Blazing a trail in art therapy, pioneer benefits from its healing power too

CHICAGO – Harriet Claire Wadeson loved to create works of art when she was growing up, but she never considered pursuing the solitary career of an artist. She was determined to be involved with others, she said, so she earned a bachelor’s degree to become a therapist.

When she learned about the emerging field of art psychotherapy, “it was the marriage of my two major interests, and it was at a time that the field had only just begun,” recalled Wadeson, 84, now retired and living in Evanston, Illinois.

Wadeson started working at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, to pursue her new passion. For 13 years she practiced art therapy and conducted research that was instrumental in developing the field. She went on to earn two master’s degrees and completed a doctorate project that she incorporated into “Art Psychotherapy,” one of the first books in the field. Seven more followed.

Wadeson directed the art therapy program at the University of Houston and established art therapy programs at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University, as well as a summer institute in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, which attracted students from around the world. Objects gathered from her many trips to countries in Europe and Asia, where she traveled to spread the word about the healing power of art therapy, decorate her living room in an Evanston retirement community, which – at her urging – has hired two art therapists.

Among her many honors is the Marilyn Richman Legacy Award in 2015 from the Institute for Therapy through the Arts. Following is an edited conversation.

Q: How does art therapy help people?

A: In general, the art therapist does not suggest what the patient should paint or draw or sculpt. The artwork should be spontaneous, and the art therapist encourages the client to explore it and talk about it and try to understand what it means. The art touches a different level of consciousness that words may not capture.

Q: Can art therapy help people who are not artistic?

A: The art therapist is not teaching art techniques. The purpose of art therapy is not to create a perfect work of art. It is a psychotherapeutic process to help people find insights into themselves and learn things about themselves that they weren’t aware of. Usually the artwork is of a confidential nature and is not exhibited.

Q: Who can be helped by art therapy?

A: Art therapy is a very broad field because it can meet the needs of a number of different kinds of clients. It can be used with people who are suicidal, people with schizophrenia, people with cancer, victims of sexual abuse, people with problems like depression and substance abuse, with couples and families and the elderly.

Q: When you were diagnosed with stage 3 uterine cancer about six years ago, you did artwork and kept a journal published in “Journaling Cancer in Words and Images, Caught in the Clutches of the Crab” (Charles C. Thomas). You thought your experience might help others and give them hope. How did the writing and art help you?

A: The artwork I did was an altered book. I took a regular published book and changed the pages. I had an image of a black hole that I had fallen into, so I painted a black hole on a page, and I cut a hole through a number of pages of the book, and I did collages in it of photos and of images of what I imagined I would do when I was well. It took me out of the misery of the cancer, and I would have something that pleased me – not because it was great art but because it expressed something I was feeling. The writing was a chronicle, which was less creative, but later it helped me remember the experience.

Q: Can today’s digital technology be used in art therapy?

A: Some art therapists do use the new technologies. A lot of kids who may not want to draw would want to play around with images on the computer to express themselves.

Q: Is it important to encourage creativity in children?

A: Absolutely. For the most part, children are creative if you get out of their way, so parents just have to make the art materials available. Children can express themselves in images that are very meaningful to what they are experiencing.