Contemporary artworks as transformational objects in art psychotherapy museum groupwork

摘要

This paper examines two group art psychotherapy programs held in 2017 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST). It focusses on three contemporary artworks by Kimsooja, Ilya Kabakov and Sophia Kosmaoglou belonging to the EMST collection and how working with these groups was explored through objects relations theory. The paper looks at how these artworks became evocative as transformational objects to bring about change. The conclusion is that contemporary art is beneficial when working psychotherapeutically in the museum environment through relating it to existing object relations theory. We conclude that professionals who run museum and gallery-based psychotherapy groups will find the contributions of object relations theory and contemporary art beneficial in this way.