Art therapy with HIV-positive patients: Hardiness, creativity and meaning. Special Issue: AIDS and the creative arts therapies

Journal/Book: Arts in Psychotherapy. 1993; 20: 325-333.

Abstract: Offers creative arts therapists working with AIDS patients a theoretical guide based on an analysis of over 600 HIV patients' artwork. Artwork of HIV-positive persons reflects the stage of their illness, personality style, and previous life experiences. Artwork created shortly after diagnosis often reflects anger, depression, guilt, confusion, and stigmatization. Artmaking accesses these emotions and provides a permanent witness to unspoken pain. Not only does the creative process facilitate mourning, it provides for symbolic restitution and identification of meaning. Patients often create what they wish for or need. Interventions based on psychoneuroimmunologic research (the body-mind connection) are described.

Note: art therapy; patients with HIV or AIDS

Keyword(s): Art therapy; acquired immune deficiency syndrome; human immunodeficiency virus; adulthood

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