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Art Therapy: Theory and Practice 270 The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Vol. 37 No. 1 Jan.-Mar. 2012 Concepts and Theories Literally, art therapy encompasses the use of art media and images, the creative process, and patient response to the products created for the treatment of psychiatric and psychologic conditions, often as an adjunct to psychotherapy or rehabilitation. The term art therapy includes the usage of a wider spectrum of art media, e.g., music and drama, as therapeutic tools. According to Edith Kramer, a renowned American art therapist, art therapy is conceived primarily as a means of supporting the ego, and constitutes an element in the therapeutic milieu that complements or supports psychotherapy. While Nolan D.C. Lewis wrote in a foreword to the first edition of Margaret Naumburg’s book, An Introduction to Art Therapy : Studies of the “Free” Art Expression of Behavior Problem Children and Adolescents as a means of Diagnosis and Therapy (1947) that “Spontaneous drawings as products of wishes: this manifest content in some respects covers or disguises unconscious underlying motives. A certain amount of free- dom or release of tension is achieved in this way; it is an impulse to express to the self and to communicate to others by means of a special language a partial satisfaction of the underlying wish.” Margaret Naumburg’s concepts followed closely Nolan Lewis , s ideology under the notion that the development of such “free” art expression is always associated with a planned use of the transference relationship. The transference content may not express the whole personality situation, but are filled with the neurotic suppression products of hostility or affection connected with one or more symptomatic trends and historical images which may amuse, haunt or distress the conscious mind of the patient. The transitional stages as well as the general progress of the emotional disorder are often presented in an interesting manner, becoming intelligible by means of the study of periodic or serial drawings. Through the analysis of the contents of these productions, ways are found of bringing into consciousness the underlying difficulties in a manner that shows the basic drives striving to satisfy the instinctive life, and thus objectification and socialization of previously poorly understood feelings and behavior become possible. In brief, Naumburg concluded that “art therapy enables the patient to translate the interior images of his unconscious into pictorial projections; the creation of such symbolic forms establishes a primary basis of communication with the therapist” (1953). Communication in the art therapy setting has a specific feature: the presence of the art object in the room creates a triangular relationship, where the patient and the therapist are on two corners of an imaginary triangle, and the image made by the patient is on the third corner. This