The Arts in Psychotherapy, Vol. 20, pp. 199-200, 1993 Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.

0197-4556193 $6.00 + .OO Copyright 0 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd.

ARTISTS OR PSYCHOTHERAPISTS?

DAVID ALDRIDGE , PhD*

Europe is attempting to become a community with a common identity. At its borders, countries, for- merly united under coercion, are struggling to main- tain their national identities and cast off a communal identity. In their claims to national identity some groups are demanding not only the cultural rights of religious practice and the freedom to use their own language, but also territorial rights that impinge in some cases on the existence of others. Furthermore, inside the community not all nations are happy with the idea of becoming a United Europe.

Within the arts therapy professions in Europe there is also a struggle for identity, either to be united as arts therapists within a general congruent understand- ing of psychotherapy or to be creative arts therapists united as arts therapists. This latter position of artistic harmony also may be glossing over the reality that some creative arts therapist professional groups can- not agree among themselves whether or not to be united. Indeed, some groups claim the territory of arts therapies with the intention of restricting the practice of others. It is difficult to understand how such prac- titioners can claim to be actively involved in the heal- ing process when within their own practice there is such a wound caused by division and rejection.

The Second European Conference in Arts Thera- pies Education addressed the issue of professional identity in terms of training, as you will read in the following papers. Anneke Nijenhuis has been active in promoting arts education in Holland and Europe and her clear insight into the problems and positive attempts to bring people together was evident in her keynote speech. Colin Teasdale raises the issue of how we manage clinical placements for students.

*David Aldridge is European Editor of The Arts in Psychotherapy.

When we consider the future of the arts therapies in Europe, and the possibility of modular training be- tween cooperating institutions located in different countries, the correct placement of the student and his or her clinical supervision will play an important role. David Edwards continues this theme of supervision in training, emphasizing the role of learning various skills that promote the identity of the creative arts therapists as professional practitioners. Henk Smei- jsters returns us to the debate about professional iden- tity clarifying what it is about music therapy that iden- tifies it as a creative arts therapy and what it is that distinguishes music therapy as a psychotherapy.

The tension remains. Artists are engaged in clini- cal practice, some of which is located in an overtly psychotherapeutic setting. Some of those artists have indeed chosen a form of training that is based on principles of psychotherapy and wish to be known as psychotherapists. Others, however, have chosen to use their art therapeutically as artists. Here lies the core of the dilemma. As soon as we enter the realm of therapeutic practice we must begin to use a language that describes that practice. We have no commonly acceptable therapeutic language as yet, for example, in describing what goes on in music therapy. We do, however, have an acceptable language for describing what is happening musically. And there is the prob- lem, the change from the language of the medium of the therapy to the therapeutic language describing clinical change.

The elements of a therapeutic language are bor- rowed, often unwittingly, from other practices. How- ever, the meanings they acquire in their new settings are often corrupted from their original psychothera-

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peutic meanings, which infuriates psychotherapists, but it is only in the nature of living languages that words gain their meaning in the contexts in which they are used. As feminists have reminded us, the words that we use to describe our own experiences belong to us and should not be submitted to the po- litical dominance of the language of another group. The classification of activities is a political act; it is a way of saying, “See this activity in this way.” We have the right to call our own activities by the names we give them.

In our attempts to find a common language for the creative arts therapies, and thereby negotiate a pro- fessional identity, it is also important to emphasize that talking about therapy is always several steps re- moved from the actual activity in which we partake. Dancing, painting, singing, acting, doing therapy are different activities from talking about dancing, talking about singing, talking about painting and talking about doing therapy.

There are different levels of reporting experience. We have the phenomenon as it is experienced. This is what transpires in the therapy session. It lives and exists in the moment and is only partially understood. It cannot be wholly reported. We can see, feel, smell, taste and hear what is happening. These individual expressive acts are known in modem linguistics as purole (Aldridge, Brandt, & Wohler, 1990). We can talk about what happens in the therapeutic situation in the particular terms of our artistic disciplines. These

descriptions are relatively objective and accessible to verification. For example, we can talk about the par- ticular notes and rhythms in music therapy and the particular colors and patterns in art. We can play out recorded tapes or show our pictures. This is the shared element of language, usage. When we come to ex- plain what happens in terms of another system (i.e., to transpose the musical changes into terms of aca- demic psychology, psychotherapy or a system of medicine) or to say what the relationship between the activity is and the process of healing, we are involved in interpretation and have strayed to yet another stage removed from what has happened. This is the under- lying abstract ground within language, langue.

No doubt the debate will continue. Either our iden- tities remain fixed and we are as we are defined or our identities are forever in negotiation. At whatever level we choose to become actively engaged in the process of definition, as being identified and identifying, there will be challenge and acceptance. Hopefully, we will develop a climate of tolerance so that what and how we are will contribute to the community of those engaged in the task of healing rather than further pro- moting the wounds in our modem society.

Reference

Aidridge, D., Brandt, G., & Wohler, D. (1990). Toward a com- mon language in the arts therapies. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 17, 189-195.