ART AND SOUL

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bruce L. Moon is an artist and art therapist with extensive clinical,
teaching and administrative experience. He is a registered and board
certified art therapist who holds a doctorate in creative arts with special-
ization in art therapy. Bruce is the Director of the Graduate Art Therapy
program at Mount Mary College in Milwaukee. His clinical practice of art
therapy, focused on the treatment of emotionally disturbed children, ado-
lescents, and adults, has spanned over twenty-seven years. He has lectured
and led workshops at many universities in the United States and Canada.
Bruce is the author of Existential Art Therapy: The Canvas Mirror, Essentials
of Art Therapy Training and Practice, Introduction to Art Therapy: Faith in the
Product, The Dynamics of Art As Therapy with Adolescents, Ethical Issues in Art
Therapy, Working with Images: The Art of Art Therapists and Word Pictures: The
Poetry and Art of Art Therapists. He has also written a number of journal ar-
ticles. Bruce brings to this project many years of experience in art studios,
clinical settings, and educational institutions. His educational background
is comprised of interdisciplinary training in theology, art therapy, educa-
tion, and visual art. He is an active painter, songwriter, and performer.
 Second Edition

ART AND SOUL

Reflections on an Artistic Psychology

By

BRUCE L. MOON, PH.D., ATR-BC

With a Foreword by

John Reece, Psy.D.

With a Preface by

Lynn Kapitan, Ph.D., ATR-BC

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Moon, Bruce L.
Art and soul : reflections on an artistic psychology / by Bruce L.
Moon ; with a foreword by John Reece ; with a preface by Lynn
Kapitan.--2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-398-07523-9 (hbk.) -- ISBN 0-398-07524-7 (pbk.)
1. Art therapy. 2. Soul. I. Title.

RC489 .A7M657 2004

616.89’1656--dc22
2004048001
 FOREWORD

linical psychology has always included both art and sci-

C ence. In the past few decades, however, it seems to have
focused far more closely on scientific understanding than
upon its art. The de-emphasis of artistic psychology has left
clinicians without access to key tools needed to deal with our
clients’ problems.
Scientific psychological inquiry provides useful, predictive
knowledge of human behavior. Each day there are more dis-
coveries about the complex interactions of the physical and
the psychological realms, enabling clinical psychologists to be
better prepared for battle with any number of disorders. To
a scientifically-oriented clinician, a clinical problem can be
reduced to understandable interactions of cognition, affect,
and behavior by means of a careful and thorough cognitive/
behavioral assessment. With that knowledge, the clinician re-
searches the current literature to determine which interven-
tion has shown the greatest amount of success in like cases.
The intervention is applied, the behavioral results are care-
fully assessed, and then the therapist moves on to the next
problem.
Behavioral assessment is reductionistic. Breaking a prob-
lem down to its component parts is the first aim of empiricism.
However, an involvement of the client’s soul in his or her psy-
chological problems may frustrate a reductionistic inquiry. So
many clinical syndromes submit successfully to the dissection
of a behavioral assessment that it is perplexing to the scientist
v
vi Foreword

when such a dissection is disallowed by the vagaries of the

soul. There is a stoppage in the flow of understandable,
defined, reduced data. Often, the reason for the interruption
of the information flow is unclear.
The empirical psychologist asks focused questions, an-
swered in binary (yes/no), comparative (more or less discom-
fort), or digital (rate your anxiety on a scale from one to ten)
formats. The scientist is on a quest for specific information,
and the questions and observations are designed to produce
measurable data. What the scientist is unable to work with is
the absence of data. The question answered with a stony stare.
The behavioral record sheet lost. A missed appointment. Pain
expressed as a sigh instead of an integer.
Our scientist sifts through his data again, to attempt to find
the cause of the data interruption. Nothing can be found in the
cognitions, the affective patterns of the behavioral record to
explain why there are now non-answers to vital questions.
The reason is soul. People are not simply cognitive/behav-
ioral/affective automatons. The spirit of a person is not some-
thing that is constructed from the body alone. The personal-
ity doesn’t own the soul. The body and the personality are
there to support the willful, purposive aspect of the self. You
cannot find the soul of a person in dissection of the personal-
ity any more than you can find the ideas you are now reading
by tearing my computer apart.
The success of empirically based psychological treatment is
that it is effective in dealing with problems that are not soul-
based. Many affective/cognitive/behavioral knots can indeed
be undone by reductionistic unraveling. In confronting such a
problem, a clinician should offer the scientific solution to the
human being that he or she faces. But caring clinicians should
be prepared to understand that they might have come to a
premature conclusion, based on an inquiry that is not com-
plete. If the problem is soul-based, then a strictly empirical ap-
proach is inappropriate.
 Foreword vii

If my soul has been battered by a painful experience and I

am questioning my life purpose, then it is not enough to sim-
ply show me the signs and symptoms of my “depressed” be-
havior to get me to change my cognitions and to medicate me.
Such efforts may solve the problem, if you have defined the
problem as the existence of “depressed behavior” and the so-
lution as its absence. However, I may recreate my depression
and take up its suffering all over again. There is a soul purpose
in returning to the pain. The pain is there to be attended to,
not deleted.
Many paths can approach soul, but science, acting alone is-
n’t one of them. Soul defies empiricism, because there are no
instruments that can measure it. Science is unequipped to an-
alyze soul, to subject soul to prediction and control. What is
needed is a greater understanding than our current psycho-
logical science can deliver unaided.
*****
Science is unable to predict and control another class of
powerful human phenomena: art. There are no scientific tests
to measure aesthetic beauty absolutely, and none that can dis-
tinguish music from noise. Art is not containable by science,
nor definable within it.
Art and soul are companions. Evidence abounds that art, in
a vital way unlike science, can be about soul and a direct ex-
pression of it. The paintbrush, the guitar, the dancing body,
the poet’s quill are tools of the soul and can therefore be the
tools of soul healing. Bruce Moon’s life work has been to use
those tools and to teach the use of those tools to others.
This book is a call to reintegrate the soul into treatment
through art, a natural passageway. It is not a call to revolution,
for psychology has not always been disconnected from soul
and art.
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were patrons of art and rec-
ognized the integration of artistic images into psychological
viii Foreword

understanding. William James’s empiricism eventually em-

braced soul and religious experience. However, during the
ninety years or so since the prominence of these psychologi-
cal pioneers, there has been a divorce from the soul. In cur-
rent psychological thought, the ancestral patriarchs are the
psychometrists Wundt and Tichener. Their carefully ordered
laboratories are seen as the womb of our modern science. It is
believed by some that psychology didn’t exist before the age
of psychometric measurement.
This is revisionist history. It ignores the constant thread of
psychological investigation that stretches back in time to be-
fore history. There is no human mind that exists apart from
humanness; therefore any exploration of humanness is a psy-
chology. The prehistoric cave paintings document the free-
dom, willfulness, hopes, and triumphs of the earliest humans.
They are paintings of soul. They are psychological.
A constant thread of psychology-as-humanness was broken
in the twentieth century. Perhaps the divorce is symptomatic
of a general un-souling of our culture, ourselves. But it need
not be.
Science itself contains the essential elements of art, just as
art embodies science. The two ways of knowing are not ene-
mies, and are in fact two faces of the same human endeavors:
to create understanding of our inner and outer worlds, and to
communicate that understanding. Such endeavors are defini-
tive of humanity; therefore the combined goal of art and sci-
ence is to express humanness.
Art and science will someday be harmonious and not dis-
cordant. Robert Pirsig, among other thinkers, has already
demonstrated the absurdity of the divorce. Nowhere is this
absurdity more painfully enacted than in our current clinical
psychology.
To attempt an art therapeutic approach with someone in a
manic episode, without considering medication, is less than
helpful. A “scientific” intervention, specifically a chemical
 Foreword ix

treatment, has been shown to be effective in starting to return

the manic person into a balanced state. In this state of im-
provement, help with the soul issues is possible. Similarly, it is
neglectful to attempt to remove symptoms of anxiety without
allowing the possibility that the person’s fear is existential.
You listen to the soul. If it needs a paintbrush to do its own
healing work, you give it one.
Moon writes about “imagicide,” the killing of images by
analysis. Imagicide is misapplied science, a science against
art. The soul produces an image which the scientist dissects,
thereby killing it. This is one form of violence perpetrated by
the split between artistic and scientific psychologies.
By means of a pun, I can illustrate a further harm of this di-
vorce. If I pronounce the word as “image-aside,” then I see
the scientist simply pushing images away to one side, out of
sight and out of mind. This is neglectful. Our clients will never
stop making images for us because the soul demands that im-
ages be created. But I, the “scientific” psychologist, can end-
lessly push aside the images I am presented with. In so doing,
I tell my client that his or her soul doesn’t deserve my atten-
tion. It is superfluous and out of the question. This quiet vio-
lence is perhaps the most damaging of all.
*****
The book in your hands is a book of reconciliation. It is a
deeply generous book, in which artist Moon gives the gifts of
artistic understanding to the clinicians who will accept them.
John Reece, Psy.D.
Westerville, Ohio
 PREFACE

everal years ago, while in the midst of a struggle for find-

S ing balance between my personal and professional lives, I
had a dream in which my friend and colleague Bruce Moon
came to me and told me, “Wake up. You must get ready.”
Much as the reader will find here in Art and Soul: Reflections on
an Artistic Psychology, the task at hand was a restoration of soul
that would come about only through a waking up of my
senses, a return to artistic consciousness from what had been
a somnolent state, and an embrace of the artistic tradition of
struggle. Yet he tells us not to fear, the “soul will be found
wherever imaginative work is underway.”
Waking up to the soul and vividness of artistic imagination
can be an act of readiness to face with resilience the frightful
instability around us in these times and in our particular cul-
ture. Rapid and profound changes in the community, family,
and work structures also have been rippling through mental
health care services in this country in recent years. Many ther-
apists and their clients are left feeling fragmented and soulless,
deprived of meaningful, healing relationships. Treatment pro-
cesses have become increasingly superficial, mere time and
sound bites of contact between client and therapist, thor-
oughly documented in fat files of assessments, medication
records, and behavioral contracts for repeating, reoccurring
hospitalizations. The passion for change and possibility dies,
and a somnolent sleepwalking state of maintaining the status
quo as a refuge against the chaos takes up residence in us.
xi
xii Preface

The sleepwalking state is an expression of a leveling re-

sponse humans use to reduce stress produced by ambiguity
and tension. Seeking balance by leveling out differences and
biases creates the relief of uniformity and reinforces commu-
nity behavioral patters while minimizing stress. However, it
also tends to inhibit innovation, change, chance, and creativ-
ity. For this reason, the artist has a bias toward the opposite re-
sponse to tension, that of conceptual sharpening in which dif-
ferences are not eliminated but seen as starting points for
exploration and discovery. This process invites inquiry, ex-
perimentation, analogy, metaphor, and soul-filled imagina-
tion. Seen in context, leveling and sharpening are antitheti-
cal—one promotes convention, the other, invention. Art is the
counterpoint to the pervasive leveling tendency of modern
society in the face of change (Paratore, 1985).
In these chaotic times, the artist offers tremendous gifts to
us, for all art is born out of chaos. Countering the tendency in
American culture to banish, through medication or passive
stimulation, all that gives us unease, pain, and suffering, the
artist seeks out a meaningful relationship with it, knowing that
some new form will be born out of the formlessness. The artist
within each of us, as individuals and collectively in commu-
nity, challenges us to restore our imaginative capacity “to
adapt to change, to struggle,” seeking creative resolution in
the process.
Bruce Moon is such a seeker, an artist therapist who has
lived and worked within the cultural milieu of psychological
treatment for over twenty years. Decrying the somnolent state
of convention, he proposes with urgency the need for “imag-
inative reclamation” that would return the artistic soul of psy-
chology in order to connect psyche with artistic endeavors
that bring meaning. However, as Moon writes:
To think of this text as a call to reintroduce the arts to psy-
chology is a mistake. It is not that artists should enter into psy-
chotherapeutic work, for their work has always been inherently
 Preface xiii

psychotherapeutic. Rather, psychotherapists should enter into artis-

tic work in order to rediscover the roots of their endeavors as art.
Moon acknowledges that this is a task that resists logical dis-
cussion, and indeed, in the climate of accountability that in-
terprets all human behaviors through systems which restrict
impulse, erase symptoms, quantify, analyze, pathologize, and
objectively label, Moon is the quintessential rebel and heretic.
To speak of art and soul as a reclamation project of vital im-
portance to psychology is to call for cutting through our pro-
fessional conditioning and bringing forth a courageous vision.
And yet, his rebellious vision has an unexpectedly quiet and
reflective presence. In this text, he paints the soul through art,
imagery, and story, often digressing into deep pools or turbu-
lent rivers of his experience that serve to build a steady vision
dedicated to core values and beliefs. A reader seeking clear-
cut and immediate truths may be too distracted by the wan-
derings of the soul-seeker. Giving space, or allowing the pat-
tern of wholeness in Moon’s words, stories, and reflections to
well up and take shape, however, will yield a satisfying and in-
spiring experience.
Moon speaks of taking care; allowing the image to emerge
and to take shape in its own time, and the vital need to give it
sustained attention in order to come to know it deeply. Nor
can one do this work without mastering the materials and pro-
cesses of creative expression. The slower pace, rich texture,
and resonant mood he speaks of from the studio of the artist
therapist within a clinical setting seems to jar our senses, which
may be more attuned to the realities of managed care, quick
fixes, and revolving-door treatment. This contrast may create
in the reader a profound ache of what Moon calls the “lost im-
age of people as creative beings.” A depth of longing stirred in
waters of his reflections here resonates with the existential
emptiness and loneliness of our times. In recognition of the
blank canvas, poised in readiness to awaken to the struggle for
some form being born, we face some aspect of our deaths in
xiv Preface

all the possibilities not chosen—the paintings not painted, the

words not spoken, the lives not lived. This conflict, Moon re-
minds us, is a symbol of a life in process, infinitely preferred
over keeping the struggle soulless and at bay.
Perhaps this text best can be described as an art therapist’s
journal of recurrent references and reflections born of au-
thentic witness to the artistic struggle taught to him over time
by clients engaged in the act of healing through art. Essen-
tially a phenomenological work, Moon brings together critical
ideas and human concerns that must not be lost. His trust in
the process, sticking with his core beliefs, his willingness to re-
turn again and again to the essential phenomenon of the im-
age in order to learn what it has to offer, and its recurrent
verification in his life and the lives of his clients forms the ba-
sis of his artistic psychology. He sees these chapters not as em-
pirical theory but rather as “imaginative reflections” and the
client stories as “aesthetic fictions.”
What emerges from the sensory, aesthetic, and existential
phenomena and patterns of his life elaborates upon the cycle
of life, death, and rebirth. He locates these as intersecting
points where the soul lives, between the clinic and the home,
the self and the other, the artist and the witness. The years of
pain and struggle, whether his clients’ or his own, does indeed
seem to require an imaginative response, “the analogous level
of human reply to the world.” One finds him introducing
most of the stories in these chapters at their very beginning,
that is, the first encounter between the canvas and the indi-
vidual’s lonely and courageous act of making, as if to under-
score the sacredness of that act. We learn that the artistic tra-
dition of struggle, informed by the image from its very
inception, brings honor to the unfoldings of imagination the
act subsequently compels and gives form to. The beginning
holds both death and rebirth, suspended in a single moment
in time. Thus, the reader senses the poignancy and urgency of
Moon “painting his way to safety” when he sees his own death
 Preface xv

and rebirth recurring in these essential materials of art, life,

and soul.
Moon believes that images are living things, benevolent
forces born of compassion, and that making art is powerful
and good. This theme resonates through all his written work,
a drumbeat found in Existential Art Therapy: The Canvas Mirror,
Essentials of Art Therapy Education and Practice, Introduction to Art
Therapy: Faith in the Product, The Dynamics of Art as Therapy with
Adolescents, Ethical Issues in Art Therapy, and Working with Im-
ages: The Art of Art Therapists. Art and Soul: Reflections on an Artis-
tic Psychology provides a meaningful frame for his core values
and ideas, ultimately asking for a return to the deep human
source that is imagination. Moon’s earlier lament to the pro-
fession of art therapy, where is the art? has become a deeper
cry, where is the soul? Not a material object, the artist’s soul is
rather a viewpoint that is an enlivened way of seeing the world
ensouled in imagery. The compassion of art requires both
courage and hope, to see the world as it is and to imagine it as
it can become. For a world that can no longer imagine itself is
a dead, lifeless place. Waking to life while embracing its death
struggles, Moon believes the task at hand is to give form to the
essential story of our particular life or time found in the im-
ages we create. His story helps us to find and create our story,
and engenders in us reclaimed compassion, hope, and faith.
Lynn Kapitan, Ph.D., ATR-BC
Associate Professor
Chair of the Art Department
Mount Mary College
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

am deeply indebted to many people who have contributed

I to the writing of the second edition if this book. Thanks go
to Cathy Moon for her work as the editor of the manuscript.
Cathy’s criticism and support were invaluable as I wrestled
with the work. Special thanks also to my colleague, Dr. Lynn
Kapitan, for reading the early manuscript and contributing
the preface. When the first edition of this text was published,
Lynn and I were distant colleagues. Now, at the publication of
the second edition, we share a common office complex at
Mount Mary College. Her good humor and sharp critiques
have been precious. My buddy and pen pal, Dr. John Reece,
with whom I shared a 109 x 129 office for many years, was a
source of unconditional support. John’s intelligent, creative,
and witty emails and letters buoyed my spirits when the work
was not going well. Ellie Jones, the editor of the first edition,
has my deepest gratitude for her patience, skill, and interest in
my writing.
I was honored for twenty-two years to be affiliated with
Harding Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. The hospital merged
with another hospital a couple years ago and I fear that much
of the creativity, innovation, and dynamic modes of treatment
pioneered there may be irretrievably lost. As the health care
industry has undergone massive change and restructuring, I
have felt particularly blessed by having had the opportunity
to learn my craft at a unique period in the history of mental
health care. Thanks to the many students I worked with in the
xvii
xviii Acknowledgments

Harding Graduate Clinical Art Therapy program, Lesley Col-

lege, Marywood University, and Mount Mary College. The
students I’ve helped to educate and the colleagues I’ve argued
and celebrated with have helped to shape my ideas about art
and soul. Finally, I must express gratitude to the struggling
artist-clients I’ve known. I have spent thousands of hours in
the company of people who have been hurt, angry, and con-
fused, and I have seen the power of art as a healing, calming,
and sense-making force. These client-artists taught me most of
what I know.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The clinical accounts in this book are, in spirit, true. In all

instances, however, identities and circumstances have been
fictionalized in order to insure the confidentiality of the per-
sons with whom I have worked. The case illustrations are
amalgamations of many specific situations.
 CONTENTS

Page
Foreword—John Reece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Preface—Lynn Kapitan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter I. Soul Loss—Lost Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chapter II. Symptoms of Soul Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Chapter III. Art as Spiritual Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Chapter IV. Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Chapter V. Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Chapter VI. Image and Motif . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Chapter VII. The Artist’s Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Chapter VIII. Imaginal Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Chapter IX. Imagination, Faith, and Bravery . . . . . . . . 113
Chapter X. Freedom to Make . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Chapter XI. When Words Are Not Enough . . . . . . . . . . 143
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161

xix
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1. Soul Bowl—Oil on paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Figure 2. The Letter—Acrylic on masonite . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
Figure 3. Waiting For—Acrylic on canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
Figure 4. Ball and Box—# 2 pencil on paper . . . . . . . . . . .50
Figure 5. Crumpled Paper—#2 pencil on paper . . . . . . . . 68
Figure 6. Red Bandana—Acrylic on canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Figure 7. Spelunking—Pastel on paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Figure 8. Burst—Acrylic on masonite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Figure 9. Building—Acrylic on canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Figure 10. Blindfold and Old Skin—Acrylic on canvas . . . 102
Figure 11. Window and Star—Pastel on paper . . . . . . . . . . 112
Figure 12. Street with Haunts—Acrylic on canvas . . . . . . . 126
Figure 13. The Gate Is Not Burning—Acrylic on canvas . . 142
Figure 14. The Path and Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

xxi
ART AND SOUL
Figure 1. Let us imagine an artistic psychology, then, as a process of applying
soulful artistic principles to everyday life.
 INTRODUCTION

hat I want to present in this book are ideas about soul

W restoration through art. Many of the emotional con-
cerns I have heard from clients in the psychiatric hospital
and in my private practice studio revolve around loss of soul.
Loss of soul is experienced in emptiness, disillusionment, de-
pression, longing for meaning, and a yearning for spirituality.
Moore (1992) writes, “All these symptoms reflect a loss of soul
and let us know what the soul craves” (p. xvi). Without soul,
life is somehow vague and meaningless.
The artistic psychology presented in this book addresses
the hungers people feel and the symptoms that torment them.
By making art, it is possible to fill emptiness, rediscover won-
der, ease depression, revive joy, create meaning, and practice
a form of spiritual discipline.
This book is intended for artists and therapists who are will-
ing to enter into the mysteries of lost souls. It is also intended
for laypersons who may be suffering the symptoms of soul
loss. It is my hope that therapists will rethink the work of the
caregiver, and that sufferers will re-imagine the meaning of
suffering. We have, for a long time, considered the work of
therapy as secular, but if we really want to address the symp-
toms of soul loss, we now must begin to regard it as sacred art.
Let us imagine an artistic psychology, then, as a process of ap-
plying soulful artistic principles to everyday life.
In the early years of my career as an art therapist I often
heard professional colleagues express deep fears about the
3
4 Art and Soul: Reflections on an Artistic Psychology

process of artistic expression. One psychiatrist was especially

concerned because I encouraged his clients to draw what he
described as “sick pictures.” He thought that expressing trou-
bling emotional material through creative visual, imaginal,
form invited a lack of internal psychic control on the part of
clients. On several occasions we discussed whether particular
clients should be encouraged to express or to suppress their
troubling feelings. I believe expression of feelings is seldom
harmful to people, but keeping secrets and constricting feel-
ings can be psychologically destructive.
My skeptical colleague expressed the belief that images (at
least those produced by his clients) could be pathological.
Pathological means “of or concerned with disease; governed
by a compulsion” (Webster, 1988, p. 990). In contrast, I regard
the artistic process of creating images as expression of pathos,
that quality which evokes sympathy or compassion.
Whether artistic images are expressions of sickness and dis-
ease or expressions that evolve of sympathy and compassion
is a pivotal philosophic question in an artistic psychology, for
it represents the essential dilemma regarding the role of im-
agery and art making in therapy and in the world at large.
There are, I believe, three basic modes of relating to and re-
garding imagery.
In the first mode, artwork is regarded as overt expressions
of unconscious conflictive material. People who regard imag-
ery in this way assert that particular psychological and patho-
logical meanings can be ascribed to symbolic images. This
way of relating to imagery has its roots in Freudian analysis.
In this model, images are regarded as servants of the id and
represent powerful sexual and aggressive drives. Those who
subscribe to this way of considering imagery often attempt
to classify and catalogue images. The effort to systematically
classify images inevitably leads to equations regarding the
meaning of particular images. From such a viewpoint, for in-
stance, cylinders 5 phallic symbols; doorways 5 vaginal
 Introduction 5

openings; lightning 5 rage; navels 5 dependency needs, and

so on. Such formulas invariably focus on a disease orientation,
or on dysfunctional aspects of the individual when viewing
images. From this perspective, images are concrete represen-
tations of the sick or pathological.
A second mode of relating to imagery, which I refer to as
diagnostic-psycho-stereotypical, stems from yet another
pathological understanding of art products. In this approach
to imagery, it is believed that persons with certain types of
psychiatric disorders tend to create art in which the content
and/or style is indicative of diagnostic classification. When a
therapist who ascribes to this approach sees the art works of a
given individual, the therapist may hypothesize about the ap-
propriate diagnosis for the individual. For instance, if a thera-
pist operating from the diagnostic-psycho-stereotypical school
of thought believes that clients suffering from depression typ-
ically use only a small portion of the picture plane when given
a choice, it follows that when the therapist observes a client
restricting use of the page, she might hypothesize the client is
depressed.
A person is seldom diagnosed as healthy and functional.
The process of psychological diagnosis is reserved for those
whom we view as ill. In other words, to approach imagery
from a diagnostic-psycho-stereotypifying perspective implies
a belief that images are manifestations of disease.
At the other philosophic pole from these pathologizing po-
sitions are the views of Allen (1995), McConeghey (1986),
McNiff (1992), Moon (1995), and others. In his lectures and
workshops, McNiff offers the maxim, “the image never comes
to hurt you.” From his perspective, images are viewed as
benevolent forces born of compassion. Artistic psychology
is based upon the principle that images are benevolent and
compassionate entities.
In my work with graduate art therapy students at colleges
6 Art and Soul: Reflections on an Artistic Psychology

and universities throughout the country, I have often encoun-

tered the benevolent power of images. One student was par-
ticularly disturbed by recurring images of walls that emerged
in her drawings. The walls appeared in artwork she made in
therapy sessions with clients and in classroom group experi-
ences. Initially, she thought the walls represented her style of
compartmentalizing various aspects of her life. This walling-
off seemed to serve a defensive and constricting function in
her life. I encouraged her to think of the walls as friendly mes-
sengers rather than to interpret them as symbols of repressed,
conflictive psychic material or indicators of pathological dys-
function. As the student engaged in imaginative dialogue with
the walls, she began to think of them as an invitation to loosen
her tight and compartmentalized emotional control. Over the
course of her graduate training, the sharp edges and harsh di-
viding walls in her artworks softened and gave way to images
of fluidity and flexibility.
Artistic psychology embraces the belief that images have
lives of their own. Images are creations, of course, and in a
sense are reflections of their creator, but they are more. As a
demonstration of this, I suggest the following experiment. In-
vite an artist and ten other people to create, independent of
one another, a story about one of the artist’s works. I assure
you ten different stories will emerge, and each will be different
from the story the artist would tell. The artwork speaks to each
person differently.
Images may be thought of as messengers or intermediaries.
McNiff (1992) describes images as “artistic angels” (pp. 74–
88). When we regard images as messengers, they cease to be
objects of inquiry and become subjects capable of teaching us
about ourselves.
When we regard images as messengers, having lives of their
own, then we may consider them as having missions of their
own as well. Artistic psychology considers restoration of soul
to be one of the missions of images. When working from the
 Introduction 7

perspective of an artistic psychology, based upon the notion

of images as benevolent and compassionate entities, we are
dealing with living images and the living artists who make
them. Both subjects, the artist and the image, command deep
respect.
In an artistic psychology, it is impossible to establish for-
mulas for interpretation of images or equations for analysis.
To do so would be akin to performing an autopsy on the im-
age, and we know autopsies are only performed on the dead.
In artistic psychology, this does not always mean that. Art-
works and images are not cadavers to be measured, dissected,
and biopsied. The world of artistic imagination is, at times,
one of mist and shadows. Those who would attend to this
world must embrace the mystery and cultivate a sense of
reverential seeing. Our work often takes us into ambiguous
places where nothing is absolute.
We have the option of thinking of images as infectious and
diseased, or of regarding them as living, ensouled entities wor-
thy of tender care and respect. The choice we make colors
every aspect of our work with images. I urge compassion over
dissection, pathos over pathology.
There are many lost souls in the world, people who feel
empty though they have much in terms of material posses-
sions. They are disillusioned, though their world appears
complete. They feel vaguely sad all the time. They long for
some enduring sense of purpose and they yearn for some
deeper connection to the world. Perhaps art offers an anti-
dote. Perhaps people who are lost souls can fill their own
emptiness, rediscover their sense of wonder, recover joy, and
create meaning through the discipline of making art.
In artistic psychology, it is important to embrace an aes-
thetic of everyday matters. In letting go of familiarity and a
position of knowing, imagination has the opportunity to enter
in, allowing questions to arise in concerning the interrelation-
8 Art and Soul: Reflections on an Artistic Psychology

ships of art, image, and soul. Among these questions are:

What is art? What is image? What is soul?
Like so many other questions that confound and confuse,
attempts to address them inevitably unearth many other ques-
tions buried beneath the surface: What purposes do images
and souls serve? Is imagination necessary? Can imagination
and soul be rationally studied? What is life like without imag-
ination, without art, without soul? What do they have to do
with one another?
All persons must choose. Will we choose to live life in the
shallow regions? Or will we take hold of the opportunities be-
fore us to increase our sensitivity, heighten our awareness,
and live responsibly in the face of overwhelming change? Will
we seek restoration of soul through art?
These questions intrigue, challenge, and baffle me. Still, I
believe they are worth asking and so I will follow them where
they lead. It is important for readers of this book to note that
when I refer to art and art making, I do so from a modernist
perspective. I am aware that ideas about what art is are being
challenged and expanded by postmodernist aestheticians.
While postmodern perspectives are of interest to me, I am not
prepared to integrate them in this text.
Many of the illustrative case vignettes in this book involve
painting and drawing tasks. These vignettes reflect my per-
sonal experience with drawing and painting, but in no way
should this be construed as a diminishing of other equally
valid artistic endeavors. I simply have to write about those ex-
periences with which I am most familiar and competent.
Figure 2. To whom does one turn for support in matters of the soul?
 Chapter I

SOUL LOSS—LOST SOUL

t the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are living

A in a time of great transformation. Old ways of think-
ing about the world and our place in it are fading away; new
ways are not yet clear. Evidence of change is all around us.
The basic structures of society—family, gender roles, educa-
tional systems, religion, and cultural identity—have under-
gone tremendous change. Communications technology, eco-
nomic globalization, the labor market, and countless other
aspects of life have undergone radical shifts in a very short
time. The tragic events of September 11, 2001, have shaken
the sense of stability formerly enjoyed by American citizens,
which has had a ripple effect in other countries.
There are choices to be made. Should we withdraw into
ourselves out of anxiety and fear? Scared by the loss of our fa-
miliar ways of being in the world, will we become immobi-
lized, thinking only of ourselves? Will we choose to live life in
the shallow regions? Or will we take hold of the opportunities
before us to increase our sensitivity, heighten our awareness,
and live responsibly in the face of overwhelming change? Will
we seek restoration of soul?
This book is a call for restoration of soul. To live soulfully
means to embrace the unknown, to welcome mystery. This
way of living requires creativity and courage.
Perhaps the most common disorder of the second half of
11
12 Art and Soul: Reflections on an Artistic Psychology

the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, af-

fecting society, families, and individuals, is existential empti-
ness. In 1953, Viktor Frankl described this phenomenon as
the “existential vacuum” (p. 128). More recently, Hillman
(1989), Moore (1992), McNiff (1992), and others have referred
to this as loss of soul. Loss of soul, or existential emptiness, is
acted out in the world through dysfunctional relationships,
boredom, abuse of self and others, addictions, and a pervasive
sense that life has no purpose. People suffering from loss of
soul feel unexplainable emptiness. They are disillusioned in
their relationships and in their work. They feel vaguely de-
pressed and they long for meaning in their lives. Often, they
yearn for some kind of spirituality in their lives. Therapists,
politicians, social scientists, and television talk-show hosts
suggest a variety of theories regarding the causes and anti-
dotes for these symptoms. But the root problem is soul loss.
To whom does one turn for support in matters of the soul?
Where does one go to fill the existential vacuum? Many
people in the psychology professions have distanced them-
selves from aspects of humanness not subject to the scientific
method. Health care institutions have adopted the mindset
and values of capitalist corporations; have become profit-
driven instead of service-focused. Soul restoration and empti-
ness filling are not profitable.
To whom does one turn for support in matters of the soul?
In our collective past, there is a remarkable wellspring of
insights from people who have lived their lives in contact
with soul: painters, poets, musicians, sculptors, dancers, and
playwrights. In this book, I will explore how making art can
fill existential emptiness, and how imagining and creating re-
stores soul.
When I refer to soul in this context, I am describing a per-
spective, a way of looking at things and events, and a way of
being in the world. I am not referring to soul as a thing or sub-
stance somehow connected to life beyond this world. Soul is
 Soul Loss—Lost Soul 13

found wherever imaginative work is underway. Soul has to do

with meaning, authenticity, and the deep regions of shadow
and light. Soul is most visible in creative work, love, intimacy,
and community.
In the twenty-nine years I have practiced art therapy, I have
been intrigued by how useful my studies in literature, poetry,
and the arts have been. So it is that I suggest we must turn to
image, story, movement, rhyme, and metaphor for guidance
in this troubled, empty, and soul-less time if we are to have
hope of easing the suffering of empty, bored, and frightened
souls.
Freud suggested psychoanalysis was better understood and
applied by writers and artists than by doctors (Papini, 1934).
A central theme of this book is a call to—at least temporarily—
disengage thoughts of the psyche/soul from the realm of em-
pirical science and bring them back to the heart of the artist.
James Hillman, a prominent voice of Archetypal Psychol-
ogy, introduced the idea that soul is a perspective that changes
random events into meaningful experiences (1989). Trans-
forming casual encounters into significant experiences is what
artists have done throughout time. The artist catches a glimpse
of the face of a passerby. In the moment, the glimpse means
nothing. Later, in her studio, she devotes hours of intensive la-
bor to crafting a painting of the stranger she passed on the
street. By investing her time, attention, and talent, she imbues
the insignificant passing-by with meaning. Through her artis-
tic endeavor, she ensouls the random happening.
Perhaps what is most needed in our present day is the ca-
pacity to stop, consider, and reflect upon the common every-
day events of our lives. The therapy most needed at this time
consists of reacquainting people with their capacities to imag-
ine and create meaning. In order to do this, we must commu-
nicate in the language of the imagination: pictures, songs,
dances, and dreams. Imagination is the fundamental expres-
sive tool of soul.
14 Art and Soul: Reflections on an Artistic Psychology

Soul is found in midpoints of experience; between under-

standing and intuition, fact and fiction, desire and action. As
the artist stands before the canvas, she stands in the midpoint,
between imagination and reality. The alchemical interplay be-
tween the two is given form on the canvas.
. . . between the moonlight and the lane
the sailboat and the drain
the newsreel and your tiny pain
love calls you by your name
Leonard Cohen (1968)
Authentic relationships, satisfying work, and personal
meaning are manifestations of ensoulment. Relief from bore-
dom, anxiety, depression, and addictions are the pleasant side
effects of engaging the imagination, and of restoring the soul.
Unfortunately, meaningful work and satisfying relationships
are elusive phenomena at this time, for imagination and soul
have been ascribed little value in our culture. Imagination has
been relegated to the realm of pretending and left to children.
Indeed, adults who too obviously indulge their imaginations
are sometimes chided for being “childish.” Soul has been
abandoned as unverifiable, immeasureable, and unprofitable.
All too often we know of soul mainly by its absence; in the
void, in the boredom, and in the pain we feel even when we
have everything we could want.
Surely there must be a way to fill the emptiness, kindle in-
terest, ease the pain, and restore the soul. It is evident that cog-
nitive and behavioral therapy approaches cannot get us
through these discontents, because behaviors and thoughts are
part of the difficulty. We long to ensoul our lives and we yearn
to rediscover our imaginations and our capacities to make.
This book is about imagination reclamation, soul restora-
tion. It is about making soul and reinvigorating life. There
is nothing new in these ideas. Philosophers, theologians, po-
ets, musicians, painters, dancers, and archetypal psychologists
have offered glimpses of a soulful, cavernous region inhabited
 Soul Loss—Lost Soul 15

by passionate, mysterious images. I am simply revisiting a

very old idea, that soul is important in our lives. I am propos-
ing art making as a means to return soul to life.
It is imperative that imagination be restored to the fore-
ground of our lives. It is time for imagination and soul to take
center-stage. It is our responsibility, yours and mine, to care
for imagination and to attend to our collective soul.
The Greek root word for therapy is best translated, “to be
attentive to.” If we are to be truly responsible for ourselves,
then each individual must attend to his or her own psyche
(soul); must be his/her own therapist. However, due to the cir-
cumstances of one’s life, this may not always be possible.
When one is incapable of attending to soul in a caring and
nurturing manner, a therapeutic relationship is needed in or-
der to restore the capacity to care for self.
To begin, we must restructure our thinking about the in-
dicators of existential emptiness. Rather than regard disillu-
sionment, meaninglessness, angst, boredom, or depression
as emotional tumors requiring surgical removal, we can view
these manifestations of emptiness as gifts from the soul, meant
to shake us into life. In this way, emotional turmoil may be
seen as a “precious angel” bringing a critical message (Hill-
man, 1989). Certainly we would not wish to have an angelec-
tomy; to have the angel cut out. When we think of emotional
turmoil as a gift, we do not need to cure it, fix it, or banish it.
On the contrary, we are obliged to listen to the messages our
imagination has for us.
In order to listen for the messages our intermediaries bring
us, we need to exercise our imagination. If we hope to find
meaning in the everyday events of our lives, we must cultivate
new ways of reflecting upon these events. We must use our
imagination and our capacities to create.
The Greek word psyche means soul; ology refers to “the study
of.” Therefore psychology means study of the soul. This book is
an effort to return psychological thought to these roots, to re-
16 Art and Soul: Reflections on an Artistic Psychology

claim the artistic and imaginative ground of psychological

thinking.
In western culture, art, spirituality, psychology, therapy,
and religion have been divided and defended against one an-
other for a long time. There is evidence that renewed inter-
est is stirring toward bridging the gaps between these sister
elements. Psychology, spirituality, psychotherapy, and orga-
nized religion are all in need of new visions if they are to hope
for continued relevance and potency in this postmodern
world.
Reflections on an artistic psychology call us toward a dif-
ferent regard for imagination and art making in our lives. This
new regard is modeled after the artist’s attention, intuition,
and sensitivity. Being called is not easy, and there is no set
path to follow. Imagination does not come back into one’s life
just because it is invited. It must be crafted, worked with,
played with, and struggled with.
In this book, I am not proposing a cure for emotional tur-
moil and I am not advocating the elimination of scientific psy-
chology. On the contrary, I want to suggest ways to embrace
emotional turmoil that may be beyond the scope of cognitive
behaviorism and psychopharmacology. The artistic psychol-
ogy I am proposing is not meant to aid in anyone’s adjustment
to cultural or familial norms, but rather to facilitate attach-
ment to the deep root of inner life, the imagination.
In the mid-seventies, a client told me, “My pictures are the
windows to my soul.” At the time, I thought she was merely
being poetic. Now, three decades later, I understand the pro-
found meaning of her words. She knew then what it has taken
me so long to learn. It makes sense to me now that she rou-
tinely chose to stay in the art studio rather than attend verbal
group therapy sessions. Her difficulties were the direct result
of a withered imagination. It was in the studio that she re-
stored her soul.
If you have come to this book in search of a road map, you