Off-shore: A deconstruction of David Maclagan's and David Mann's ‘Inscape’ papers

Round the clock: A therapist's and service user's perspective on the image outside art therapy

“…In this split we can locate the 'therapy' in art therapy either in the art or the talk and this, Skaife (2008) argues, suppresses our awareness of the wider context of actions of which they are part. This pertains to the processes of making, looking, being looked at and being with, which reinforce the reality of the body in relation to the world through time.…”

“…Referring specifically to art therapy groups, Skaife (2000Skaife ( , 2001Skaife ( , 2008 has written about the tension between the visual and verbal modes of expression in analytic art psychotherapy groups and the tendency for either one to become subordinate to the other in our thinking and clinical practice. In this split we can locate the 'therapy' in art therapy either in the art or the talk and this, Skaife (2008) argues, suppresses our awareness of the wider context of actions of which they are part.…”

“…Although the Stiletto image is explained largely within the context of Andre's autobiography here it is not done without awareness of other relational constellations or its journey through different contexts Á in art therapy where it was first seen, outside art therapy, in public events where it has both been seen and described without being seen, and this article where it has acquired a fuller narrative. Skaife (2008) suggests that an explanation can come at any point in the life of an image and if the image has a life of its own then looking at it in a particular way at a particular time does not mean that we will know it entirely.…”

Image: Reflections on the treatment of images and dreams in art psychotherapy groups

“…This reorganization therefore is not directed at disconnecting patients from authorship and personal expression, but at setting opportunities for collective imagination to be exercised as springboard for a culture of open enquiry. Effectively this is a phenomenon of image autonomy potentially opening the way to one of personal autonomy and described by Skaife (2008) as patients' opportunity to view themselves imaginatively and from different perspectives.…”

“…The atypically sophisticated emotional handling of the visual material, for a public sector group, may be partly due to the narrative style and partly to the dynamic effect of the method. I am indebted to Gordon Lawrence's discovery and development of Social-Dreaming, the writings of Maclagan (2005), Mann (2006) and Skaife (2008) and to Lois Oppenheim's (2005) Neuro-psychoanalytic perspective on the connection between neurobiology, psychoanalysis and creativity. Accounts include personal experiences in the Social-Dreaming Matrix and anonymous, clinical material.…”