Art-making and traditional psychodynamic treatment of adults

This qualitative study explored the experience of psychodynamic clinicians in private practice who have used art-making as a complementary modality of treatment within the context of verbal treatment of adult patients.;The study aimed to understand why traditionally trained clinicians made an intervention of art-making in their verbal treatment with their patient, when in the treatment process clinicians decided to make use of an art-making intervention in their treatment, and how the use of art-making within the context of verbal treatment impacted the clinicians' understanding of their adult patients.;The findings of this study indicate that these clinicians turn to art-making, in conjunction with their verbal treatment, because they have felt that the spoken word limited the scope of expression and self-disclosure of their patients' inner reality. Clinicians decided to make use of art-making, (a) when seeking to provide their adult patients with a way to disclose traumatic events, feelings, emotions, and the recovery of memories in relation to the trauma experienced, (b) when observing their patients struggling to bring out their inner experience via words, (c) when the treatment seemed to be stagnant, and (d) when they were in need of further information obtained via the intake process.;Clinicians' observations of their patients' creative process and its challenge increased their empathic understanding of their patients' inner struggles.