You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Johannes Bodtker, the author of Beyond Words practises as a Child Psychiatrist in Oslo, Norway. In his book he describes his work with children in short term psychotherapy using interpretive art therapy as a means of enabling these children to reach unconscious processes more readily. His book is based on five case studies, accompanied by an introduction which provides a theoretical background to his work. This is based on a psychoanalytic model adhering to the basic principles of Freud and Klein.
He uses Freud's understanding of the interpretation of dreams to explain the way in which art activity incorporates the mechanisms of displacement and condensation which become embodied within the symbolic content of an art work. This notion is coupled with the idea that through spontaneous visual expression and with the aid of sublimation, the child using art in this way creates the ability to express pre-conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings. Bodtker incorporates Freud's ideas on sublimation together with Kleinian object relations theory which he employs in his analysis and interpretation of these visual images. In this process he involves himself with the image making process as a whole, which would include the way in which a child paints and draws and how, for example, he might physically use his art materials. In addition to this he pays attention to the significance of the sequence of