ce. Further to this point, McNiff (2001) takes the view that art therapy is "multisensory" in nature and that the creative process both enables and requires application of all of the senses to the project of psychological development or modification.
By and large, the function that art performs in clinical environments is similar to the function it performs in the culture. That function is informally understood to be that of relaxation agent in the service of enhanced communication and interaction, often, though not exclusively, among members of a group. Art therapy is seen as an important bridge of communication and relaxation for individuals who are so isolated from others that they are socially and emotionally inept. In the clinical setting, whether a hospital per se or a group-counseling environment, it appears to foster emotional, personality, and cognitive development in disabled or disturbed individuals (Berg, 1982), although there is much variation in the way art therapy is applied. Indeed, modes of therapeutic practice vary widely, and definitions of what constitutes art itself, whether inside or outside the therapeutic arena, are so varied as to complicate the definitional enterprise for the art-therapy discipline.
The plastic arts (as opposed to, say, the performing arts such as music or the dance) derive their mode of expression from tangible materials employed in creating that expression. One published report about art therapy quotes the founder of the Art Therapy Institute to the effect that an art therapist facilitates patients' choice of media "to best express themselves" (Miller, 1999). The big picture of media choice is that art therapy clients may select materials that are best suited to expressing feelings or ideas that might not emerge in an "unmediated" therapeutic setting. The materials become the "expressive modality" between the practitioner and the patient (Linesch, 1999, p. 226). Linesch describes the em...