I give a child wings, then teach him how to fly with his own

(Gabriel García Márquez: The Puppet)

I first came into contact with OPNI’s art therapy workshops in the mid-1990s. I never would have thought that this form of artistic expression would captivate me for life. Of course, there were precursors to this encounter.

Early in my career, I worked as an art teacher in elementary school with classes of thirty to thirty-five students. I found it hard to bear the straitjacket of impersonality and indifference imposed by the pressure to perform. Once, I had the opportunity to teach at a small school in Buda. This school was attended mostly by so-called “difficult” children whom larger schools could not tolerate due to their behavioral problems. Working with them here was a brilliant experience. That’s when I realized that without personal connection, there is no real connection, and if there is no real connection, there is no reason for me to be there. I was afraid that by the end of the year I still wouldn’t know the faces or names of the students sitting in the back rows, so—when my contract expired—I left the education scene for good. Basically, I wanted to be more relaxed yet focused in my presence, to run a creative workshop with more personal attention; to devote more time and patience to the participants, which seemed impossible in that environment.

I’m not saying I lost all interest in it, but I knew for certain I couldn’t continue down the old paths.

My ideas about what and how to create with the children—so that it would serve as a source of joy and growth for both of us—were becoming increasingly clear.

In the second half of the 1970s, numerous clubs operated in community centers throughout the city, and opportunities arose to put new ideas into practice. In 1975, I launched my first club for disadvantaged children in the 8th district. Their family backgrounds were typically not burdened by cultural expectations; (perhaps) for this reason, their associations and problem-solving strategies were exceptionally open and original. We worked in a free, creative atmosphere that inspired us all. In this relaxed atmosphere—with the help of play—and through unusual tasks, my students become uninhibited and communicative; they dare to set aside old, tried-and-true methods to find new solutions and experiment. This playful method of self-expression is recommended for all age groups—including adults—because it results in lighthearted, uninhibited work.

It was with experiences like these that I arrived at the National Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology to work on building and maintaining groups; I acquired an understanding of and proficiency in the language of visual communication at the Hungarian University of Applied Arts. And, of course, I had no idea how all of this would turn into art therapy.

At first—and for quite some time—I was getting to know the situation, the children, the adults, and the possibilities. I tried to adapt my tried-and-true methods to the situation, but since I knew nothing about psychiatric disorders, I basically left everything up to them during the sessions. I thought that if everything could happen the way they wanted it to, if I let them show their true selves without inhibition, I would have a chance to really get to know them. I could clearly sense their resistance to getting involved, which they usually expressed with statements like “I can’t draw, I never could,” “I failed art class,” or “I’ve never had a knack for this.” I tried to get around this resistance and encourage everyone to open up through play, words, and drawing.

By creating an atmosphere of psychological safety and freedom—well-known in educational practice—we can lay the groundwork for the space necessary for self-expression, togetherness, and uninhibited creativity, which includes accepting our patients along with their values and the difficulties arising from their psychological state. I now know that through the strengthening of the ego, this provides them with an opportunity to reveal themselves openly and to seek new ways and possibilities for presenting and reinterpreting the events of their lives, as well as for restructuring their relationships. In group art therapy work, self-expression always functions within the duality of diagnostic and therapeutic roles. The institutional team attempts to map the background and causes of psychological trauma based on specific criteria and methods, so that they can determine the goals and methods of therapeutic intervention along these lines.

In this complex approach, all forms of nonverbal expression take on particular significance. In a psychologically safe environment, by bypassing the conscious and unconscious manipulations and deflections of verbal communication, indivisible emotions, impulses, secrets, unconscious contents, and instinctual urges can be easily expressed. I strive to support my patients in this by ensuring complete openness in their choice of tools and topics, so that they can truly do what they want. The successes of genuine presence have also reinforced me in these endeavors.

Gábor, a 17-year-old boy with an intellectual disability, was admitted to the hospital due to his deepening depression. He attended a leatherworking school for a few years but did not receive a diploma. He was suspicious, withdrawn, passive, and slow. He didn’t want to draw or paint anything, but he noticed that I had a huge bag of artificial leather. He asked if he could bring in his leather punch, because he could use it very well to punch holes in these pieces of leather. I didn’t really understand what he wanted to do with it, but I agreed. For months in the art therapy workshop of the rehabilitation ward, he just punched and cut scraps of leather; he made tiny leather objects and paper boxes. When the big bag of leather ran out, he made stencils out of thicker sheets of cardboard, cut them out, and collected them seemingly without any prior thought or planning. Later, he traced around them, sliding them across the paper to create different rhythms, and then colored them in. Using individual squares or circles, he composed peculiar ornamental surfaces from their overlaps. For a long time, he drew these playful decorations with great diligence, but I didn’t see any particular enthusiasm in him. Months passed this way, seemingly fiddling with nothing, yet in the meantime, he tasted the security and peace of being accepted and understood. Slowly and cautiously, he began to open up verbally as well, building relationships.

Once, he found a book on historic preservation in my closet, which contained postcard-sized—very poor-quality—black-and-white photographs of crumbling castles, palaces, and mansions. For some reason, Gábor was captivated by the images. He gazed at the nearly unrecognizable ruins for a long time, then drew houses using the atmospheric elements of his early sketchbook drawings and the structural units he thought he could discern in the photographs. Inspired by the tiny black-and-white images, enormous, exuberantly colorful palaces and castles came to life.

With their magical atmosphere, his childlike images guide us into the fairy-tale realm he has created for himself.

While Gábor is almost inaccessible verbally—he lacks critical thinking skills, cannot comment on his own drawings, is difficult to converse with, and is unfamiliar with abstract concepts—his works are nonetheless harmonious, well-composed, and exceptionally beautiful. “In a general sense, a harmonious overall impression characterizes the drawings of people who are healthy and well-integrated into society. A harmonious drawing is clear, well-structured, proportionate, warm, with decisive lines, and regular,” writes Dr. Zoltán Vass in his book The Psychodiagnostic Foundations of Drawing Analysis (Flaccus, Budapest, 2006). Gábor’s drawings are like this. Cognitive schemas do not trigger inhibitions in him; he has no performance anxiety; he creates in a relaxed, engaged manner. He works in his daily life: he tends the garden, mows the lawn, and cleans in his village near Pest. He draws in the afternoons.

In 2008, he was the only contemporary Hungarian artist exhibiting at the Hungarian National Gallery’s exhibition *Images of Inner Paths*, which presented Hungarian and Austrian art brut artists and was jointly organized by the Hungarian National Gallery and the Austrian Cultural Forum. In 2009, his solo exhibition was featured at the opening exhibition of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Psychiatric Collection. Gábor has managed to find within himself the strength capable of giving form to his world and encouragement to his life—and in this, he is not alone. His journey to becoming an artist is unconventional, and I am happy to support him in his search for his path. Within the group, he builds his personality through the sublimating effect of creation. He does not participate in conversations, but he listens to what others say about his painting.

Others view the creative process as a form of communication in which the sender (the creator) sends a coded message that the recipient(s) must decode. The decoding of these messages occurs through an integrative approach that considers structural features, the process and content of drawing, and verbal additions and explanations. A constant question is how we can understand as much as possible from the messages sent, from our patients’ emotional and behavioral patterns, and how we can guide these onto appropriate paths. The verbal reflection following the creative process is an exciting collaborative and mutually supportive endeavor. It is good to find our own wings and fly.

And can we consider the works created during therapeutic sessions to be art?

While psychiatrists, art therapists, and art experts debate whether the products of art therapy workshops can be considered works of art, the works are quietly created—far removed from all these cultural and professional debates. While art theorists debate the end of spectacular art, on the other side of the divide—by setting aside cultural traditions, seemingly hollow academic formalism, and convoluted narratives—a form of art is emerging that draws from within itself, surprising its viewers with its unique and unadulterated originality. While art therapy is indeed intended neither for art education (as many still believe today) nor for any kind of professional or conceptual support in the creation of works, creators have the opportunity to articulate their most personal existential reality. At its core, art therapy involves the visual representation of unconscious content and the integration of this content into the personality through some form of reflection or discourse. The emergence of this content occurs at various levels, and by no means is any level of skill in the realm of visual self-expression required. The representation and reworking of unconscious and often repressed content is somewhat akin to drawing up pure water hidden in the deeper layers of the earth—in pockets.

I am thinking of artesian wells, which draw their crystal-clear water from high-pressure pockets of water enclosed by rock deep below the groundwater table. Artesian water is trapped between two impermeable layers. The water is under high pressure in the shell-like cavity. As soon as the drill breaks through the impermeable layer, the water shoots high into the air like a fountain due to the high pressure. Artesian wells cannot be drilled just anywhere; specific geological conditions are required. Who would have thought that the most suitable places in the world for drilling artesian wells are actually in the Sahara?

Similarly, in therapeutic work, it is not always possible to break through the barriers, and even if we succeed, the pressure may not be enough to bring the crystal-clear contents to the surface. It may be that we strike a well with a meager yield, but sometimes, like a miracle of nature, an inexhaustible fountain suddenly gushes forth unstoppably.

This is how I view works of art that appear unpredictably. These phenomena cannot be interpreted solely within the framework of healing, because this kind of miracle demands much more—or rather, a completely different approach. We established the Tárt Kapu Gallery so that these miracles might find their rightful place. We might call it art brut or outsider art, though empathetic supporters, art lovers, and collectors across Europe seem to be rebelling against the discriminatory undertones of these terms. Many consider it a distinct, characteristic branch of contemporary art, yet we all feel that we should bestow some apt name upon the phenomenon in question. For a long time now, I have personally associated this form of self-expression with the term “artesian” due to its visceral nature and intensity.

Often we are talking about the works of artists who, due to their marginal status and mental or other issues, express their difficulties in connecting with others through their verbal statements (or, conversely, their silence); who constantly feel they have nothing to share or no reason to share anything of themselves; who have nowhere to look forward to (unfortunately, for many of them, not even backward).

A homeless, mentally impaired middle-aged man always painted in silence and never offered any commentary on either his own paintings or those of others. For months, he painted his elusive, strange, and alien houses, all composed identically—Chirico-esque mementos of desolation and abandonment. It was nearly impossible to approach him or strike up a conversation. He didn’t look at anyone, and I don’t know if he ever listened to anyone. A few months later, the unkempt, neglected man began arriving at the therapy sessions in clean clothes and with washed hair. I sensed that something had not only happened but had truly happened to him. Memories and images poured forth from the depths of his innermost being, and it was very important for him to show this.

János, who had been verbally inaccessible, finally spoke up after six months. With a distant gaze, he added to one of his pictures: “and we had four cows too…”

How should we view these images if we interpret the concept of “house” as a dwelling, a family, a community, or even a personal sphere? In every sense, the house refers to some kind of community, primarily family, home, a shelter and protective covering, both literally and figuratively. The inner process of therapy can be interpreted as sublimation or communication, but it is best to view it as both at once, since it is precisely through these that it exerts its influence in healing and self-healing.

Creation is a manifesto. It is an activity that captures and reflects internal processes, both for the creator and toward the outside world. The internal processes occurring during creation can exert a corrective influence on the personality at the level of experience and at the level of awareness. Tools can be provided for approaching internal experiences, and these tools are capable of mobilizing aspects of the personality, thereby releasing powerful psychic energies.

Through nonverbal communication, the processing of experiences, on the one hand, reveals the inner psychological reality to the environment—thus resolving isolated experiences. On the other hand, it creates distance between the creator and their creation, which enables the analysis and conscious awareness of experiences.

The creative process is the focusing of inner forces; it is the opportunity to experience states of mind that support the ego’s defense mechanisms.

If all this—in rare moments of grace—also results in a work of art, if the drill piercing the water-tight layer strikes a high-pressure artesian water jet, we can boldly acknowledge the nobility and value of the surging contents, display them on the walls of our museums, and call it, say, artesian art.