Art Psychotherapy. Vol. 1, pp. 185-192. Pergamon Press, 1973. Printed in the U.S.A.

ART PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE PROPHYLAXIS OF PSYCHIC HEALING*

ERNEST HARMS

I58 East 95 Street, New York City

IT IS generally claimed that in the frame of the recent advance of study of the mental ailments of man the realization of insight into the importance of the prophylactic aspect is one of the most impor- tant achievements. The prevention of mental and psychic ills before they come to full development and the early arrest of beginning abnormal condi- tions in human inner life are of exceeding impor- tance. They have become the major scientific concerns of scores of sincere scientific undertakings. There cannot be any doubt that in the forefront of application of the arts for therapeutic purposes, which concern us in this Journal, considerations also of the prophylactic aspect must be our serious task. We must realize that the problems of prophylactic use of arts as such, as well as in relation to actual psychotherapy, will reveal to us problems of pri- mary importance.

Of course these problems do not start at the door, so to speak, or outside the door of applica- tion of therapy and especially of art psychotherapy in the wider frame of treatment. As we must come to realize in the course of plans invested in this Journal, art as such must be viewed in much wider aspects than merely as a tool for p~chotherapy” For instance, it not only can have considerable diagnostic importance (Harm:, 1940) for recognizing specific psychopathology; we must also have aware- ness of the enormously extended role of art in the entire human existence. Of course we must be care- ful to define within a definite frame the role art has within psychotherapy. Only in this way will we be able to get a clear picture about the prophylactic role it can assume.

Establishing definite clarity in this respect will also demand that we establish what we actually mean by “art,” recognizing the rather loose applica- tion of the term which we encounter at every turn. We do not mean by “art” the art of playing tennis, the art of putting together a complicated mechan- ical instrument, or outwitting someone in a compli- cated diplomatic discussion. We mean by “art” the extended concept of fine art as the desire to refine our existence - an elementary human desire. We find it so in the pottery and ornamentations of prehistoric man or in the nonverbal creative expres- sions of a toddler’s scribbling. This desire for expression reaches from such most elemental infant scrabbling to the artistic greatness of a Leonardo or Wrer. It is equally expressed in the psychopatho- logical pictorial utterances of an imbecile or those of an almost incurable psychotic inmate of a mental institution (Bleuler, 195 I).

That this creative art might be applied positively to disturbed or pathologically involved inner human life is not a new idea, although its development into a systematic technique is presentiy come to an active stage of development. Almost two hundred years ago an Equirol and a Reil were convinced that specially planned and therapeutic~ly prepared activ- ity might be helpful in the care of the insane. They further believed that beyond mere working-therapy activity, involving the aesthetic impulses of rhythm and harmony had an intensive re-establishing influ- ence upon disturbed inner functioning, and this was accomp~shed by only a small step, once the con- cept of activity as a serious aid to the insane had taken root.

*Requests for reprints should be sent to Ernest Harms, 158 East 95 Street, New York City.

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186 ERNEST HARMS

On the other hand, ethnologists and cultural anthropoio~sts have emphasized the actual need of aesthetic expression in the development of man from the earliest times. We can look into the world of primitive man and the enormous aesthetic crea- tions any high culture of man has produced in its religious as well as practical life expressions. The literature and writings of these human worlds of art and aesthetic expressions are without limits. How- ever, there are scant utterances as to the impact of these worlds of art upon human mental health conditions. We may now ask the question, “Has the lack and neglect of the artistic creative impulse had a serious influence on the status of mental health at any time?” Once - 150 years ago - an American psychiatrist wrote a little book warning of overcul- tivation as a cause of mental abnormality (Brigham, 1832). In its time the book was a sensation, but it was soon forgotten. However, in the last hundred years the impressive insight has come about as to the importance of art and of planned creativity for the sound development of our offspring. We also have become diagnostically and otherwise interested in the art products of the mentally deranged (Prinz- horn, 1972). However, the question of the actual wider didactic role of the human aestheticaf impulse has become more and more of an undercurrent. Of course we have “art of any kind,” and a rather small and singular group of society - the artists - do produce it. We like the pleasantness of enjoyment of various degrees of art around us, throwing a pleasant light on our “dusty” existence. But we must go back a hundred and fifty years to read the vehement writings of one of the very great men of Western civilization, calling for the re-establishment of the basic role of art in human existence. I am referring to Friedrich von Schiller’s famous but totally forgotten set of letters about the need of an “Aesthetic Education of Mankind.” The great humane. ideafistic poet and philosopher postulated that beauty and its experience were among the most innate faculties of man which had to be developed and properly educated if human existence should flourish and man have a cultural future. Such gen- eral insight and the call for such basic aesthetical education have generally been few and usually are formed by writers in the essayistic presentation. There are writers like Ruskin or Walter Reed, in our day, without practical didactic influence. But in our time hardly any voice is to be heard which tries to impress the fact that the lack of some kind of

aesthetic influence and creative outlet is a serious cause of nervousness or even mental derangement. However, it is in continuation of the evidence of such facts that the impulse has come about to try to find healing impulses from the application of art to the various forms of mental and psychic dis- orders.

I have in these last sentences gone beyond the train of thought I had intended to pursue. That is the wider didactic role of aesthetic human desires and their education and how they comprise a basic impulse in our total existence. When today we claim that art can have a definite therapeutic impact upon human nature there must be a latent disposition ior normal art experience into which our therapeutic manipulations will transform the abnormal condi- tions. It is this normal aesthetic nature for the education of which Schiller appealed. Outside the therapeutic province, there is an educational world for these aesthetic impulses as Schiller envisioned them which today a*e neither properly seen nor spoken of.

During the past decades, however, impulses have started - of which this Journal is one - to attempt a reconstruction of general aesthetic impulses by educational means. The aim of these impulses goes further than our present art education, which is predominantly an education in art techniques; while the aim of the new undertakings is the development of a general aesthetic sense. However, these at- tempts have set themselves a somewhat wider scope than the purely aesthetic one. They want to revrve and train creativity in an unlimited concept. Creativ- ity, as should be known, is not a term restricted to the artistic life. There is philosophical, scientific, technical, even political and religious creativity. Although the main representatives place aesthetic creativity in the foreground, the formulation as well as the practica! application is not too definite. Henry Schaefer-Simmern and Victor Lowenfeld deserve the acknowledgement of having most inten- sively advanced the concrete concept of the need of art creativity as an essential didactic element (Schaefer-Simmern. 1947; Lowenfeld, 1952. 1957; Dewey. 1934). Rudolf Arnheim most intensively worked on the psychological fundamentals for aesthetic experience in the scope of present-day psychologtcal and philosophical approaches. I am. however, also well aware that tendencies exist which oppose any application of the concept of creativity for non-aesthetic organization. Viewed within our

ART PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE PROPHYLAXIS OF PSYCHIC HEALING 187

therapeutic frame, we must concede that all these non-aesthetic activities are far from having a similar therapeutic value and impact. Since the earliest attempts of modern therapy, various non-artistic means have been applied as occupational or thera- peutic help to mental patients. We must claim that they have had much less therapeutic impact than art therapy has proved to have. Psychologically evalu- ated artistic- activity has a much wider range of impact upon the human psyche:

In artistic creativity, many more emotional, voli- tional, and unconscious factors are involved. We also know that developmentally, long before a child matures, his intellectu~ abilities and his artistic abilities are on the go. A child plays and in this way releases his activity and early infantile creativity impulses in what we call child art. We know finally how the nonverbal character of most art experiences in children and adults is used when they cannot or do not want to communicate verbally. It is espe- cially that area of experience in which the various forms of psychopathology are expressed and can therefore be made an important element of diag- nosis (Harms. 1947). On the therapeutic side we know that a variety of therapeutic impulses are released, as for instance, clarification, emotional balance, solving of conflicts, and SO on.

As it was so lucidly expressed by Schiller, aes- thetic experience and expression are innate and elementary expressions of human nature. Without an underlying normal relationship to artistic expres- sion, art psychotherapy could not have any deep- reaching success. There are aesthetic dispositions and leanings in the normal human being, therefore, which should receive a far better development and - I may add - utilization, than what we offer in this respect educationally. Somewhat radical opin- ions have been voiced to the effect that nervousness or even psychopatholo~ supposedly were due to the lack of aesthetic or artistic expression especially for children and even adults. Althou~ I am reluc- tant to subscribe to this claim, the concept lies within the frame of the basic thesis we are attempt- ing here to present; namely, that prophylaxis, in regard to mental pathology, to which we aim to apply art psychotherapy, ought to be viewed as a specific form of therapeutically geared art education which is our didactic task to develop. Of course the kind of art education presently offered, especially in our public and high school systems, has Iittle of the character and quality of such prophylactic art edu-

cation. It misses almost totally the impact upon the psychic inner life of the student. Now in entering the actual pre~ntation of prophylactic art treat- ment, it must be emphasized that we have to deal with various forms and stages which require a rather different approach.

First, there is the form of individual deviate conditions which we cannot designate as psycho- pathological. The help they need is near art psycho- therapy, but it is more accurately designated as remedial education. Here are some examples:

A four-year-oid boy who appeared exceptionally able had a difficult “no-saying” episode. The par- ents were unable to manage him and enrolled him in a kindergarten where a therapeutic~ly informed art teacher understood the necessity of bridling his fantasy and hyperactivity with painting.

Next is the case of a slightly educationally retarded girl, the daughter of a widow who never had time for her child because of the strain of wage earning. One of her teachers, trained in art therapy, developed in her an interest in handicrafts to which she responded excellently.

The third case involved a 15year-old girl who was overweight due to thyroid and menstruation troubles. She was under the care of a pediatrician who voiced to me his fear that she might slip into sch~ophrenia. She then went to board with an 6lder woman artist of considerable therapeutic insight who totally refeatured her psychologically and introduced her to art life. The girl developed so well that after two and a half years she asked me if she could be admitted to a high school equivalency course since she wanted to go to an art college.

The next case involved a 17-year-old “good for nothing.” He was the son of a psychopathic widow whose only remedy was “to give him all the money he wanted for his whims.” He was twice kicked out of private schools, smoked pot, and planned to become a pusher. However, his first encounter with the police scared him so that he gave up this idea. He spent his time on movies, discotheques, and girls. At one time when he was drunk he was hit by a car and had to be hospitalized. While in the hospital he was under the care of a mature nurse - an amateur sculptress - who had had some art therapy experi- ence at the therapy center at which she worked. The nurse told me that she knew “how to handle such a fellow.” After three months the boy himself told me that he liked doing sculpture so much that he might become a second Michelangelo.

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Following are a few reports of the successful application of this method with adults.

A widower who lost his only son in an accident took “refuge” in drinking A pub pal interested him in painting which caught on with him. “When you paint, you cannot think on your misery.” So he began to paint in all. his free time.

.A young suburban matron did not know “what to do with herself,” other than playing cards. going to Bingo games, and reading pulp magazines. In the main street of her town a store front exhibited amateur art by a women’s club. She joined the club and “found the Erst activity she had enjoyed in her iife.”

A divorcee was drinking heavily and lived a *‘disorderly” life. She met a young artist with whom she started an affair. During the visits to his studio she became interested in painting. Her playful attempts to paint herseif revealed an amazing artistic ability which she started to take seriously upon the persuasion of her boyfriend. She enlisted in an art school and won the class prize during the first year.

These cases are raw material - so to speak - for the aspect of an educational approach on the remedial line of human and sociai derangement, which by this prophylactic form of art therapy can have an exceedingiy important effect. They are united by the basic aspect that a variety of art techniques can be applied in a carefully determined manner to overcome abnormal conditions in most areas of human existence. From the point of view of established art psychotherapy the cases here reported co&d be multiplied many times. But they shouid be viewed only as individ~~al exem~li~cation. However, they make evident an impressive aspect for application of art in this immensely important aspect. This means if properly co- or subordinated art therapy, couid become a widely to recommend method.

In the cases presented we have not been dealing with actual psychopathic individuals but deviates of various kinds. However. in dealing therapeutically, in all these cases individuals with a certain degree of art psychotherapeutic insight undertook the active function. It is essential in cases like these that a certain amount of professional knowiedge or ability be applied for any hope of success. Actually in such cases a specific degree of professiona insight is that strategical element without which art psychotherapy should not be attempted. It is the great defqult of much popular attempts of applying art in this or

that way for help that this professionai insight is lacking.

A second prophylactic aspect is one in which neither psychopathological. physiopathological. or sociopathological factors are symptomatically pre- sented or evident.

One might best designate this type as that of individuals who are latently vulnerable to psycho- pathology. Their conditioning to become psycho- pathic is innate or constitut~ona1. If they are lucky and their lives “go straight.” they may never de- veiop a psychopathic symptom or a neurotic condi- tion. However. they have their “peculiarities.” They may be temperamental. have strong typological personality traits, unusual habitual attitudes. charac- ter weaknesses and indecisiveness or constitutionally conditioned one-sidedness. All these are NOT patho- Logical traits. But they can cause or seriously condi- tion psychopatholo~.

There can be no doubt fhaf our approach must be different from what we might consider to be a therapeutic one. We are dealing with a pathology that does not or does not yet exist. If we are sound and realistic we might attempt only a forum which we could designate as one of remedial ~dmxrion. In such patients we can only envision certain abnormal behavior patterns. They are not evident from symptoms. And acting upon mere guessing is a dangerous attitude in any therapy. However, we should also be equipped to deal with such slight behavioral educational deviations.

We need a special art didactic strategy to deal with these deviations or behavioral attitudes. More than anywhere efse, a ~~~l~~~~en~ ~~e~~~y seems to be advisable in these cases. It seems inadvisable to use suppressive, rejective, or even punitive therapy. It would mean “making an issue” out of an unes- sential matter and preparing the road for an actual pathology. We would do well to start with an attempt to achieve insight into positive tendencies in the patient toward such attitudes as could be used as a basis for creative or art activity. Such impulses should be brought to the fore and devel- oped so that they can become a major activity desire which will absorb the negative impulses. In this way we aim for a therapeutically estabtished replacement by compensation of undesirable atti- tudes. I have previously described one such posi- tive therapeutic techmque as “Tabu Therapy” (Harms, 1970). This method is a somewhat more time-consuming and slower process but the rest&s

ART ~~Y~~OT~E~APY AND THE PROEIYLAXIS OF PSYCHfC HEALING

are surer and of more lasting success. However, this method is also rather novel in

regard to an application in which aesthetic impulses are involved. If we apply art to evident psychopath- ology we have to expect pathology. If we deal here with slight deviant behavior we face a psychological picture which should oniy be approached in an educational way. In evident pathology the thera- peutic process will definitely need to be initiated and directed by the therapist in the educations therapeutic approach. We ~0~~~ da well ro @v to place the ini~~~~e wifh zhe p&m h~~s~~~

What we want to achieve with this edu~atjon~ therapy is basicaliy the same as that achieved by full-fledged psychotherapy. We want to normalize the patient’s total psychological behavior. This means his intellectual, emotional, volitional, ego, and unconscious behavior. By feeding and vitalizing aesthetic functioning we expect to remove any tendencies to abnormality. Stating as we did above that we ought to give the initiative and any further impulses for such prophylactic therapy over to the patient does not, of course, mean that the therapist should stand by and take a totally inactive role. He will have to provide the frame for the treatment as well as all the therapy equipment, and, indeed, offer encouragement, technical instruction, and advice.

In many cases a careful study of the personality of the “becoming” patient is not only advisable but of the utmost importance. Often the impulse for creative activity is an unclear or half-conscious one. By the aid of a well-set strategy the choice and initial approach require assistance for the thera- pist. Frequently the follow-up is equally important. Failures and d~s~our~ement require the therapist to step in. Following are a few examples of prophy- lactic art therapy of which it ought to be said that they are not meant as statutory formulas for rou- tine i~tation, and indi~du~ haloing should be developed for each patient.

1. An oversized, husky f 2.year-old boy had lost his father at an early age. Without parental guidance, he became more and more unmanageable for the overburdened mother and two younger sisters. He “flew off the handle” at the slightest provocation, and raised hell with everyone. His school refused to keep him and no other school seemed willing to accept him. He always looked for strong fellows as comp~ions and tried to make friends with truck drivers and workmen. His room was friled with “outdoor” paraphern~ia: canes, fish-

ing poles, tent posts and the like. The wall was covered with pictures of rugged sports and moun- tain climbing, He especially collected canes of odd shapes. This suggested the idea of making him inter- ested in making canes himself. It caught on and the whittling knife became his constant companion. Whittling soon changed to woodcarving, into which he poured all his energy and for which he built up an overreaching idealism. After a year he enlisted in an art school for woodcarving.

2. A severely introverted girl of 16 who had been badly troubled by puberty. Doctors feared the develo~ent of an acute sc~zophrenia. She had never been able to attend school, but when in a good mood could register 80 in a modified I.Q. test. Most of the time she sat at the window, gazing down on to the street or playing meaninglessly with a string or a few buttons. Sometimes she listened to soft music, She did not like television. The only company she kept was with an old woman who had taught her to sew on buttons and repair a tear in a dress or piece of cloth. It was noted that she had a very fine and rather ~to~s~ng color sense by which she matched materials. This small activity scheme was used to activate her to make her famil- iar with weaving on a small loom. The first attempts failed, because the loom selected was too large. However, success was later achieved with a ribbon loom. Day in and day out she sat at her machine and played with all kinds of self-selected colors and motifs. The independence and freedom of speed made her accept this simple kind of art activity which carried her on to mental revival.

3. A young lawyer had become a member of a firm which, without his evolvement, had gotten into severe troubles and was closed by the courts, Disgusted, he turned away from law and went into the wholesale business. He was not un~c~e~ful but disliked the job. As ~ompen~tion he read rather involved law cases which f~cinated.h~. In a sent& mental way, as he put it, they bolstered his spirits so that he was able to go on. Once in a while he did a little journalism which showed his talent with a pen. A therapist suggested he try to write crime or detective stories. At first he rejected the idea, but then, in low periods, he tried. He was “terribly” successful. And this was how one of our best-known detective-story writers sta@ed.

4. Au ofd maid, over forty, worked as a ftie clerk. She only fmished high school but knew she was not ~te~gent. She was the only child of a

190 ERNEST HARMS

widow who almost died in the difticult childbirth and was invalided for life. She therefore held the confirm conviction that her role in life was to take care of her mother. She worked her daily office hours, came home, cleaned the house, and cooked for her mother and herself. Then she read news- papers or popular magazines and went to bed. That was what her life consisted of. She felt unhappy all the time. But she was convinced it could be no better or different. The mother complained con- stantly about the quarters and conditions of the place. So the daughter got some paint and tried to redecorate by herself since there was not enough

money for a painter. The neighbors admired her work and asked her to decorate their apartments. She earned a few dollars from this and speculated as to whether she could make a living from this type of work. But she felt too weak and unable to shoulder such a job. Someone gave her a painting set which encouraged her to “play around with painting.” Again neighbors admired her work and some coaxed her to go to art school. This’became the beginning of a new life for her. She kept up her office job but developed a semi-professional exis- tence as a painter which became the joy of her life.

The common factor in these four stories is that the individuals were not pathological but existed under unfavorable conditions. To relieve these conditions and help to avoid their becoming patho- logical various forms of art activities were used to overcome the individual dilemmas. In a prophylactic way they were introduced and guided to such art activity. No direct art psychotherapy was applied, although to a certain degree they were guided and supervised. In these ways Iay the strength and doubtless the success of the method.

There is still another type of individual to whom a somewhat different remedial application of art activity seems possibly of considerable help. This is a much larger group than that mentioned above. These are the many individuals who do not know what to do with themselves. They do not know what abilities they have and do not know where to look for satisfaction. These are the loafers and ,aim- less wanderers. Others may play cards all day or listen to pop music on the radio. When they find a job it is of the lowest kind and only lasts for a short time. However, one does not find these indi- viduals only in the lowest social brackets. They are in the upper classes as well, where ~nan~ially and socially sheltered.

Most of these people are neither psychotic nor neurotic. One must classify them as educationally and socially maladjusted or retarded. They are a most unhappy lot, blundering everything they try and, whatever they do, falling out of the commu- nity and society. They fill the welfare rolls and greatly contribute to low-grade criminality. A large percentage end in mental or social institutions.

Art, as we understand it, seems to lie far off from their circle of existence. Indeed, if one wants to apply art, in whatever form, to their restitution, one must first go through a long preparation. We need to undertake quite an intensive search into each and every corner of the outer and inner exis- tence of such people until we are able to find the necessary elements for our strategic approach. It is particularly with this type that we must not be misled by the first symptoms we encounter since the major conflicts in such persons lay deep within their consciousness which really must consider the unconscious. Many of these people have also learned to develop rational or emotional defenses for their way of existence, behind which they hide their true psychological existence.

An exceedingIy important factor when trying to establish a personality profile of such persons is to determine whether the evident maladjustment or retardation is a constitutional or educational condi- tion. Quite different approaches are required for each. If we are dealing with educational retardation we ought to proceed on the prophylactic line. In cases with evident constitutiomd background, we might as well use previously mentioned means of a therapeutic character from the other side of the methodological border. We must, however, remain aware SO that we may switch from one to another at any time.

One of the first challenges the therapist must meet is to determine the symptom he faces and whether it will respond to art therapy in a real and substantial way. For instance, I like to point out the fact that many young people like to draw cari- catures. They like to copy comic-strip scenes or individu~ figures or do funny motifs from their own fantasy. Among the considerable number of youths who drew comics, I met only one who later became a professional caricaturist. But I can register quite a few who rapidly gave up their “cartooning.” The factor seems to be of considerable interest for our study. Cartooning evidently is not an aesthetic expression, a kind of art, a creativity expression or

ART PSYCHUTHERAPY AND THE FR~P~~AX~S OF PSYCHfC HEALING 191

outlet. It is figurative documentation in the same sense as is our letter-writing. It expresses juvenile irony and a kind of revenge or protest which runs as an undercurrent through juvenile and adult life. Since it is based upon negative emotions it is in some respects actually the reverse of an aesthetic creativity. Therefore one does well to avoid the comic area of experience when one hopes to awaken positive aesthetic impulses. There are quite a number of other impul~s which can be. tapped for aesthetic creative development. Schaefer- Simmern has made the multitude of sources impres- sive as well as the difficulties one encounters in such attempts. However, youths who express their desire for elementary aesthetic experiences in rhythm and harmony, for instance, are usually not difficult to activate in this respect. However, on the prophylactic educational level we must definitely adjust any attempt of activation to the various spe- cifically given conditions, age level, stage of matura- tion, educational and social status. Especiahy we must carefully select the specific material and tech- nique to be applied. Present border application of art therapy seems to be paralyzed by the use of paint and color. It is true that projection into the two-dimensional seems the most elementary and easiest form of artistic projection. However, it proves to be intimately related to the basic aesthetic patterns of Western civilization. If we take time to analyze and examine the factors involved, we will find that from various points of view painting is by far the best material for most art therapy. We wilf find, for instance, that genetically the child is more inclined to sculptural expression, as we aiso know that ethogenetic~Iy practical forms preceded color and paint in arehaeolo~~al documentations. However, because of the p~e~ond~t~ons of civilization we find humans from the fourth to the fifth year of life prefer color activity to any other. Included in this, of course, is the activity of drawing and black/white expressions.

However, in wanting to vitalize aesthetic impulses, we actually find in most individuals that we have to deal with a rather chaotic preconditioning which is determined from the great variety of experiences each and every one is exposed to. There is, for instance, no evaluation scheme as regards age. We may find that geriatric indi~du~s respond in the same way to simpfe tactile. rhythmical experiences as do small children, and we may find a three-year- old has a definite preference for crayoning. What-

ever aesthetic creative experience we may want to apply t we must attempt to bring ouf positive psychological experiences in our client. The “liked” experience is the A and 0 of all prophylactic at- tempts. We must also be aware of how much aes- thetic creativity is based on nonintellectual - or it might be better to say - nonrational psychic activ- ity and sources. What to date has been poorly neglected in all aesthetic research is the participa- tion of and the relationshjp to the uncon~ious part of the human psyche. We know from elementary as well as sop~sticated p~~hoiog~~~ and abnormal psychic experiences how much art can help to re- lieve. Think how much simple and naive emotional upset is released in poetry; even our greatest poets have expressed love, hatred, touching and upsetting emotions in rhymed lines. Students of the problems of psychopathology and art know how much work with art may help the simple neurotic patient as weft as the sophisticated one. In an article on August Strindberg (Harms, $923) I described bow this gigantic author painted symbolic pictures when in periods of severe upset he was “speechless’” and unable to write. It is common to refieve certain nervousness and discomfort by means of thoughtless doodling and scribbling. Nonverbal expression of this kind seems to be an elementary human need. When this builds up to more serious emotional and unconscious experiences we may today rely on our own amateur psychology impulses since no real didactic has yet been developed to include such means and measures in everyday knowledge or edu- cation or adult education patterns. There is an enormously large field in which various art activities along prophylactic, therapeutic, and educations lines could create what might be called social or cchural living patterns, which ultimately would mean a higher pattern of civilization. This may sound high-hatted, but if one speculates further on such matters one will easily come to see the enor- mous impact of such methods of adjustment. In a paper entitled ““The Doctor’s Neurosis” (Harms, 1943) I pointed out years ago the fact that many physicians, guided by the impulse for compensation from the many disagreeable elements in their profes- sion, tend to undertake an art activity: either music, punting, or sculpture. Equally, among lawyers and other professional workers whose activity puts them under considerable strain, one finds the tendency towards such art activity, which one can easiiy in- clude in the category of prophylactic activity. Such

192 ERNEST HARMS

singular factors, of which quite a few exist. can only point in the direction of proper didactic con- sideration which will have to develop a rather exten- sive educational technical system. BasicaIly we must be conscious that ail such attempts must start out not from art technical or aesthetic aspects but from a psychological one, which to a gieat degree must evaluate the psychic function in regard to their acceptability of such activity advances. We are taking the wrong approach by walking around with drawing paper and crayons trying to induce children and grown-ups to “do art.” This cam&t fead to the psychological prophylactic benefit we ought to aim for. For this purpose we have to learn the actual psycho~o~ca~ impact of various arts and art mate- rials and the techniques to be used in their proper application. To know what we ought to know and be able to do what we ought to do, we are just beginning to learn.

However, it is at this point that we are coming back to Schiller’s quest for aesthetic education. It is in this way that we again can take up the long- forgotten classical educations tradition.

ft seems justified to me to discuss here a theta- peutic technique which in recent decades has tried, with considerable intensity, to gain a center position in the psychotherapeutic field: group p~yc~~t~er- spy. Little critical evaluation has been made in regard to the view of definite successfulness of this therapeutic method. There are several theories re- garding the proper effect of group treatment upon the individual. However, none envisions what in pre-psychological times had been a beneficial and socially essential means of aesthetic group activities. I mean that of house music and other collective music~m~i~g. In our age of radio music and band- playing, insight has been lost as to the advantages of a house music unit in bringing together family and friends. We might add the singing groups Like the

“Liederkranz’” and the square dance clubs. knitting and sewing bees. These social gatherings certainly have a serious psycholo~cai and sociai psychological side. Far from causing belligerence to grow within the community, these gatherings create an atmos- phere of harmony and balance as. basically. any musical stimulation wil1 do. The aesthetic of such elementary impact of these activities certainly will have done more than a chest full of tranquilizers or other pharmaceuticals with which we try to stimu- late or pacify our psychic lives. We certainly do not want to see the civilization of the “Wick strump~’

back. We want rather to regain the powers of “beauty as that gift from heaven which makes laugh the heart and stop the tears.”

REFERENCES

BLEULER, E. (1951) Textbook of P&Carry. (En&h Translation) 546, New York.

BRIGHAM, A. (1832) Remarks on the influence of Mental ~t~t~~va~ion wd Me~taf Excitement upon ffealth. Boston.

DEWEY, J. (1934) Art as Experience. Putnam, New York. HARMS, E. (1923) Augusr Srrindberg ais Muler. Kunst &

Ruenstler, Berlin. HARMS, E. (1940) Kinderkunst als diagnostisches Wifsmit-

tel bei infant&n Neurosen. 2. ~~~der~s.vchjaf. 6, 129-140.

HARMS, E. (1943) The professional neurosis of the physi- cian. Dis. nerv. S_W. 4, 310-314.

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