Bilateral art: facilitating systemic integration and balance

Art therapy has typically focused on issues associated with the human need for creative experience— art as therapy—and the power of art as a form of expression—art in therapy (Cane, 1951; Rubin, 2001). Marriage and family therapists argue that many of the difficulties that present in therapy are best treated systemically, i.e., from the perspective of or in the presence of the family as a whole. More recently, family therapists have extended their systemic perspective in the opposite direction with the introduction of the self in the system (Nichols, 1987) and internal family systems models (Breunlin, Schwartz, & Mac Kune-Karrer, 1997). The field of mental health is placing increased emphasis on the relationship between the biology of neuroscience and various treatment modalities. This paper represents an effort to integrate elements of these diverse viewpoints by describing a neurologically-based art therapy modality—bilateral art. It describes both neurological and family therapy systemic perspectives that argue for the use of bilateral art. A specific protocol for bilateral art therapy and a case study describing experiences with the use of this protocol are presented.