from their families of origin. As a non-Indigenous art therapist working in collaboration with an Indigenous community worker and carer, I consider this experience in the context of past histories and present-day effects and practices of colonisation, in particular the legacies of Australia's Stolen Generation. The chapter is framed by a commentary from the Indigenous worker and carer, since collaboration and consultation are just as central to the methodology of writing this account as to the therapeutic work itself. Within this frame, I offer a series of tellings and retellings, and engage with how visual art can gesture toward the unspeakable. I take up poetry as an alternative form of enquiry to the genre of the case study, in order to shape a poetics as well as a politics of therapeutic practice. I consider how this work, and writing about this work, has brought my dominant professional identity and practice into question and engaged me in becoming Other-wise. I begin with the words of Galiindurra, followed by a poem I wrote for the family.