Pergamon
The
Arts
in
Psychotherapy.
Vol.
22,
No.
3,
pp.
217-221,
1995
Copyright
0
1995
Elsevier
Science
Ltd
Printed
in
the
USA.
All
rights
reserved
0197-4556195
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0197-4556(95)00020-8
FANTASY
AND
THE
AESTHETIC:
HAVE
THEY
BECOME
THE
UNINVITED
GUESTS
AT
ART
THERAPY’S
FEAST?
DAVID
MACLAGAN,
MA,
ARCA,
DipAT,
R.A.Th*
In
reading
much
of
the
recent
literature
on
art
ther-
apy-
in
Britain,
at
least-
I
am
struck
by
two
sig-
nificant
absences.
One
is
the
paucity
of
attention
given
to
the
actual
material
characteristics
of
an
image
to
what
I
shall
be
calling
its
aesthetic
qualities
and
the
other
is
the
little
use
made
of
fantasy,
whether
by
patient
or
by
therapist,
in
making
sense
of
an
image.
By
aesthetic
I
do
not
mean
either
its
accomplishment
in
technical
terms
(its
skill
representation,
for
exam-
ple)
or
its
beauty
in
purely
formal
terms
(its
balance
or
harmony,
for
example)
nor
some
hybrid
of
the
two
(such
as
the
avoidance
of
muddy
color
or
distorted
shape);
I
mean
the
full
range
of
qualities
in
itsfacture
or
handling,
whether
they
be
subtle
or
obvious,
rich
or
poor,
and
the
psychological
effects
that
are
their
inseparable
accompaniment.
By
fantasy
I
mean
the
ability
to
relate,
consciously
and
verbally
(rather
than
unconsciously),
to
a
picture
or
part
of
a
picture
with
an
intuitive
or
irrational
image.
This
image
may
or
may
not
be
involved
in
a
narrative,
but
it
belongs
to
a
loosely
figurative
idiom,
about
which
I
shall
say
more
later.
Sadly,
most
writing
about
the
actual
pictures
in
art
therapy,
as
opposed
to
analytical
descriptions
of
the
dynamics
of
the
therapeutic
relationship
(where
im-
ages
are
often
treated
as
mere
by-products),
is
dry
and
flat.
It
is
almost
as
if
there
were
some
fundamental
discrepancy
between
the
technical
terms
of
art
therapy
and
the
more
imagistic
or
metaphoric
language
that
would
be
appropriate
to
the
pictures
that
are,
after
all,
its
sine
qua
non.
I
cannot
help
thinking
that
this
is
in
part
a
reflection
of
the
marginal
and
subordinate
status
assigned
in
practice
both
to
the
aesthetic
aspects
of
a
picture
and
to
the
use
of
fantasy
as
a
way
of
exploring
its
potential
significance.
Although
there
are,
of
course,
local
exceptions
to
this
rule,
the
only
writers
I
have
come
across
in
the
field
who
provide
any
substantial
examples
of
a
dif-
ferent
perspective
are
Rita
Simon
(1992),
who
set
out
a
theoretical
basis
for
understanding
the
unconscious
significance
of
pictorial
form,
and
Shaun
McNiff
(1992),
who
exemplified
the
value
of
aesthetic
qual-
ities
and
fantasy
imagery
in
exploring
a
picture.
Even
founding
figures
in
the
background
to
art
therapy,
such
as
Freud
or
Jung,
showed
a
blindness
to
aesthet-
ics
and
a
bias
against
fantasy
that
has,
I
believe,
had
the
effect
of
disqualifying
these
features
and
making
them
suspect.
It
is
more
recent
figures,
such
as
James
Hillman,
to
whom
we
must
turn
for
glimpses
of
a
dif-
ferent
way
of
working
with
fantasy
and
the
aesthetic.
To
understand
how
things
have
reached
this
pass,
we
need
to
know
something
of
the
history
behind
the
“inferiority
complex”
afflicting
fantasy
and
the
aes-
thetic,
and
to
realize
that
the
secondary
position
they
currently
occupy,
where
they
serve
best
as
the
raw
material
for
analysis
to
work
on,
is
not
an
inevitable
consequence
of
their
nature,
but
the
result
of
long-
standing
prejudice
and
ingrained
misunderstanding.
Fantasy
has
a
long
and
distinguished
history
going
back
to
ancient
Greek
theories
of
perception,
but
in
18th
century
Romantic
England
it
acquired
its
modem
connotations
of
extravagance
and
unreality
largely
as
*David
Maclagan
is
a
Lecturer
in
the
Centre
for
Psychotherapeutic
Studies,
University
of
Sheffield,
United
Kingdom,
where
he
teaches
on
the
Art
Therapy
Diploma
course
and
runs
an
MA
in
art
and
psychotherapy.
217
