Chuang Ting-Yun

This qualitative heuristic art-based thesis aimed to explore the role of response art in processing an art therapy trainee’s countertransference when confronted with anger from a client with schizophrenia in an open studio art therapy.

Countertransference has been acknowledged as important and has a far-reaching influence in a therapist-client relationship. Hence, how to be aware of, identify and manage countertransference has become one of the issues of contemporary art therapists. This thesis utilises a qualitative heuristic art-based methodology in art therapy clinical practice to explore how my series of response art reflects my personal subjective experiences that affect my feelings, reactions and responses when encountering anger from the specific client who displayed their anger alongside each session, as well as the nature and source of anger in human beings. 

This thesis emphasises the importance and reflexivity of response art in art therapy clinical practice, to explore how response art can (1) be used to understand and reflect on feelings and responses when encountering anger from a client who expressed anger to both myself and others within the group and also (2) consider the nature and importance anger plays in healthy expression and with clients with schizophrenia.

Act of Resilience approaches art-making as a form of self-care.

In navigating the fast-paced intensity of art therapy training, crochet is used as a portable medium to carve out moments of pause in daily life. Through its rhythmic, repetitive motion, the ongoing journey of art therapy is materialised in accumulative crocheted forms.

By shifting the site of creation away from the traditional studio, the work challenges the notion that art must occur within a fixed or designated space.