هنردرمانی بیانی: دعوت به گفتگو

Pergamon The Arts in Psychotherapy, Vol. 23, No. 5, 43 1434, 1997 Copyright 0 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0197~4556/97 $15.00 + .OO PI1 SO197-4556(96)00060-3 EXPRESSIVE ARTS THERAPY: A CALL FOR DIALOGUE STEPHEN K. LEVINE, PhD, DSSc* Encouraged by Robert Landy’s call for dialogue between different disciplines in The Arts in Psycho- therapy (Landy, 1996) and by the thoughtful responses to the articles on psychodrama and drama therapy that followed in that same issue, I would like to take this opportunity to respond to Frances F. Kaplan’s review of Minstrels of Soul: Intermodal Expressive Therapy, by Paolo J. Knill, Helen Nienhaus Barba and Margo N. Fuchs (Kaplan, 1996). I am glad to see that books on expressive arts therapy are being noticed and re- viewed by creative arts therapists. At the same time, I wonder what a perspective from outside a field needs in order to do justice to the essence of that discipline. At the very least, the outsider must practice that “nonattachment from views,” which Stephen Snow, quoting Thich Nhat Hanh, recommends in his article as a precondition for dialogue (Snow, 1996). It seems to me that there are two views in particu- lar that the review is attached to: (a) that understand- ing the therapeutic nature of the arts is to be modelled on the analytic procedures of the natural sciences, and (b) that interdisciplinary work is questionable and needs justification. I would like to challenge both of these views. With regard to the first position, the reviewer con- sistently uses pejorative terms like “opaque,” “fuzzi- ness of thought” and “mystical” to describe the method of understanding used in the book; instead, she welcomes the parts that are “more concrete,” have “welcome clarity” and are “more accessible.” One might think that this was merely a temperamental preference were it not that she recommends an alter- native method of understanding based on “research in evolutionary psychology” to overcome our lack of understanding “about art and aesthetics.” Citing an article that purports to show that there is “evidence for a genetic component in aesthetic pref- erences for certain landscapes,” the reviewer goes on to state that “this research suggests that our fascina- tion with mystery-r the exploratory urge-may it- self be biologically determined.” I wonder how many readers of The Arts in Psychotherapy believe in this so-called “genetic component” for aesthetic prefer- ences. What would that make of the history of art? When perspective was introduced into Western paint- ing, was there a genetic mutation involved? Does the specific character of Chinese landscape painting result from a different “genetic component”? Would a Westerner who has a passion for classical Chinese landscape (as I do) be violating his genetic code and, if so, how is this even possible? I think the absurdity of these conclusions stems from a mistaken theoretical premise: the notion that art can be understood from the perspective of the natural sciences. I will not go into the history of epis- temology or the basic theoretical distinctions between the explanatory methods of the natural sciences and the method of understanding used in the Geisteswis- senschaften or human sciences that have been devel- oped over the last century. Suffice it to say that no respectable philosopher of science, to my knowledge, has ever claimed that there is a “genetic component” to “aesthetic preferences,” for the very good reason that this violates a basic scientific premise: the *Stephen K. Levine is Associate Professor of Social Science, York University (Toronto); Director, ISIS-Canada; and Executive Co-Chair, International Association of Expressive Arts Therapists. He is the author of Poiesis: The Language ofPsychology and the Speech of the Soul (Palmerston Press, 1992). 431