สำนักราชบัณฑิตยสภา

วารสารราชบัณฑิตยสถาน ปีที่ ๓๗ ฉบับที่ ๑ ม.ค.-มี.ค. ๒๕๕๕ Historical Backgrounds Art therapy is a form of expressive therapy that uses art materials, within a professional relationship, for people who experience illness, trauma, or challenges in living, and people who seek personal development. Its psychotherapeutic modality is based on the disciplines of ‘art’ and ‘psychology’ involving Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, relying on the human person’s symbolic expression as a means of communication as an alternative to verbal communication. Albeit most art therapists regarded Margaret Naumburg, a psychologist in the United States, a person who coined the term art therapy in 1947 (1) , Adrian Hill in Great Brit- ain had already conceived the same oddity earlier in 1945 (2) . And as well that the credit given to Nolan D.C. Lewis as a pioneer in initiating the practice of art as therapy for special cases of mentally disturbed subjects while working at the New York State Institute of Psychiatry of Columbia University in New York since 1925 (3) ; it was pos- sibly that in 1922 Hans Prinzhorn introduced the development of art therapy beginning with the pictorial works of a mental patient and documented in a paper named “Art- istry of the mentally ill” published by the Springer-Verlag company at New York, USA (4) . Edith Kramer, (5) another pioneer in the field of art therapy, worked mostly with children. Her work laid significant foundation for this field, which has grown significantly in the United States over the past 50 years. At present, art therapy is included as a modality in alternative medicine in the treatment section of mentally disturbed subjects in most professional health institutions, especially in the Western countries. As for Thailand, it is rather amazing that almost all the pioneers in this par- ticular field had been initiated by a number of lady psychologists, such as Umporn Prabgree, (6) Primprou Disyavanich (7) , and Somsri Kittipongpisal, (8) whose works appeared since 1977 onwards. Art Therapy: Theory and Practice Lertsiri Bovornkitti Faculty of Fine Arts, Srinakharintaravirot University, Bangkok