Properties of Natalistic Art
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Properties of Nataistic Art

NATALISM AS COMMUNICATION

In part, psychological wounds result from being unnoticed, unheard and unacknowledged. Particularly during trauma and extreme distress adults, children and even infants need validation and support. Hindman (1989) has demonstrated that the degree of long term psychological injury as a result of trauma is related more to the degree of validation and support following the trauma than the severity of violence during the traumatic event. Wood (1984) asserts "early damage makes for the more profound effect on the personality and occurs at a time when communication is wordless" (p. 63).

A degree of therapeutic healing occurs as a result of communication and witnessing. Janov (1983) relates a client's desperate need to have the trauma of birth validated even decades later, "I need to be understood with the same urgency that I needed my mother to understand my plight at birth" (p. 20). One natalistic artist spoke of the resolution of her early wounds being contingent on being "received, witnessed and acknowledged." She found, in creating natalism:

The art piece does what the ideal mother should have done -- reflect back to me my own experience. The art work serves as an ideal mother in terms of an acknowledgement of my experience. The sense of validation is even more so when people look at my art work and respond to it on an emotional level. Through their response I can know I have communicated directly what I feel. I feel for the expression to be complete it must be received, witnessed and accepted. In my journal writing it came to me that in a sense communication is not complete unless there is a receiver, unless there is that acknowledgement.

Having a compassionate witness to one's experience can be profoundly healing. It allows the suffering person to know she is worthwhile and valued.

To be heard one must first speak in a meaningful way. The act of meaningful communication is a courageous one (May 1975). London (1989) agrees:

Bearing witness, like any creative act, is a wilful expression of what it feels like to be yourself. It is a simple act and at the same time a courageous one. You speak for yourself and you speak of yourself. You tell your own story. (p. 84)

Beyond the initial courage to communicate, meaningful psychological material must be accessed and must have a means of communication. Art allows an avenue into the deeper realms of the self and simultaneously offers a vehicle to carry personal experience to others. In speaking of her natalistic production, Sarah asserts:

Art can go from my gut to somebody else's gut and in a sense bypass the head and rational thought. Art can bypass rational defenses and all those other things that we put in to filter out direct experience. I think often the power of art is it can conveys directly from my gut to your gut. I think that is what powerful art does. It cuts through all our defenses, all our intellectualization and rationalizing to get us right where we live. I think this explanation moves toward conveying the strong draw I have to create with art.

Sarah's art activity put her more in touch with her inner experience and also provided a bridge between her life experiences. In this manner art is personal communication within the self and to the self. Additionally Sarah found her art provided her with communication and a connection to others. Rogers (1993) echoes:

As we first journey inward through the expressive arts, we tap into the unconscious and become aware of new aspects of self, thus gaining insight and empowerment. Then, by connection to at least one other person in and empathic and supportive environment, we learn ways to relate to the community. As we learn how to be authentic and empowered in a small community, we are then inspired to move to the larger circle. We become creative and collaborative, being able to access our higher purpose and powers. This connects us to the world -- other cultures and nature -- with compassion. (p. 9)

Art communicates to the self and to others. Both forms of communication are therapeutic activity which facilitate personal acknowledgement and validation. When art communicates the artist sees herself validated and authenticated in the art and in the response of others. London (1989) assures:

The end of art is not art, but communication, or better still communion, breaking out of the solitariness and silence of one dimension of ourselves and making contact with the "other." That other may be intrapsychic: the conscious mind acknowledging the subconscious; or it may be interpsychic: one person meeting another; or it may even be transpersonal: one self touching the universe. (p. 74)

Between natalistic workshops Johanna had written a poem about the experience of one of her drawings. Johanna stated she wanted the poem read but would have trouble doing so herself. In response another workshop participant offered to read Johanna's poem. Her poem and drawing were about personal validation and empowerment. The healing process which was occurring through creative expression and communication, was furthered by the group process, an account of which follows:

MI: How did that feel to have such a strong voice, that powerful woman read it to you.

Johanna: It felt really good. It felt like it really said it for me the way I couldn't say it; like the way I really feel.

MI: Do you know that you're that powerful. That women see you as a very powerful woman, as a role model of a powerful woman even?

Johanna: I don't feel very powerful right now. It eludes me. I have a sense of it but I

MI: Yeah sure. It felt nice to have Brigette read it, it felt like I could hear her writing, you know that place that she built inside and how it was like a giving. The poem says a lot. Can you tell us about the drawing?

Johanna: It's just like what I wrote.

MI: How does the baby feel?

Johanna: I can't get there yet, I wish I could. I can only draw it, you know, I can't feel it.

MI: How do you feel after having Brigette read.

Johanna: More, like if I can own my own words or if I can accept that I wrote. I know that I will bridge it, and get to be that baby to that Mom; but right now I'm just it's like a realization of a loss, you know? It's just too much.

In my therapy I've come to know a lot, I've worked through a lot of feelings in all the years, but there's something different about this you know. I thought I felt it before but I think I feel it a lot more now than I did before. And I keep getting flooded with memories about my parents.

MI: Ok. Would anybody like to say something to Johanna?

Sarah: It's a really powerful piece. I'm moved by it.

Brigette: I find the colours very powerful in a very powerful way. Maybe, they are some of my favourite colours.

Johanna: Oh, I know I love the colours too.

Brigette: And I noticed the softness in the mother's face.

Johanna: Uh hum. It's angelic, eh? It's frightening.

MI: How so?

Johanna: I don't know. I just didn't think I could draw that kind of softness. It's almost like a nun, or like a holy person.

Cynthia: Madonna

Deborah: Actually I thought of that while also looking at yours, kind of Madonna and child.

MI: I think to be able to draw that, particularly to draw it with the depth of feeling inside, you have to be in touch with it, both able to see it, and to receive it.

Johanna: I know it will come.

MI: It has come. In order to draw that you have to be in touch with that.

Johanna: Ok.

MI: So it's there, it may mature more and it may spread; but it is there in order to be able to do that depth of art work.

Johanna: I didn't want a man in the picture. I think that's kind of sad in a way, but that's the way it is.

Brigette: Is this baby actually nursing?

Johanna: Probably. I couldn't make it distinct though.

Brigette: I keep looking from that to you sucking on your glasses.

(Laughter)

Johanna: Good observation.

The content of art may be so familiar to the artist that its voice goes unnoticed. At times it takes the comment of others for the artists' picture to begin working back as communication to the self. Deborah shares how the comment of another person affected her relationship with a natalistic drawing:

When Sarah saw my drawing she said, "Whoa. You've got my attention." It was interesting to hear her response because the drawing felt so congruent and familiar for me. Like it felt that it was just normal in terms of my image of what it was like in the womb. When I was looking at the drawing it did not feel like it was impacting for me. To me the picture did not feel like it stood out, it just felt congruent with how I imagined it was. With Sarah's emphatic response I knew it was a strong picture and it was saying a lot even though I was not in an objective position to see it and how it impacts.

In the natalistic workshop groups, individuals commented on the importance for them of having other group members viewing their work and the value of seeing other people's art. Another artist who did a natalistic drawing at home wanted to share the drawing with others in order to help the drawing speak to her. According to Brigette, "When I finished the drawing I sort of wanted to bring it for sharing with the group. I guessed it was probably the animal in the drawing and I thought that somehow by sharing it, I could learn something more about it."

The person who discovers art's ability for inner communication, self-awareness, and personal transformation can use art in the therapy setting or day to day life as a readily available personal guide and therapist. As Johanna commented:

One of the other people in the workshop had said, "when she did not know what she was feeling and she would just start to draw; then she would feel better and then she would hold the drawing against herself." I tried it and it worked for me as well. After the workshop it stayed with me as something that I could do if I did not know what I was feeling. I have a big pad of paper at home and some pastels. When I'm not certain what is going on with me I'll start to do a drawing.

I go with whatever colours or shapes happen. It is a kind of a communication. I might put the drawing close to my body, though sometimes I can't; I might just cry. The art work process can bring forth feelings and I can see what I am sad about. Doing the drawing and looking at it mirrors my inner self in a way that brings on my tears and allows an emotional release. The drawing is a way of looking and seeing what I can't if I just try to figure out what going on. It is something I cannot figure out with my head. When I tried to figure out with my head what was going on I often ended up giving up. Then I found I could either draw or just go inside to the universe and kind of have conversations with it. Getting in touch with that place helps me know what's going on for me. There are times I do not know what it is that is bothering me. I am agitated and anxious and I don't know what's going on. Now I can draw it out or I can just go into a state of relaxation and have it kind of shown to me. The drawings have been really helpful and I may write as well. I will draw and I write. Generally I draw and I write with the left hand. I let my left hand tell me everything even in the writing.

Several of the professional artists who were part of the Natalistic Art in Therapy Research population mentioned the significance to them of the validation they received by showing their work and having it received by people on an emotional level. Sarah stated, "For me, a lot of the experience with making art and having people see my art has been about being heard, being acknowledged and communicating my experience to people."

Emerson and I spoke about when personally revealing art is exhibited then one's deepest inner self is exhibited. There is the possibility of therapeutic validation from having one's art witnessed. But public exhibitions also carry the risk of deep personal wounding through the work being misunderstood or criticized. When art speaks from the deeper self, in part it is the vulnerable child within who is being exposed and made available through the art show. Unlike the therapy setting, the witnesses of public art may not be trained clinicians. The public audience does not have a professional obligation to be sensitive to psychologically vulnerable material. The artist who works on personal material and does a public show with that work must take care to have adequate boundaries and support of the inner child and inner self. This can be particularly true of exhibitions of natalistic art work due to its coming from forces at the very foundation of the psyche.

A LIFE FORCE IN THE WOMB

During natalistic regression, artists commonly experience contact with an order greater than themselves. Some artists refer to this as a life force, the cosmos, spirituality or "where it all started.1" Art activity (McNiff, 1989; Rogers, 1993) and pre- and perinatal regression (Grof, 1975; Adzema 1985) separately have been noted for their ability to assist people in making contact with the deepest realms of the inner self and the external universe. Art is often described in one form or another as "the search for meaning" (London, 1989). Cameron (1992) verifies that the journey of the artist is often "in essence, a spiritual path, initiated and practised through creativity" (p. xi). Accounts of a connection with the universe, a life force or spirituality as an aspect of early regression experiences from birth right back to just prior to conception (Grof, 1975; Laing, 1976; Lake, 1981; Farrant, 1993). Adzema (1985) notes:

These experiences often are related to gaining access to a time before the first "shutdown," which is the first time that trauma forces a retreat from one's full capabilities and consciousness. Our experience has been that the time before initial shutdown varies among people, but usually ranges from before the fertilization of the egg to some time in utero. (pp. 95-96)

Tragedies, pain and negative experiences may be identified during regression to conception and early embryonic life; conversely, individuals also draw pictures of, or speak about, a sense of hope; a connection to the universe; a sense of family history; something spiritual, a life force or energy; timelessness or boundlessness. In speaking of her natalistic drawing Sarah related:

The yellow represents some hope, and the blue as well; and the mauve -- nurturance and love. It was very important to me that those same colours that were inside me were also inside the womb and then beyond the womb so there is a sense of permeability with all life. It is like this sense of being this cosmic child. Just a part of all life.

There is some feeling of expansion. Moving out, feeling that moment of conception of the sperm piercing the egg and this burst of creation going on. I feel very hopeful when I look at this drawing now, at the orange and the yellow. Again the green being life, and purple for me is very spiritual on all levels. [The colours of her womb surround are green and purple]...a connection through all life, and through all time. This and the paradox of there being a sense of timeless, spaceless, unconfined moment. Occupying no space and at the same time all space.

For some, the natalistic conception-regression provides a vague, general or globalized sense of experience. Others perceive elements of details or may have clear insights about the influence of their conception experiences. The feeling of a conception drawing is often quite energetic, with lots of powerful colours, a combination of simple and sparse symbols and imagery, and a greater content of colours in the form of abstract natalistic scribbles or patches of colour. Occasionally, conception drawings have only a few simple lines. When clay sculpting is used as the natalistic art in therapy medium I have seen more of the conception art works that have quite simple lines and forms.

Reattaching to an experience of sacredness can occur in many places along the continuum of natalistic regression to the pre- and perinatal realm. Indeed, historically and cross-culturally rituals of transformation and searches for deeper meaning have involved rebirth and creation rites which quite accurately recreate biological birth or conception and early gestational events (Eliade, 1958; Irving, 1988). Noble (1993) allows:

In mystical scriptures of the East, intuitives have pondered the metaphysical aspects of conception for centuries. The ancient religious notions of the sperms as numen (spiritual force) and conception as numinous (filled with presence of divinity)....

In the old Christian tradition, the pneuma or spirit is called pneuma spermaticon. (p. 141)

Rebirth and creation rites employ a high degree of creative expressive activity. It is acknowledged that artistic expression and gestational regression connect the initiate with the larger cosmos and deeper dimensions of the self (Janus, 1991). Eliade (1958) states:

Although it is risky to compare religious documents belonging to such different ages and cultures, I have taken the risk because all these religious facts fit into a pattern.... From all this, one common characteristic emerges -- access to the sacred and to the spirit is always figured as an embryonic gestation and a new birth. (p. 58)

The quest for the primal gestational origins of spirituality or greater meaning is not limited to the ritual of organized religions. The sculptor Goertzen (1994) tells the story of a child's desire to hold onto her deep and meaningful prenatal connection:

I heard of a couple who brought home their second child and their three year old girl insisted she must be with the baby alone. They kept putting her off but she would not relent. The suspicious parents finally gave in to her but, suspecting sibling rivalry and sinister motives, listened in on the baby monitor. They heard the little girl say to the baby: "Tell me what God is like. I'm beginning to forget." (p. 10)

Some individuals have reported that their experiences of positive elements of their earliest lives assisted them with making it through a particularly tragic childhood. Others have related that the life force contacted through producing natalism was quite beneficial in therapeutically repatterning deep wounds from a difficult birth or painful childhood. Khamsi (1987) reports similar findings of people who used primal therapy to regress to birth [through primalling]:

Some subjects reported that birth feelings led to a variety of behavioral, emotional, mental, and spiritual changes in their lives. For some, having birth feelings was a journey to the deepest or ultimate place in themselves, to the centre of existential identity. According to Jill, "when I experience birth feelings it's like I go to the core of myself, and that everything else starts from there. And that when I'm in touch with that core of myself, I have a heightened sense of awareness and that the core is connected to a whole lot of other feelings and of really just who I am, that's where it all started."

For many, birth feelings seemed to hold a special significance. Some reported a new perspective of their body, their children, their emotions, human existence, or even the nature of reality. Sometimes it seemed to be a "turning point" or "something sacred." (p. 51)

I have noted that survivors of severe and repeated childhood trauma find significant value in natalistic work. Returning to the energy of the earliest gestational periods touches on powerful repatterning potential. Additionally, survivors of abusive childhoods find a place in early life where existence was not ruled by violence, neglect and betrayal. Susan, who went through a difficult prenatal period and childhood -- survived a number of attempted abortions, was unwanted prenatally and in childhood, and had to cope with childhood sexual assault relates that, in her drawing:

The yellow is my spirit ready to come into me, and I had a sense of my spirit is what brought me through. I would never have survived without my spirit, at times it gave me a lot of strength. It's full of light and it was a very happy spirit until it got in this mess. The yellow is the spirit which I have before conception. To the left of the spirit is just the grey. The grey is the egg and the orange things are the, you know -- what is trying to get in. They're orange because orange is danger to me.

In spite of Susan's experience of tragically neglectful and abusive childhood, there remained on the deepest levels a powerful sense of life which she attributed to the earliest embryonic times. When she finally connected with this life force through natalistic art, she was able, through the use of art in her daily life, to integrate a repatterning quality of pleasure and nurture. Broder (1978) affirms that:

Experiencing early feelings of love and unadulterated joy help to gain closer touch with the positive parts of our real self - an obvious goal of therapy. They also provide the lifelines necessary to help one go through some of the deepest, most terrifying feelings of primal pain. (p. 5)

Johanna had been brutally beaten and raped as a child. She was left for dead, and when found, came in and out of consciousness for the next two weeks. Both at the time of the original childhood trauma and later, while painfully working through the terrifying trauma, she made contact with what she felt were her original connections to the universe. A long and difficult drugged birth left Johanna feeling she was not sure if she had died at birth. Deadening qualities of her early birth trauma blended with her later assault in a ravine. One of her natalistic drawings integrated her prenatal experience and her childhood trauma and adult issues with her survival strength from her connection with the universe. According to Johanna:

There are a number of different things happening in the drawing which are related to each other. At the time of the drawing I was going through a crisis in myself. I did not feel I could any longer function in the day to day world. The only way I could find to get out of it seemed to be to go the spiritual way.

In the drawing the crisis found in the places were the red lines are. It seems there is so much red happening -- around, in the ravine. The bottom right hand corner with the child in the coffin, is the ravine and rape, beating and near death. The red line around the large body filled in with black is my birth. The smaller red body with all the red marks all over it is all the torture they did to me throughout my childhood.

In the image of a coffin in the ravine I am buried under the ground there. It is like dying. I am absolutely dead, in the ground, hidden. In the larger body the black is the death surrounding birth. It is interesting that the image of the baby in the womb has still got the universe.

It is extraordinary that there is an incredible calm in the middle of the image of those three images. I do not know how I stayed like that, but maybe that calm has always stayed. Looking at the drawing I can see that part of me has always stayed protected. That connection to the universe, that knowing.

In a way I stayed protected by being hidden from the horrible outside experiences. In my therapy and in the natalism work I let the universe come out and change what the those side experiences mean in my life.

It felt exciting and wonderful to realize that my inner innocence had been protected that long. That a deep hidden part of me was emerging and was feeling safe enough to emerge too. For me there were all really good signs of healing. It made me feel excited for my life and how it was going to become.

Change did not come easily, but it I felt like I knew that important changes would come in my life. To experience real change beyond a picture I felt like I would have to work at it. I began doing imagery of what I would like my life to be. It was difficult to image my life with out the kind of suffering I was use to. But I did begin to feel I had all the choices in the world. I went about cutting out pictures and identify what kind of an environment I like. I began asking what are the things that I love.

Johanna continued to find her original spiritual force a powerful strength and effective nurturing attribute. She has continued to use the process she learned through the natalistic workshop with a variety of issues, and she has related to me how she finds it highly effective. As a result of the repeated, severe traumas Johanna suffered, her healing has been a trying journey. Finding a connection to the universe through her natalistic work was a point of pivotal change for Johanna.

When pain is at its most tragic levels there is a need to split off from the unbearable and go to somewhere safe (Stewart, 1987). This dissociative coping response often allows an individual to retain strengths, perseverance and hope in spite of overwhelming tragedy. Cynthia perceives that her first splitting occurred through the experience of conception as a rape. With the most tragic of childhoods to follow, she spent a lifetime coping through splitting. Speaking about her conception drawing Cynthia relates:

And then he become part of the egg and I feel like a rape, an angry rape, and there's confusion, and then I'm starting to feel ambivalent, I don't give a shit at this point....

Well I didn't even get to implantation. I just did not want to do it, so then I started to say: who cares, I don't. It doesn't matter where I go from here. I'm lost. I've been invaded, ambivalence, I don't care, scattered mind, no direction.... There's containment and then there's no containment.... Then I said: Where's God and the peaceful meadow, and the sun and the place I feel whole? I wanted to go back up the fallopian tube, back towards heaven; in fact beyond that to the universe is where I want to go. And then I perceive the tree of life, a heavenly tree, and this is me in the tree [in the drawing], a beautiful tree, a lot of beauty.... I did not care what happened to me, so I just let the forces take over and the egg moved on and I decided to go backwards. The tree of life is not my mom's womb though, I'm in God's womb.

One of the strengths of Cynthia's splitting was that it made it possible for her to retain a positive life energy, separate from her trauma experiences. In her healing, it was highly beneficial for Cynthia to connect, both with the ramifications of that early trauma and its wounding, as well as for her to come into contact with her early connection with a peaceful place. She was able to do this in part through the natalistic process. Speaking with Cynthia nearly three years later, she related that the integration and personal empowerment which occurred out of this element of the natalistic work stayed with her and was an important ingredient in her ongoing life and her personal therapy.

REPRESENTATION, SYMBOLISM, METAPHOR AND INTERPRETATION IN NATALISM

The artwork itself makes interpretation and connections, and functions as a story teller articulating the conscious and unconscious saga of the artist. Schaverien (1992) suggests:

that the stages of the life of the picture all involve interpretation, in its widest sense. However, this is not merely a translation from the visual to the verbal mode; even if this were possible, it would not be desirable. Instead the image is recognised as a form of articulation in itself. (p. 104)

Throughout the art process the art work is speaking to the artist; in itself, creating insight, connections and elucidating meaning. Rogers, (1993) writes, "looking at the symbols that emerge in our art can add to our intellectual understanding of our identity and the dynamics of behaviour" (p. 75). The art work is an inner voice which presents an external expression of the artist's deepest self. The purpose of this contact is to be more oneself. Noble (1993) allows, "Making connections is like finding lost treasures. Contact and connection improve not only within oneself but between others as we unwrap our unopened packages. We come closer to developing a balance among instinct, intellect, and intuition" (p. 121). Sarah commented:

In a way the early feelings and experiences that were uncovered and connected with through the workshop validated my present day kind of stance towards life. It suddenly made sense to me why I see the world the way I see it. My present day suspicion and difficulty with trust was coloured by those early feelings of having my energy sucked out of me and being used.

Verbal and dream therapy place considerable emphasis on symbol and metaphor. Indeed, language and dreams are largely flavoured by symbol and metaphor. Art activity is process, and as such, therapeutic discussion about the process of creating the art and images can be as valuable as dissecting the symbolism in the imagery of the art. This dynamic is even more pronounced when working with early preverbal material. These earliest roots of feeling and issues are impressionistic, somatic and as Emerson (1987) notes are intimately associated with movement. The birth and prenatal foundations of psychological issues are laid down in the psyche before the formation of cognitive symbolization.

Like words, artwork can depict or represent birth and prenatal experience; and artwork can express metaphors and symbols of early conditions and feelings. Birtchnell (1984) states, "Much of what is expressed in art therapy would come under the heading of metaphor" (p. 39). Interestingly Birtchnell (1984) then goes on to present a list of metaphors in art, any one of which could be a birth or prenatal metaphor in the interpretive manner which I have bracketed []:

A subject may represent his situation by imagery such as heavy weights hanging from his neck [umbilical cord tied around neck at birth], being covered by a glass dome [womb, implantation or embryonic sac], tossing like a cork in the sea [cataclysm at birth or floating in turbulent embryonic waters], being an insignificant speck in an empty landscape [early gestational smallness], surrounded by locked doors [second birth matrix (BPM II)], or fluttering above everything like a butterfly [first trimester floating in the womb or fallopian tube]. (p. 39)

Pre- and perinatal symbolism and metaphors are commonly expressed in terms of movement, physical conditions or global impressions. They are found as much in the process of creating the work as in the expressed images themselves. The artist may experience "birth like" emotional or physical feelings of pressure, being blocked, needing to get through, feeling unsafe or a sense of impending change which will be unbearable. Deborah remarks:

I have been aware I am starting to have a body response around fears of being in the world. Fears of coming out or going out into the world -- that it is not safe, it is not safe to be me, fears of revealing, of being naked and exposed -- those kind of things. I really relate them to birth metaphors.

Birth and in utero conditions which have left a psychological legacy often involved a degree of physical stress and risk, and were processed, and have been mediated, in consciousness associated with body memory. Pre- and perinatal imagery and art expressions are often rich in physical symbolism and metaphor. These physical metaphors in natalistic art can be experienced in the process of creating the art, and/or in the sense of movement and relationship of the objects, images, forms and colours in the artwork itself.

It may be that childhood experiences have a greater affinity with the abstraction of symbol, and that preverbal experience has an attraction to the form of metaphor, or that the developmentally older language mind tends towards abstracting, and nonverbal consciousness registers impression. Dalley (1984) makes an interesting comment about the propensity of metaphor to be associated with physical phenomena. Dally (1984) notes, "A distinguishing feature of metaphor and its symptomatic counterpart is that they tend towards embodiment, even metaphors composed of words usually refer through them to physical phenomena" (p. 25). In art activity, birth metaphors may be found in the images of the art work, and quite importantly, are likely to be found in the experience of the process of creating the artwork.

The longer I have helped people work with therapeutic natalism, the less I have sought theoretically to categorize universal meaning behind the images found in natalistic creations. The actual meaning of any symbol or metaphor can come only from the individual artist who created the images. McNiff (1989) notes "What distinguishes art as a mode of inquiry is the unequivocal subjectivity and individuality of its perspective. Artistic descriptions do not give the pretence of being without bias" (p. 6)

In short, there is only one rule for picture interpretation: to know that one does not know. With this in mind, the therapist need only follow three main principles in analysing unconscious pictures.

The first is to always note one's initial impression of a picture. One should not interpret the picture, but rather concentrate on one's initial feelings.

The second principle is for the analyst to act as a researcher.

The third and often most difficult principle in picture interpretation is to synthesize what has been learned from individual components and assemble this information into a whole.

A significant value of symbols and metaphor is in the multiple layers on which they can exist (Eliade, 1958). McNiff (1993) contends, "Symbols are images which refer to something other than themselves. Symbolism is a function attached to imagery; it suggests both personal and universal meanings. The symbol generates multiple interpretations as distinguished from the sign which has one meaning" (p. 52). The multiplicity of symbols and metaphors allows them to make statements, yet defies the linear restrains of left brain rational order. Expression, insight and understanding are generated within the context of experiences which have diverse, and sometimes contradictory, meaning and relationship to time. For example the spoken word or visual image of containment can simultaneously express adult, childhood and prenatal experience. In addition, containment can be support or unwanted restraint. Containment can be process or artifact. The visual illustration of containment can assist left brain rational understanding or manifest right brain expression of emotion. Williams (1983) refers to metaphor as "a 'language' of both hemispheres" (p. 55). McNiff (1993) states, "Metaphors are images which are used symbolically for the purpose of comparison, articulation, elucidation" (p. 53).

Brigette's drawing illustrates the diversity of symbolic content which an art work can contain. Additionally she reveals the multiple levels and meanings in which a single image or symbol may successfully function:

The drawing started from the assumption that no matter what happened the first time around I was not going to continue to live out of that reality. In a way I figured that there was a me now surrounded by the kind of environment that she wanted as a baby and still wants as an adult. In the drawing the baby is safely cuddled within me, well protected and cared for. There is a hand behind me that is kind of like the hand of god, sort of there, encompassing and supporting.

The big E is the E word, Encouragement. She wanted to be born into an encouraging world. I am the brown middle figure. The one on the right with the smile is a symbolic parent so there would be at least one adult who cared and smiled about the fact that I existed. The little faces on the other side represent friends so that, at the baby's time, there would be other babies to play with. There would be other people for the baby today.

The music symbols felt obvious. I wanted there to be music in the baby's world.... In the drawing the music also symbolized something more than linear thought, it was not just kind of boxes. When I was drawing the music notes it reminded me of music so that is supposed to be a music rest over on the side. The music rest represents opportunities to rest and be at peace.

The books are there because I wanted the wisdom and knowledge of books to be part of the environment. They are purposely not too big because I think books have real limitations. There are things like the encouragement and support. The green over to the right is grass, trees and other nature stuff. The water in the picture is really important to me. The mountains are there so that it is not all a kind of uneventful life. The brown establishes the fact that there is a path that goes through the green place and the mountains and goes to the water. It is navigable. The dog had to get in there somehow because an ideal world has to have dogs in it.

The yellow sun is shining light on everything, and even more symbolically the yellow is lightness and nurture. The yellow is in the overall picture. In the womb the same colour is in about the same place. It means nurture and growth. The sun makes things grow, but the yellow is almost more like a touch from the creator.

There is a natural desire to just know and to have ready answers. It would be nice and convenient to have a repertoire of pat, simple and exact solutions and axioms about the human psyche to always follow but people's responses to situations are idiosyncratic and generalization denies individual experience. Rules and theories of interpretation can be helpful as guideposts and points of reflection, but they are to be set aside in dealing with a person's actual experience.

There is clearly a value in therapists' knowing the meanings and historical background of symbols and the various interpretations others may have made in relation to a symbol or image. But in actual practice it is difficult to make precise, definite and indisputable statements about the universal meanings of art images and individual colours and forms. To apply blanket theoretical generalizations to a client's art is inappropriate, if not offensive and intrusive. Rhyne (1984) states:

The actual images in any art creation are its most obvious content, but its total message cannot be discerned without referring to the total context of the images -- the style in which they're portrayed, the relationships between figures, the choice of emphasis in depiction, and quite often, what has been left out of the picture. I cannot provide any reliable structure for interpreting art: there are too many variables in the individual, cultural, and psychological experience of the creator. In order to make sense out of such messages, we must always consider the widest possible gamut of expression aspects. (p. 90)

Some symbols are culturally influenced and others may be entirely personally driven. One person's internal and external life is too unique for another person to externally apply pre formulated and generic interpretation of personal symbol and metaphor. Additionally, it is likely that some art symbols and experiences do not translate into language and belong to the domain of the nonverbal. Schaverien (1992) postulates that:

In the aesthetic object opposing forces are contained and held, in a resolution which negates neither. This tension distinguishes the work of art from a mere series of marks on paper. Such an image cannot be replaced by words, no more can the word be replaced by an image. Language and art reside side by side and complement each other. (p. 104)

Additionally, some art is not interpretable by others, but is an expression of a private symbolism. On a healing level it can be inconsequential whether an artist's therapeutic picture has meaning to anyone else. The important quality of the art is that it has meaning to its creator (Rhyne 1984). Dalley (1984) states:

However experienced or well-qualified an art therapist, the only person able or "qualified" to interpret correctly is the "artist", as the meaning of the painting has relevance only to his or her personal situation. The therapist may speculate, suggest, and connect aspects of the picture, but this occurs within the therapeutic relationship in an environment of trust, openness, and safety, and should not occur outside this context. (p. xxiv)

Some early experience which is therapeutically processed may never be fully known or assured cognitively to therapist or client. Pre- and perinatal experience occurred decades previously in the client's life and were mediated before abstracting cognition and logic. Over time, the artist tries on impressionistic emotions, or thoughts in an endeavour to make sense of her world. The artist is not certain of the validity or accurateness of these early feelings or conditions, but they arise as curiosities or strong senses.

Psychological process and resolution may occur often beyond the dimensions of verbal perception. The artist may effectively process what is needed from the experience of artistic exploration. The symbols and images created in exploratory art work may be representative of what they actually illustrate, but they still may be associated with material which will never be solidly assured. For instance, blighted twins (a twin that dies during gestation, generally in the first trimester) are a possibility in thirty percent of pregnancies, but few people consciously or medically know of such a condition in relation to themselves. (Farrant, 1993). Some people who prenatally regress are certain they have lost a twin in utero; others wonder, but are not certain. One artist explored this sense:

Some of my natalism work has made me wonder if maybe there was a twin. I wondered with all the emphasis on how small I was whether my birth was premature or if indeed I was a twin. I wondered if there was a twin could this other twin even have survived. The drawing which everyone else did at the previous workshop I did the day following the workshop because I had to miss the workshop. I was all curled up on the paper and it felt like there was this nice warm something against my back. On one side of the drawing there was empty space. In relationship to the empty space found in the drawing Michael and I speculated as to whether that area was a place for a twin or something.

I let the idea of a twin kind of sit there over the following week between workshops to see if anything more came. The next week the presence of a twin in the womb with me still felt like a possibility though I did not have any more insight about it over the week. I thought about my liking to shoot photographs where one image is really clear and then there is a duplicate of the image. The photographing of duplicate images -- like a reflection in a mirror or off of glass or water.

When the artist is not certain of the exact origin of pre- or perinatal symbols or content I will non-judgementally, and non-committally present my impression. When I do so I will also voice the position that I do not know exactly what happened prenatally, but I do know what the person is feeling or experiencing in the present, from what she has shared with me. It is important to acknowledge that one hears, and also to be validating in being honest that one does not know for sure, although something may make a lot of sense. What is most important is asking if it makes a difference and if there is a way in which the artist can advance in her endeavour to improve the conditions of her present life. Hall (1987) states:

Some of the patients I spoke with felt that the "artwork" -- "the images and doing them" -- had been the basic agent for change, and that interpretation and talking about them had been unnecessary.... These patients felt it very important for their paintings to be given space and validity in their own right, to be allowed to "speak" and work and develop in their own way, and in their own time. (p. 182)

In working with individuals and particularly in working with a group, I often do little direct interpretation of peoples' art work. Rather, I facilitate processes and experiences which allow each individual to make their own personal interpretations. In order to appreciate and help a person to understand the experience, it is far better to listen to their interpretations and insights about how life has uniquely affected her. How the artist sees her symbols or interprets her colours probably imparts more of what the natalistic images are actually about than what any particular theory might say. Winnicott (1971), in his maturing as a veteran therapist, stated:

If only we can wait, the patient arrives at understanding creatively and with immense joy, and I now enjoy this more than I used to enjoy the sense of having been clever. I think I interpret mainly to let the patient know the limits of my understanding. The principle is that it is the patient and only the patient who has the answers. (p. 102)

Therapeutic transformation involves not only grasping the immediate insights related to the current therapeutic material, but also gaining problem solving skills which will continue to serve clients long after therapy has finished. Wadeson (1980) imparts:

I wish to model the experimentation I hope the client will develop, I offer my hunches, as such, to be discarded if they are not helpful at the time.

Usually, though, I don't intervene until the client appears finished with her exploration, so as not to interrupt her train of thought. It is then I am most likely to follow my hunches and try to take her further to "somewhere where she's never been before" through probing questions or encouragement to fantasy. (p. 40)

The permanence of art imagery allows the artist to return to the symbols and metaphor in the natalistic work. Unlike the symbols and metaphors verbalized in talk therapy, the memories of which fade with the passing of time, the symbols and metaphors in an art work remain in the picture. What is not gleaned at one sitting may be touched on at a later time. Wadeson (1980) assures:

It is not necessary to plumb any one art expression to its depths. Material in the picture that is significant will emerge again and again. The main thing is to encourage the client in her own self exploration so that this process may continue long after the therapy has ended. (p. 40)

Rather than connect to "THE" meaning of symbols in natalism I have tended to gather, question and hone approaches to asking questions. The therapist looks at an art work and says to himself, "Oh that's an interesting question; what if I asked that question or this question." Symbols and metaphors in therapeutic art are for use as a facilitator for the client's self-discovery. Therapeutic responses to natalistic art are those questions or statements that draw people deeper into, and create more focus on, their own specific experience of their art and of their life. There are many different questions and lines of questioning which the clinician can pursue in relation to therapeutic productions of art. The kinds of questions to ask and the specificity of the questions should always be in the context of where the person is in that moment and where the person is going. It is the client's therapy and the clinician's job to follow the lead of the client.

This kind of probing can be achieved by: pointing out in the form of a question; by making comments like "I am curious about" or "I find it interesting"; by reflecting on what you as the therapist are experiencing. Rogers (1993) states that, "you show respect for the product and the artist":

By owning your feelings and thoughts as personal reactions, rather than analysing or interpreting the art. For example, you might say: "When I look at this picture, I feel lonely (or agitated, or sad). Is that the mood you experience?" or, "To me, it looks like..." This helps differentiate between your truth and the artist's truth of the image. (p. 77).

Rogers (1993) concurs that one must "ask the artist if she wants your impressions or input" (p. 77). Schaverien (1992) "just as with words in psychotherapy, it is possible to be invasive by making premature interpretation about pictures".

I am not suggesting that interpretations of therapeutic art should never occur. Rather I am emphasizing that interpretation should be primarily client directed. As Verny (1994) states, "Interpretations must be linked to the client's mental processes and not the therapist's" (p. 184). The interpretations and reframing which are meaningful and make an impact on the client's life are those which occur inside the psyche of the client.

Therapeutic questions of experience and process explore what the person is experiencing before, during or after a drawing or a part of a drawing. Focusing and specificity are arrived at by exploring what is happening for the artist while she/he is working on a particular area of the drawing. Asking about repeating patterns of colour, placement, image and size relations, etc. follows up on significant working on themes of the artist.

The artist might be asked, in relation to a drawing: What is your experience of...? For you, what would the colour...be saying? What was happening for you when those soft colours were being shaded in? What does black energy look like to you, or remind you of? Are the hands reaching to that blackness outside the womb surround, or are they protecting you from it? What does that baby want to say? I notice the feet and hands are drawn without any detail, is there anything happening there? What do you feel inside when you look at this drawing? What does that baby want to say to her mommy? What does that baby need right now? If you could give that baby something what would that be? What were you feeling when you made this drawing, ...after you made it, ...before you made it? What changed when you made the drawing? Is there a place inside you where this baby resides? What are some things which you could do for that baby this week?

The purpose of therapeutic process is to effect positive change in peoples' lives. Returning to the pre and perinatal realm through natalism can assist a person to understand and transform long term core life patterns. Cynthia lived with a shadow of resignation and despair in her world. Her natalistic art symbolized and depicted her inner experience. The natalistic process helped her connect with and resolve the early origins of her core feelings. Her natalistic art and process not only served to express her wounds, but served as symbol and metaphor for repatterning her outlook and embracing a vitality in life. As Cynthia explains:

Feeling inevitable and resigned used to be the dominant feelings in my life. Those feelings began changing to hope. I have found reexperiencing the feeling, going into the original experience of the feeling, working it through - eventually it goes. Doing the natalism art work and connecting to those experiences that are the origin of those feelings, I think helped me understand its origin so I could work with it.

 

Michael C. Irving, Ph.D. and Cheryl Irving, B.A.
have a private practice partnership serving
as psychotherapists with individuals and groups.

For more than 20 years their practice has encompased individual clients and psychotherapy workshops and trainings on - healing emotional trauma through regressive therapies, mind/body integration, dissociative disorders, ego state therapy, primal therapy, art therapy, prenatal parenting and, working with pre and prenatal issues through art.

To book clinical work or

mediation call (416)469-4764