Creative arts therapy as a tool in promoting ego integration in delinquent adolescent girls

Journal/Book: Pratt Institute Creative Arts Therapy Review. 1982; 3: 21-31.

Abstract: Describes art therapy in a residential group home for 10 13-17 yr old females who had been placed because of truancy, running away, drug use, or promiscuous or acting-out behavior. In response to chaotic transference in the residents, the author reports chaotic countertransference reactions in her early experience at the residence. Residents feared both being engulfed by the therapist and not getting enough of her. Gradually a balance emerged that stressed providing external limits, encouraging productive art work or experimentation, and allowing expressions of verbal hostility. Work with a 14-yr-old S to control the barrage of impulsivity and the extreme panic she felt when not gratified is outlined. S needed a feeling of specialness that was accomplished without interfering with the needs of other Ss by the exchange of created gifts between S and the therapist. It is suggested that the use of creative modalities and interventions provided a nonthreatening structure to work within as the struggle to integrate opposite strivings occurred.

Note: Using Smart Source Parsing creative arts therapy; ego integration; delinquent 13 17 yr old females in residential group home

Keyword(s): Art therapy; ego ; female delinquents; personality processes; group homes; adolescence

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