ABSTRACT. The primary approach in art therapy is called spontaneous art, as the person paints or draws with no previous mental plan or blueprint of the artwork to be completed – the healing properties of such therapy being highly treasured, owing to the uncensored release of inner conflicts in a visual form. The notion of duality in the internal psychological structure which requires simultaneously living tenderness and toughness, structure and lack of it, distance and closeness, warmth and coldness is involved in this approach. The resonance that art-therapists provide to patients complements these dualities, so that the aesthetic expression that flows between patient and therapist allows ample space for the complexity of authentic communication and integration of opposites. Our statement is that it is the process that is important rather than the product.

Keywords: art therapy; spontaneous artistic expression; scribbling; sprinkling; healing; assessment