Images of existential solitude : experience and expression in art therapy

Existential solitude is one of the inevitable experiences of human existence, and may be an element of the existential questioning that many individuals bring to therapy. This exploratory study investigates how the use of art therapy research interviews, and through extrapolation, art therapy sessions themselves, may offer to the image-maker new insights that inform and transform her experience of the phenomenon of being alone in the world. It also looks at common themes that emerge from the verbal and visual descriptions of the participants. Four women who were concurrently involved in different expressive therapy groups participated in the research. Based primarily on the phenomenological method while drawing on hermeneutic inquiry, individual semi-structured and phenomenological art therapy research interviews were conducted along with a follow-up interview with each participant. Data was analyzed using a combination of qualitative approaches in order to extract themes. The findings of this pilot study showed that the use of art-making in the presence of a therapeutic other produced new insights into the experience of existential solitude for the participants, and applications of this approach are discussed