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Art therapy seeks the same insight, conflict resolution, healing and learning results as "talk therapy" that stems from the teachings of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and other psychiatric practitioners through the years.

The patient - or client - however, expresses his or her most innermost thoughts visually through painting, sculpting or some other art form and also with words, rather than through words alone, explains Dallas art therapist Linda L. McCarley.

Ms. McCarley is founder/director of the Art Therapy Institute, a past president of the North Texas Art Therapy Association and serves on the Educational Program Approval Board of the American Art Therapy Association, which has about 4,000 members.

As one who treats both children and adults, Ms. McCarley finds children have at least a temporary advantage in that they are less inhibited as "artists" than teenagers and adults, who tend to seek realism in their work.

To make her point, Ms. McCarley paraphrases "Picasso, [who] said every child is an artist, the problem is how to remain one after growing up."

The explanation is simple enough. Society usually expects us to deal with reality, even when we're not sure what that is. In art it would translate into Norman Rockwell rather than Salvador Dali, Piet Mondrian or Jackson Pollock. In verbal expression, this often carries over into our conforming to what we think we're expected to say when describing dreams, emotions or plumbing the depths of our psyche.

You're probably already thinking: "All well and good, but the client is rarely an artist."

That's not an issue. It's the art therapist who needs an art background, not the patient. As for the client, Ms. McCarley says, "No one grades your dreams; no one is going to put a grade on your artwork."

Actually, she says the biggest problem facing the field of art therapy is that there are not enough art therapists and not enough institutions to train them, especially in the Southwest - a problem she hopes some foundation can address.

Ms. McCarley earned her master's in social work at the University of Texas at Arlington, but she went all the way to the University of Illinois at Chicago to receive her art therapy training. A training center in New Mexico and at the University of Houston at Clear Lake offer some graduate course work in art therapy, but they are scant help in alleviating the problem regionally.

The heaviest concentration of art therapists and training centers, not surprisingly, can be found on the East and West coasts along with the northern Midwest.

Ancient influences

Ms. McCarley noted that the profession of the art therapist actually dates back only about half a century, though the influences that gave birth to art therapy trace back to ancient times.

She provided material from A History of Art Therapy in the United States published by the American Art Therapy Association Inc. that included the following excerpts:

"Art therapy's roots extend as far back as prehistory when people drew images in caves in an attempt to express and master their world.

"An early example of the specific use of the arts in healing is found in biblical sources which discuss David's attempt to cure King Saul's depression by playing the harp for him [1 Samuel 16, verses 14-23].

"From Navaho sandpaintings to African sculpture, many examples can be found of the use of visual arts in therapeutic ritual.

"The development of art therapy as a profession is usually dated from the 1940s, the decade in which Margaret Naumburg began publishing her work.

"However, a number of intellectual and sociological developments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries gave rise to the climate in which Naumburg's ideas took hold.

"More humane treatment of mental patients, the child study movement, anthropological expeditions to non-Western cultures, the development of psychotropic drugs, progressive education, new theories in philosophy and psychology and the refining of the scientific method, all would have a significant effect in the development of art therapy theory and practice."

To illustrate the influences from psychology and psychiatry, the history discusses Freud, then Jung. First, Freud wrote:

"We experience it [a dream] predominantly in visual images, feelings may be present too and thoughts interwoven in it as well; the other senses may also experience something, but nonetheless it is predominantly a question of images.

"Part of the difficulty of giving an account of dreams is due to our having to translate these images into words. 'I could draw it,' a dreamer often says to us, 'but I don't know how to say it.' "

Jung's influence on art therapy derived from his "interest in the psychological meaning inherent in artwork, especially the mandala [magic circle in Sanskrit], and his fascination with his own drawings and those of his patients were also influential.

"Unlike Freud, who never asked his patients to draw the imagery of their dreams, Jung often urged his patients to do so.

" 'To paint what we see before us,' Jung wrote, 'is a different art from painting what we see within.' "

Special education

Some of the areas where art therapists are in demand include psychiatric hospitals, medical and rehabilitative hospitals and public and private schools.

"I work with autistic students in a special education program at a public school - in the Keller Independent School District," Ms. McCarley said.

"We work with anyone developmentally delayed, anybody with a learning disability as well as children at risk with behavioral problems or an emotional disturbance.

"We also use art therapy with those in facilities for the elderly and correctional institutions and residential centers."

Art therapy, just like talk therapy, deals on an individual level and also with groups having common problems.

"I've worked with depressed women, women with substance abuse, those with eating disorders," Ms. McCarley said.

"Artmaking is known to be life-enhancing.

"We have developed visual literacy and use art media to help people ameliorate their problems. Art therapists have the skill to work with a wide range of people with a wide range of problems."

And like other psychiatric therapies, art therapy may be conducted from one session or longer depending on the progress of the client, she said. "Basically, it is the client who determines whether he feels he is capable of dealing with his problems."

Since "self-determination is an important aspect of most therapies, the client usually does his own interpretation and determines his own direction with the help of the counselor," Ms. McCarley said.

"We help the clients find the [art] media to best express themselves."

In her private practice, Ms. McCarley has an art studio in her office complex, and "I try to have them in the studio environment there."

How did Ms. McCarley come to pursue a career in art therapy?

"When I was working on my B.S. in family studies at TWU [Texas Woman's University], I was complaining about the stress resulting from having no time for art. A note came back [from my professor] that I should look into art therapy.

"I later attended a conference in San Francisco [on the subject], and I was hooked.

"I was an artist [self-taught] and had worked as a fashion illustrator.

"Basically an art therapist is trained at the master's or post- master's level with the master's being in art therapy or counseling or a related field. Those with a master's in a related field must take a post-master's in art therapy and an internship of 2,000 hours - about two years."

Her Art Therapy Institute offers postgraduate training for mental health professionals who seek the Art Therapist Register designation.

Working out grief

One such trainee, Jane Avila of Fort Worth, is now serving her internship dealing with high-risk kids at Handley Elementary School in the Fort Worth Independent School District.

She was drawn to art therapy to help others - and herself, following the suicide of her teenage son in July 1995.

Previously she had earned an undergraduate degree in art and did volunteer teaching at a residential treatment center. There was no such thing as an art therapist here in the 1980s, when she decided to become a social worker, so she went to UTA to become a cognitive type of therapist.

After graduating with her master's in social work, she started out doing family therapy in Plano in the early '90s.

"It was about that time that our son became very depressed and was hospitalized several times, but they were not able to stabilize his condition," she said.

"We sent him to a residence treatment center out of state, a hospital that was recognized for its work with depression and with trained professionals where he would receive the best care.

"It is most difficult to lose a child, especially when you have obtained the best treatment for him, and here I was in a field that dealt with those problems. It pulled the rug out from under me and I was in the throes of grieving when I received a brochure about art therapy," Ms. Avila said.

In embracing it, "I needed to do this for me. I couldn't separate this stuff - to teach and use it for others and for me. I found that words could never explain what I felt, and there was this very powerful process to express it through my art, to use my creativity."

To provide a better understanding of what art therapy is all about, the Art Therapy Institute and North Texas Art Therapy Association invite the public to an Art Therapy Exhibit from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday in the institute's quarters in the Pecan Creek Office Building, 8340 Meadow Road. Call 214-696-4ART for more information.

Staff columnist Robert Miller writes about people and events of interest to the business community for The Dallas Morning News.

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