Expressive therapies continuum
[3] The concept was initially proposed and published in 1978 by art therapists Sandra Kagin and Vija Lusebrink, who based the continuum on existing models of human development and information processing.
[1][6] Kagin had earned a master's degree in special education and child psychology while working at a state facility in Kansas that served individuals with developmental and intellectual challenges.
The institution received funding to study the adaptive behavior of residents, and this allowed Kagin to investigate their responses to media experiences in art therapy.
The brain wave studies that were collected in this research sparked Lusebrink's interest in the mental image formation process and the shift from nonconsciousness to consciousness.
Each hypothesized a three-tier model related to the development of internal imagery based on physical, emotional, and intellectual information processing, and Lusebrink became fascinated with these concepts.
Lusebrink and Kagin collaborated to fuse their respective ideas into a framework that described how the targeted initiation of creative mental activity could yield therapeutic results by integrating overly differentiated kinds of information processing.
Based on her earlier work with individuals who had developmental and intellectual challenges, Kagin made major contributions to the development of the Kinesthetic and Cognitive components of the ETC.
During that time the two expanded their ideas, and the ETC evolved into an outcome-informed system that includes assessment, treatment planning, intervention, progress monitoring, and case conceptualization.
[8] By that point in time the larger mental health field had begun to espouse ideas that aligned with the ETC; Lusebrink and Kagin's concepts and terminology no longer sounded so foreign to art therapy professionals.
[3] This simple type of interaction with various art media stimulates primal areas of the brain and meets basic expressive needs—all while providing sensory and kinesthetic feedback for the artist.
[3] By working with individuals at the P/A level, art therapists can help clients to perceive images or notions in a new way, strengthening communication and assisting with the formation of meaningful relationships.
This level symbolizes a wholeness, in which the individual achieves a sense of joy, fulfillment, or wellbeing by taking part in the creative process and expressing the self.
[13] [14] Instead of linking to neurobiological levels of functioning, Della Cagnoletta places the creative process within an intra- and extra-psychic framework derived from psychoanalytical perspective.
