An Inquiry Into the Relationship Between the Visual Arts and Psychotherapy in Post Revolutionary Cuba

AN INQUIRY INTO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE VISUAL ARTS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY IN POST REVOLUTIONARY CUBA MARGARET HILLS M.Ed A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the discipline of International Health. QUEEN MARGARET UNIVERSITY COLLEGE MARCH 2006 1 Acknowledgements The list of people to whom I am indebted is interminable. Firstly, I would like to thank Professor Maggie Nicol and her predecessor Professor Averil Stewart in the Department of Occupational Therapy and Art Therapy for their support in giving me leave of absence to undertake fieldwork in Cuba from 1999-2000 and later from 2004-2006 when I was writing up in Barcelona and Sheffield. Thanks are also due to Mary Alice Monaghan for her unfailing patience in helping me locate bibliographic materials. Secondly, I would like to thank my original supervisor, Dr Ian Yaxley, for his initial support and enthusiasm, Dr Desmond Ryan who offered me valuable help in thinking about the material at an early stage, Dr Andrea Gilroy for her thoughtful comments on my various drafts and latterly Dr Chris McVittie who supported me unerringly during the last two years through the difficult stages of making sense of the data and giving it a form that is hopefully worthy of its content. The content is I hope a faithful and honest representation of the material shared with me by the people I met, interviewed and worked with in Cuba during the fourteen or so months I spent there. There are far too many to mention but I do want to record the enormous generosity and kindness shown to me by Marlen Yanes, Jorge Felix Martínez and Daiany Martínez with whom I lived in the neighbourhood of Vedado and who are still looking after my dog Betty. I must also thank Dra. Aurora García Morey and the staff of the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Havana, the staff and patients at the Hospital del Día in Regla, Dr Jesus Guanche and Dr Sergio Valdés Bernal at the Fundación Fernando Ortiz where I took courses in ethnography, and all those who agreed to be interviewed by me. Of these generous people I remember with particular fondness María Rosa Almendros, a kindred spirit, and the artist “Papo” Gutiérrez who gave me a bird that he had made from an eggshell. It remains one of my most treasured possessions. Most of all I want to thank my son Alexander, who was then sixteen and who came with me at an important moment in his life. He has his own story to tell as does Diego Mora, my then fellow traveller, who has long since gone his own way with his memories of Cuba Lastly, I want to thank my parents Charles and Catherine Hills and of course all my students in Edinburgh, in Sheffield and in Barcelona. This thesis is dedicated to the memory of Mark Gibbons 1964-1999 and to Roque Lozano who is still living, albeit that neither of them will ever read it. “Para sobrevivir, planificar la esperanza, remedio para melancólicos”. (Enrique Pichon Rivière in a collage sent to Anna Pampliega de Quiroga) 2 Ya no seré feliz. Tal vez no importa. Hay tantas otras cosas en el mundo; un instante cualquiera es más profundo y diverso que el mar. La vida es corta y aunque las horas son tan largas, una oscura maravilla nos acecha, la muerte, ese otro mar, esa otra flecha que nos libre del sol y de la luna y del amor. La dicha que me diste y me quitaste debe ser borrada; lo que era todo tiene que ser nada. Sólo que me queda el goce de estar triste, esa vana costumbre que me inclina al Sur, a cierta puerta, a cierta esquina. Borges 3 Contents Page Abstract i Preface iii Chapter 1 Art and Mental Health Care in 20th 1 Century Cuba: Two Brief Histories Chapter 2 Literature Review Chapter 3 Methodology Chapter 4 Art, Artists and Therapy Chapter 5 Collaborative Working Chapter 6 Art, Psychologists and Therapy Chapter 7 Discussion Chapter 8 Conclusions Bibliography Appendices 4 Abstract This thesis focuses on the relationship between the visual arts and psychotherapy in post Revolutionary Cuba. The material on which it is based was collected over a fourteen month period and three visits to Cuba between April 1999 and August 2001. The study opens with the presentation of two brief histories, that of Cuban Art and Art Education and that of Cuban Mental Health Care. In this context the Revolution is taken as a useful reference point in terms of thinking about change and historical developments in both fields. Naturalistic Inquiry and Grounded Theory respectively were used to collect and analyse the data presented. These approaches allowed the researcher the degree of flexibility necessary to undertake research in a potentially delicate situation full of unknowns and to be able to modify and develop the course of inquiry as new evidence emerged. The main descriptive themes emerging from an analysis of the data pertain to the relationship between artists and mental health care professionals. These are (1) therapeutic work undertaken by artists, (2) artists working collaboratively with mental health professionals and (3) psychologists working with art as a therapy. The story which emerges pertains to a series of largely unrecorded histories spanning a forty year period. It begins with the work of Antonia Eiriz, who emerges as a key figure in the early development of art as a therapy and concludes with the work of the psychologist, Aurora García Morey, who takes centre stage in its continued development. This snapshot of Cuban art therapy is specific and unique and demonstrates the development of a very particular Cuban practice. However an analysis of the analytic themes which emerge from the data suggests that certain concepts such as responsiveness and pragmatism resound within a wider picture. These themes are discussed in chapters 7 and 8 with reference to the wider international context and specifically to the development of the profession in the United Kingdom. In my conclusions I suggest that these themes may be applicable to other areas of research and practice outwith and beyond Cuba and that while the concept of art therapy cannot be narrowly defined when it is applied to understanding practices in other, social, economic and cultural contexts, there are common factors which can be identified. 5 Preface “Cuba is a country where politics, magic and religion are neighbouring provinces, at times without a dividing line”. (Thomas, 1971, p. 824) “One evening in Regla, I was making my way towards the pier to take the ferryboat to the other side of Havana bay. The street was deserted. It was twilight. Looking up I saw a small figure walking towards me. As the figure approached I thought that it was a child coming from a party but it was not a child and neither was it man or a woman. It was a being, a tiny person, about four feet high dressed in a red skirt, a tightly fitting red jacket, white stockings and shiny black leather shoes. In his right hand he held a white staff and on his head was a straw hat adorned with red ribbons. His face was dark but not black and although I refer to him now as masculine I was then, not sure. As our paths crossed, we both stopped and he said to me ‘Soy Eleggúa’, and I replied, ‘Soy Margarita’. I took the boat across the bay to Havana Vieja. It was already dark. I knew who Eleggúa was; he is the son of the Yoruba god Obatalá and the owner of all the roads in the world”. (Diary entry, May, 2000) In the conviction that it is not possible to fully understand and appreciate the situation in post-revolutionary Cuba without reference to pre-revolutionary Cuba, I had originally envisaged a preliminary chapter offering a broad-brush account of Cuban social, economic, political and cultural history to serve as a backdrop to my discussion. I wrote this chapter but it later became clear that its inclusion pushed the parameters of the thesis beyond its limits and this material may be found in the appendices. In the struggle to locate a point of departure, I am in good company. Although this thesis is obviously an infinitely more modest venture than that of Thomas’s (1971) monumental tomb on the Cuban struggle for independence, he makes a similar point. Originally, he intended to write what was to be a short study of the events leading up to the revolution of 1959 and its immediate aftermath, beginning with Batista’s coup in 1952. However, so many issues rose to the surface that he decided to commence the study in January 1899, on the morning that the last Spanish captain-general handed Cuba over to the North Americans. This also proved to be an unsatisfactory point of departure as it excluded the question of slavery and the sugar industry and how these factors decisively affected the character of Cuba. Thomas (1971) finally decided to begin his book with the English occupation of Cuba in 1762, reflecting that ‘there are 6 many things which seem unclear in the contemporary Cuban scene but which become more comprehensible when they are compared with the experiences of the previous four or five generations’ (Thomas, 1971, p.18). I read Thomas’s (1971) reflection with a certain amount of relief. My experience of attempting to document my experiences and of making sense of the material I had collected in Cuba seemed to demand a constant recourse to the past and to the historical antecedents that underlay what were often presented as givens.

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