Your Artwork Is a Glance, a Window, a Mirror: Resonance in Group Therapy

Abstract

Abstract:This article discusses the combination of two therapeutic approaches, group analysis and art therapy, and reviews the different aspects of the phenomenon of resonance. Resonance is defined by S. H. Foulkes as “communication without any message being sent or received, an a-causal and transpersonal process at the primordial level in the psychic network of communication, the matrix.” By discussing clinical examples from an analytic group and art therapy, I demonstrate how basic concepts from both approaches are applied in a group process. Resonance unfolds as a-causal expressions of meaning rather than as causal interactions. The synthesis of these approaches assists in building an emotional bridge both on the personal level of each of the participants and among the members of the group as a whole. Therefore certain basic terminology from these different types of therapies was examined, including such terms as matrix, mirroring, echoing, the group as a whole, projection, internal objects, and reflection.