Introduction

Art interpreting therapy is a form of psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy. The basic element is art produced through painting or drawing in the therapy sessions.1 The method was developed through therapeutic work with children and adolescents presenting with neurotic, psychotic and developmental disturbances.

The method is based on Freud's main work, “Traumdeutung” (The Interpretation of Dreams); his method of free association and psychoanalysis; modified child-analysis and psychoanalytically oriented play therapy.

There are several special problems connected with child psychotherapy: a) children prefer action to verbalization; b) they prefer externalizing to introspection when it comes to solving problems; c) the method of free association is not easily adapted to child analysis; d) many children have a low tolerance to the painful and anxiety-provoking effects of psychotherapy. Also, children do not often make their own decisions about beginning, continuing, or completing treatment. All of these factors are interrelated.

By introducing play into the therapy situation, child therapists were able to overcome some of the difficulties mentioned above. Nevertheless, I have often found play therapy to be unsatisfactory because it lacks a medium that will ensure a continuous creative process.2

Although child analysis has some unfavourable aspects, it is not without advantages. A child's personality is developing all the time, problems have been allowed to influence the child's psychological structure for a limited time only, and the possible effects of problems on character development are thus less pronounced. The tendency to intellectualize is not as developed in children, leaving their feelings more accessible than in most adults. Their dreams in particular are less distorted by efforts to condense and displace issues, and consequently their latent dream wishes are easier to interpret.3 A state of transference is often established fairly easily with children; it is