Arts of Existence’

Towards ethical ‘arts of existence’: through art therapy and narrative therapy Sheridan Linnell A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Western Sydney College of Arts December, 2006 ii Dedication For Galiindurra, the sisters and all their mob, and ‘Leticia’, ‘Groovy Gran’, Emma and their family We go toward the best known unknown thing, where knowing and not knowing touch, where we hope we will know what is unknown. Where we hope we will not be afraid of understanding the incomprehensible, facing the invisible, hearing the inaudible, thinking the unthinkable...Painting is trying to paint what you cannot paint and writing is writing what you cannot know (Cixous, 1993, p. 38). iii Acknowledgements I am grateful to my primary supervisor, Professor Bronwyn Davies, for her excellent supervision, unstinting encouragement, timely and precise feedback, intellectual rigour, creative inspiration, emotional support, and her unsurpassable talent for bringing about the (im)possible. I am also thankful to my co-supervisor, Jill Westwood, for her wise and humorous counsel, her beautiful quality of attention, her belief in me, and her encouragement and assistance for me to follow my intellectual, artistic and political passions. I would like to thank Dr Adrian Carr, my original supervisor, for his generous support of art therapy research initiatives including my own, and for many thought-provoking and challenging conversations, as well as for helping me to set out along the path of doctoral research. I also want to express my appreciation to Dr Andrea Gilroy, an ongoing consultant to the development of art therapy research at the University of Western Sydney, for her encouragement, expertise and careful advice. I thank the University of Western Sydney, especially the College of Arts, the School of Education, the School of Social Sciences and the Office of Research Services, for supporting my candidature. I extend many thanks and much appreciation to all my other mentors, supporters and companions on this journey, and in particular to: Link-up NSW Aboriginal Corporation; my therapeutic co-workers and co-consultants, especially Ian Hanslow and Deanne Dale; Dr Carolyn Williams; Glendra Stubbs; Peter Bansel, Dr Constance Ellwood, Dr Sue Gannon and the other members of the Narrative, Discourse and Pedagogy Research Concentration; the wonderfully laid-back Friday afternoon group (Peter Bansel, Dr Desiree Boughtwood, Ros Martins, Cynthia Rankin and Hernan Camilo); Michael White, David Denborough and all the team at the Dulwich Centre; Susan Robbins at the Ward Library; Michelle Cherubin; Clare Dash; and my daughter, Alison Meares, who helped proof the final manuscript. To the rest of the Art Therapy teaching team at the University of Western Sydney (our Coordinator, Jill Westwood, and Suzanne Perry, Josephine Pretorius, Joanna Barnes and Marilyn Dennes) — thankyou for keeping all the brightly coloured art therapy balls in the air while I took up the exceptional privilege of a last, full-time scholarship year to work on my thesis. I give warm thanks to my students at UWS, and to those people who come to my art therapy studio, for all that you continue to teach me. Finally, no acknowledgements would be complete without offering my heartfelt thanks to my partner, Anita Swanson and my other family members and friends. Your love, listening, encouragement, support, recognition and tolerance sustained me over the four years of this project. iv Statement of authentication The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. .................................................................. (Author’s signature) v Table of contents The table of malcontents vii Figures and artworks viii Abbreviations, and a note on style x Abstract xi Chapter 1 Introductions 1 Introducing the thesis (im)proper, Introducing poststructuralisms, Introducing the’ research problem’, thesis, anti-thesis, prosthesis, Irrationale, Introducing art therapies, Introducing narrative therapies, Introducing the expressive therapies, An outline of chapters Chapter 2 Browsing the store of poststructural theory 42 Jacques Derrida, Giles Deleuze/Felix Guattari, Michel Foucault: Truth and the subject, Problematisation, Knowledge, Discourse analysis, Gazes and critical visualities, Power relations, Discipline, The repressive hypothesis,An analytic of power, Ethics, Refusing what we are: an ethic of permanent critique, An aesthetics of existence Chapter 3 AnOther stor(e)y 76 Julia Kristeva, Catherine Clement, Hélène Cixous, Couze Venn, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Judith Butler vi Chapter 4 A madness in her methodologies 108 The (im)possibility of poststructural research, Problematising methodologies; Writing methodologies: Dreaming (of) research, in their hands, The poetic as research methodology, Genre and its limits, The necessity and impossibility of co-authorship and collaboration, Collective biography; Critical visual methodologies: archaeologist, hot-tubbing, A ‘telling’ obligation Chapter 5 Close to home 138 Of groovy grans, brave bananas, and much, much, more; A small story: Detective Inspector Leticia’s retirement party, Dis-closures and dis-solutions, A question of ethics: what shall we do with the drunken sailor? ‘What shall we do with a drunken sailor?’ The kind version of the drunken sailor, A matter of heart, A poethics of practice Chapter 6 Joining the dots 180 Joining the dots; Considerations of power, representation and subjectivity; A walk through the poem, The possibilities and limits of art therapy, Questioning practices and constituting ethics, Difference and connectedness: becoming other in the work, The unthinkable Chapter 7 Inconclusions 241 What have I done? What is th(es)is she has written? Appendix 1 A further introduction to art therapy 272 Histories and connections, Art therapy in Australia, Theoretical frameworks of art therapy, Art therapy and poststructural theory, The aesthetic turn in art therapy, Directive and non-directive approaches to art therapy, The languages of art therapy, Further questions References cited 288 vii The table of malcontents ‘Hang on there!’ says an imaginary Voice of Reason. ‘There might be some very good reasons for not inviting these poststructural ideas to the art therapy table. I heard that these ideas gatecrashed a much bigger party than ours, organised by the whole area of the human sciences, and behaved themselves appallingly. They poked their grubby fingers into every philosophical and political pie that was served, neoliberalism, neo-Marxism, post-Marxism, positivism, post- positivism, you name it. When they were challenged, they argued that eating with a fork was a historically and culturally situated practice rather than a universal necessity. And that was just for starters! They refused to partake of the main course, humanism, which as we all know everybody loves. Then, they began deconstructing the psychodynamic dessert before it even reached the table – as the chef was passing it across the counter to the waiter. Now, there’s an example of counter-transference for you! When one of the ideas was asked if she wasn’t deeply ashamed of herself, she replied that she didn’t believe in an essential and autonomous self to be ashamed of. As for the idea of ‘deeply’ ashamed, she claimed that metaphors of depth are related to the hermeneutic of the self that developed out of the expansion and secularisation of the Christian practice of confession, and that ‘shame’, in this instance, was an effect of modern normalising power. Boy, did she have a mouth on her! Then, to top it all off, the bloody lot of them got raving drunk on that late- picked French wine, what was it called? The 1984 Chateau de Foucault…’ viii List of figures and artworks Chapter 5 Fig. 1 ‘Leticia worrying/ dreaming’ 175 Fig. 2 ‘The roller coaster’ 175 Fig. 3 ‘Two-thousand legged man gloating’ 176 Fig. 4 ‘At the heart hospital’ 176 Fig. 5 ‘Banana Man — winner number 1’ 177 Fig. 6 ‘Banana tells Leticia she is not to blame’ 177 Fig. 7 ‘D. I. Leticia’s invitations to her retirement party 178 Fig. 8 ‘Certificate of commendation’ 179 Chapter 6 Fig. 1 ‘Hands’ 210 Fig. 2 ‘Untitled’ 211 Fig. 3 ‘Untitled’ 212 Fig. 4 ‘Flag’ 213 Fig. 5 ‘Dad’ 214 Fig. 6 ‘Swings’ 215 Fig. 7 ‘Sisters’ 216 Fig. 8 ‘Untitled’ 217 Fig. 9 ‘Landscape’ 218 Fig. 10 ‘Untitled’ 219 Fig. 11 ‘Boat’ 220 Fig. 12 ‘Mum’ 221 Fig. 13 ‘Madness is short, happiness is long’ 222 Fig. 14 ‘Self-portrait’ 223 Fig 15 ‘Me, my place’ 224 ix Chapter 7 Fig. 1 ‘The art therapy boat’ 242 Fig. 2 ‘Wreck’ 243 Fig. 3 ‘Omelette’ 244 Fig. 4 ‘Behind the gate’ 245 Fig. 5 ‘An archaeological find’ 246 Fig. 6 ‘Dreaming (of) research’ 247 Fig. 7 ‘Crooked self-portrait, with dog’ 248 Fig. 8 ‘Grand Daddy’ 249 Fig. 9 ‘Grandmother’ 250 Fig. 10 ‘My grandmother’s flowers’ 251 Fig. 11 ‘S(her)idan silhouette’ 252 Fig. 12 ‘What happens to all the unspeakable things? 253 x List of abbreviations American Psychological Association (APA) Australian Art Therapist, Registered (AATR) Detective Inspector (D.I.) Narrative, Discourse and Pedagogy Concentration (NDP) New South Wales (NSW) Sparticists (Sparts) United States of America (USA) United Kingdom (UK) University of Western Sydney (UWS) A note on style This thesis generally follows American Psychological Association (APA) style. Accordingly, I have cited the date when a work was first published as well as the publication date of the version of the text I am using (e.g. Foucault, 1984/2000). Page references are to the version I am using (e.g. Foucault 1984/2000, p. 66). I have found this practice to be a useful way of giving a basic temporal/historical location to the literature I am drawing on, especially since I have made fairly extensive use of recent editions.

Load more