Imagining Animals: Art, Psychotherapy and Primitive States of Mind

Abstract

Reviews the book Imagining Animals: Art, Psychotherapy and Primitive States of Mind, by Caroline Case (2005). In this imaginative and original book the author, who is both an analytical art therapist and child and adolescent psychotherapist, brings to bear a wealth of experience from over thirty years working with children. The intention is 'to elaborate a method of working which uses both art and play in an analytic approach with this hard-to-reach client group.' The book is divided into three sections; each begins with a brief introduction and a review of the literature, followed by three chapters, rich with clinical examples. The theoretical influences in the book are broad, drawn from analytical psychology as well as psychoanalysis, child psychotherapy and art therapy literature, and brought up to date with reference to recent work on autism. It is not easy to do justice to the rich complexity of this book in a brief review but I hope I have given a sense of its aliveness, creativity and above all the affirmation of the potential of the child to grow given the right conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)