I, as an art teacher, found that in the education site, art activities cured children's little negative problems such as distraction, unstableness and an inferiority complex to some degrees. So, I assumed more systematic art programs could help childr...
I, as an art teacher, found that in the education site, art activities cured children's little negative problems such as distraction, unstableness and an inferiority complex to some degrees. So, I assumed more systematic art programs could help children a lot and initiated this study.
I found art programs in the area of art therapy are suitable for my purpose, but most art therapy programs have been applied to the children who suffer great mental problems, so called patients. So I tried to adapt those theories and programs to the normal children in view of preventive approach.
This study aimed at the normal children who have a little emotional or self problems, tried to apply two kinds of programs and compare the effectiveness of those activities. Two programs are consisted of the art program based on school art education course and the art therapy program based on art therapy theory.
However, because of the restriction of time and study object, this study focused on one second graded elementary school child. One program had been applied during October, 5 and January, 18 and the other program during February, 1 and April, 19. The results were analyzed by the two drawing tests : a person test, tree-drawing test and kinetic-family drawing test.
The findings obtained from a case study are as follows.
Firstly, Three drawing tests, a person test, tree-drawing test and kinetic-family drawing test. Were applied to the child in two stages. They reflected the child's psychological state and self image nearly exactly. Especially, in the first stage tests, negative problems such as suppressed state, potential attack disposition, mental unstableness and inferiority complex were diagnosed even though they were not dominant.
Secondly, the art program based on school art education course has been applied about 4 months to the child to see if they are effective to cure the child's negative problems.
Thirdly, the art therapy program based on art therapy theory has been applied to the child for 2 months. The second stage tests after finishing the therapy programs showed that he was changed to the positive side drastically. Those activities cured his emotional difficulties, strengthened his self-esteem and formed his positive self considerably.
As seeing the above results, in the view of preventive art therapy, I conclude art therapy are essential and effective not only children who suffer great mental problems but also normal children who suffer a little negative problems. If these kinds of studies are applied to more children and the more systematic and proven program are devised, I expect those programs can be applied as regular school education course. If so, almost all children who suffer a little negative emotional or mental problems can be cured and the negative problems are prevented from being developed to the big problems. Furthermore, positive self forming of the children can be expected though those activities.