On Not Being Able to Paint

“On Not Being Able to Paint” by Marion Milner [Joanna Field] (1957)

 

‘… I had discovered in painting a bit of experience that made all other usual occupations unimportant by comparison.

It was the discovery that when painting something from nature there occurred, at least sometimes, a fusion into a never-before-known wholeness; not only were the object and oneself no longer felt to be separate, but neither were thought and sensation and feeling and action.

All one’s visual perceptions of colour, shape, texture, weight, as well as thought and memory, ideas about the object and action towards it, the movement of one’s hand together with the feeling of delight in the ‘thusness’ of the thing, they all seemed fused into a wholeness of being which was different from anything else that had ever happened to me.

and

And when the bit of painting was finished, there was before one’s eyes a permanent record of the experience, giving a constant sense of immense surprise at how it had ever happened: it did not seem something that oneself had done at all, certainly not the ordinary everyday self and way of being.

 

 

… broadly, what the painter … conceptualize[s] in non-verbal symbols is the astounding experience of how it feels to be alive, the experience known from inside, of being a moving, living body in space, with capacities to relate oneself to other objects in space. And included in this experience of being alive is the very experiencing of the creative process itself.

 

 

Marion Milner’s treatment of psychic creativity differs in several respects from those well-established approaches to the subject to which psycho-analytic readers owe whatever familiarity with it they possess. She chooses as the object of her scrutiny not the professional and recognised artist but herself as a “Sunday-painter”; not the finished masterpiece but her own fumbling and amateurish beginner’s effort to draw and paint. In short, she analyses not the mysterious and elusive ability of the genius who achieves self-expression through the medium of painting, but, – as the title of the book suggests – the all too common and distressing restrictions by which the creativity of the average adult individual is held in check. – from the Foreword by Anna Freud (1956)

 

It was the discovery that it was possible at times to produce drawings and sketches in an entirely different way from any that I had been taught, a way of letting hand and eye do exactly what pleased them without any conscious working to a preconceived intention. This discovery had at first been so disconcerting that I had tried to forget all about it; for it seemed to threaten, not only all familiar beliefs about will-power and conscious effort, but also, as I suppose all eruptions from the unconscious mind do, it threatened one’s sense of oneself as a more or less known entity. – from the author’s Introduction (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam)

 

 

미술치료 도서목록

학지사 출판 미술치료 도서목록   LINK

 

ATh 도서목록(영문)

Art Therapy Books by Jessica Kinsley Publisher  LINK

Art Therapy Books by Routledge Publisher  LINK

 

 

 

정신분석적 사례이해

“정신분석적 사례이해”   Nancy McWilliams 저

이 책은 진단의 결과보다는 그 과정에 초점을 둔 책이라 할 수 있다. 초기 면접을 하는 방법에 관해서는 좋은 책이 많이 있고, 다양한 성격장애나 성격진단방법을 설명하는 여러 가지 저술이 최근에 간행되었음에도 불구하고, 치료자가 진단적 면접에서 얻은 대량의 정보를 어떻게 분석하고 통합하는지-그러한 정보를 진단적 평가뿐만 아니라 일반적인 정신역동적 사례이해를 위해서 어떻게 활용하는지-에 관한 입문서는 많지 않은 것 같다.
저자는 이 책에서 자신의 오랜 심리치료 경험에 근거하여 내담자를 깊이 이해하는 데 필수적인 8가지의 심리적 측면을 다양한 사례와 함께 소개하고 있다.
저자는 세계적으로 주목받고 있는 심리치료자로, 이 책은 미국에서 상담이나 심리치료를 공부하는 학생들에게 필독서처럼 널리 읽히는 책이다. 내담자를 심층적이고 섬세하게 이해하는 안목을 키워주는 좋은 책이다. (학지사)
2006년 문화관광부 추천 우수학술도서

“Psychoanalytic Case Formulation”

What kinds of questions do experienced clinicians ask themselves when meeting a new client for the first time? What are the main issues that must be explored to gain a basic grasp of each individual’s unique psychology? How can clinical expertise be taught? From the author of Psychoanalytic Diagnosis, the volume takes clinicians step-by-step through developing a dynamic case formulation and using this information to guide and inform treatment decisions. Synthesizing extensive clinical literature, diverse psychoanalytic viewpoints, and empirical research in psychology and psychiatry, Nancy McWilliams does more than simply bring assessment to life – she illuminates the entire psychotherapeutic process. (The Guilford Press)

The Revealing Image

“The Revealing Image”

Analytical Art Psychotherapy in Theory and Practice by Joy Schaverien 

 

‘It is hard to do full justice to this clear and well-written book. …The author backs up her ideas with a full discussion of [their] psychological, aesthetic and philosophical origins…most importantly she includes an extended and convincingly illustrated case study…Schaverien has put the picture right back in the centre of art therapy…’ (Dr Peter Tatham, Journal of Analytical Psychology)

 

The Revealing Image was first published in 1991 and since then has become a seminal text.

Drawing on philosophical aesthetics, psychoanalysis and analytical psychology this is an innovative study of the role of art within the transference and countertransference dynamic. Using many illustrations, both in colour and black and white, The Revealing Image makes the complex ideas of analytical art psychotherapy readily accessible.

It is essential reading for art therapists, psychotherapists, analytical psychologists, counsellors and all those who encounter art within a therapeutic relationship, whether experienced practitioners or trainees. Jessica Kingsley Publishers 

 

 

Joy Schaverien PhD is a member of the Society of Analytical Psychology (London) and a visiting fellow at Goldsmiths College of the University of London. She is in private practice as a Jungian analyst and art psychotherapist, in Leicestershire, and lectures extensively on the links between art and psychoanalysis. Among her many publications she is author of Desire and the Female Therapist: Engendered Gazes in Psychotherapy and Art Therapy (Routledge 1995) and co-editor of Art, Psychotherapy and Psychosis (Routledge 1997).

 

 

Love’s Exercutioner

“Love’s Exercutioner & Other Tales of Psychotherapy” by Irvin Yalom

 

“I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy—I too, crave     enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection. I hate to be love’s executioner.” (from the opening of the title story)

 

In this rare glimpse of the thoroughly engaged therapist at work, a master psychiatrist openly confronts not only his own feelings and errors but the uncertainty at the heart of the therapeutic encounter.

 

Dr. Irvin Yalom breaks through that uncertainty to a patients ultimate truth-to the fear of death, say, behind the life denying nostalgia of Thelma, the elderly patient of the title story who is possessed by a long past love affair; or behind the macho behaviour of Carlos, a middle aged man compulsively lustful in the face of his fatal cancer.

It is, says Dr. Yalom, only by recognizing the stark facts of human existence, only through full awareness of oneself as mortal, that any one of us, not merely patients in therapy, can come to live as whole creatures.

Indeed, these enthralling tales go beyond therapy to speak to the human condition in all its poignant oddity. And in them, Irvin Yalom achieves a pathos and humor worthy of Chekov himself. (Copyright © by Basic Books, Inc. )

 

 

어빈 얄롬 ‘나는 사랑의 처형자가 되기 싫다’

 

사람들과 인사를 나눌 때 여성학을 한다고 하면 대개 나를 다시 쳐다본다. 길거리에서 피부색이 다른(사실은 ‘진한’) 사람을 두 번 보듯이. 이른바 ‘차별적’ 시선이다. 그런 걸 지나치게 의식해서일까. 여기에선 사랑 같은 성별 분업적 주제를 다룬 책은 소개하지 않겠다고 마음먹었었다.

하지만 <나는 사랑의 처형자가 되기 싫다>는 예외였다. 사랑보다는 고통에 관한 논의로 읽혔기 때문이다. ‘실존심리치료’라는 부제가 붙은 이 책은 미국에서도 많은 관심을 모았다. 스탠퍼드 의대 정신과 교수 어빈 얄롬의 <사랑의 처형자>(Love’s Executioner)를 옮긴 것이다(최윤미 역, 시그마프레스 펴냄 2001).

 

절실할 때 알려지지 않은 좋은 책을 만나면, 어둔 밤 추운 바다를 헤매다 등대에 닿은 듯한 기분이 든다. 지난 여름 나는 나 자신도 이해할 수 없는 ‘몰입’ 때문에, 중독과 금단 상태를 되풀이하며 몹시 아팠다. 열정의 섬광에, 눈이 멀고 마음이 베었을 때 이 책을 접했다. 아침저녁으로 성경처럼 읽었다. 질병, 자기 비하, 비만, 깊은 슬픔, 강박적 성행동, 사랑하는 이의 죽음, 외로움, 소모적인 사랑, 영원히 젊고 싶은 욕망, 실패에 대한 공포, 실연, 부모에게서 버림받았다는 느낌, 가질 수 없는 것에 대한 집착…. 사람들은 보통 상담사례집을 읽으면 자기 문제를 대입하여 쌈박한 처방전­노력은 적게 들고 효과는 강력한­을 바라지만, 이 책에 그런 내용은 없다. 저자는 단지 어떻게 고통과 더불어 살아갈지, 어디에 서서 고통을 바라보아야 할지에 대해 말한다.

 

저자에 따르면 흔히 주장하듯 고통은 ‘억압된 본능적 욕구, 비극적인 과거사’ 때문에 생긴 것이 아니라, 실존 자체에 주어진 필연적인 삶의 조건이다. 그러므로 고통의 원인을 어떤 한 가지로 규명한 뒤 그것을 제거해야 한다는 근대적 사고 방식을 버릴 때, 인간은 고통과 공존할 수 있는 길을 찾는다. 이 때 변화와 성장이 가능하다. “죽음이라는 사실(fact)은 육체적으로 우리를 파괴하지만, 죽음에 대한 생각(idea)은 우리를 구원한다.”

 

이 책의 독특한 제목은 사랑과 심리치료가 근본적으로 양립할 수 없다는 저자의 철학에서 나온 것이다. 훌륭한 상담자는 어둠과 싸워 불빛을 찾는 것인데, 낭만적 사랑이란 상대의 실체가 보이지 않는 안개의 신비가 지속되어야 가능하기 때문이다. 결국 심리 치료자는 사랑의 처형자이다. 10개의 사례 중 전체 책 분량의 4분의1을 할애한 70살 여성과 30대 남성의 사랑을 다룬 델마의 이야기는 압권이다. 나는 고달프지 않으면 생존할 수 없는 여성의 삶을 담은 페니의 사례에 가장 동일시되었다. ‘새로운 글쓰기’라는 연구 프로젝트의 일환이기도 했던 이 책은 저자의 영성 넘치는 문학적 글쓰기와 성실하고 깊이있는 우리말 번역이 책읽기의 기쁨과 슬픔을 더한다. (여성학자 정희진)