This study aimed at examining the domestic trend of the research on the clay-using art therapy and finding out its curative benefits through examining the various characteristics of clay and the meaning and application method of the clay-using art the...
This study aimed at examining the domestic trend of the research on the clay-using art therapy and finding out its curative benefits through examining the various characteristics of clay and the meaning and application method of the clay-using art therapy by reviewing the related literature published in Korea, and analysing the articles on clinical cases of a clay-using art therapy.
As the methodologies of the study, the researcher described the characteristics and molding techniques of clay through examining and reviewing the materials for cubic delineation and the related domestic literature, and also examined the curative techniques, the meaning, and the curative factors of the clay-using art therapy which were revealed from clinical cases, in addition made a contents analysis on some selected case studies in Korea. As the contents analysis, the researcher summarized the literature about the topics, the themes, the total number of clinical applications, and the main activities of each study, and made a comparative analysis on each case's program, material, technique and curative benefit.
For the purpose of the study, some domestic studies were selected for an analysis, and the analysis results are as the followed.
First, clay has the merits such as transformable nature, tactility, economical efficiency, and expressional nature, and can be associated with various tools and techniques, and also can produce diverse effects when being used with tools or colored, but one should be careful about its keeping and about working environment with it.
Second, as clay's curative factors, clay is the most proper material for curative benefits in terms of developing one's sense of emotions and assimilability by offering free touches with one's hands, and promoting one's sensation of movement and power of observation through clay activities, and relieving the emotional anxiety and conflict through making it possible molding activities using diverse materials and clay which has lowest control-resistance among art materials, and caring stress, the excessive psychological and physical state of tension through giving an experience of rising self-value through making creative self-accomplishment. One of characteristics of molding materials, adhesion makes it possible the activities such as slapping tang-tang, stabbing, rubbing, stretching, twisting, and tearing it apart in small pieces. These characteristics make one reveal oneself through making diverse activities possible, and make one trigger its energy so that one can vent the aggressive energy in a positive way, and stimulate one's emotion and give a relief effect to an autistic child. Because clay is used with not only hands but also tools, so it can make a mentally retarded child enhance its cognitive ability and power of expression and also the motor ability of sense. Therefore the art therapy using clay can be said that it has many merits such as helping development of the sense of shape, space sense, the sense of sight, and perception, and physical development of such as small muscles, and formation of emotional stability, cognitive development, sociality improvement, development of imagination and creativity, brains development, and promotion of linguistic development which all can not be found in two-dimensional design
Third, the domestic research trend on the clay-using art therapy was oriented to case studies, and the research subjects were mostly children and teenagers except some articles, this showed that in light of the characteristics of clay, the clay-using art therapy is more proper and effective for them. Most themes of the related studies were referential, this showed that generally the researchers preferred to study with referential themes except the themes about such as early clinical stage's searching materials and relief of tension and free expression. The finding from the material analysis was that the researchers preferred normal clay, and the finding from the technique analysis was that the techniques used in clay activities varied from the researchers' propensities, but generally, basic activities with hands, pinching technique and coiling technique were high frequently used.