There's no Point Raging on Your Own: Using Art Therapy in Groups for People with Eating Disorders

Abstract

This article is an outline of our work running art therapy groups for people with eating disorders. We aim to show that the process of group art therapy, with its unique interplay between making art objects and coming together as a group, can be of therapeutic value to these patients. We look at ways in which both art materials, and the images that the group members produce, are used together with the psychodynamics of the group process. Within this, we explore the movement between concrete expression in art, and the ability to symbolize. Our definition of `eating disorders' for the purposes of this article and most of our work is `the use of food as an alternative to feeling'. In this way, we have seen how people can remain preoccupied with themselves, rather than relating to others.