Based on a study of drawings done by a group of mental patients, schizophrenics, and manic-depressives, The Art of the Mental Patient and Its Functions demonstrates the similarity between the creative expression of the mental patient and that of the artist. In both cases, it is a derivative of the unconscious. Dr. Veda Moses-Kahnert shows how the exchange between patient and therapist brings out the meaning of the drawing. The associations given by the patient contribute to its interpretation and, in the process, encourage the patient to verbalise an often-elusive goal.

About the Author

Born, raised and educated in Kingston, Jamaica, Dr. Veda Moses-Kahnert moved to England to study at Manchester University. Then she came to America to study social psychology at Hunter College in New York. She returned to Europe to earn her Ph.D. at the Sorbonne in Paris, doing research with a group of delinquent girls at Salpetriere Psychiatric Hospital in Paris. A member of various art organizations, she worked with psychotics at the Marcel Riviere Institute near Paris using art as a therapeutic approach and as a research tool concerning the psychodynamics of art therapy. Dr. Moses-Kahnert lives in France with her husband. They have three children.