A contribution to art therapy in Spain from the life and work of Joan Obiols Vié

Abstract

In 1961 the second general assembly of the International Society for the Psychopathology of Expression was held in Montreal; during this event the launching of the Bulletin of Art Therapy by Elinor Ulman was announced and Antwerp was chosen as the venue for the 3rd congress of this entity. During this meeting it was also agreed that one of the 3 main themes of the congress would be psychotherapy through art, by Joan Obiols Vié, a psychiatrist from Barcelona. Obiols described his experience developed in the Department of Psychotherapy through Art of the University Clinic of Psychiatry of Barcelona (Professor Ramón Sarró), created in 1958. In his work he describes a study where he analyzed the psychotherapeutic possibilities of art as a unique or main intervention for the improvement of psychotic and neurotic symptomatology; he presented results of 150 patients after two years of intervention pointing out its effectiveness. The present text offers biographical information of the author and his theoretical contribution in relation to the history of art therapy in Spain, a review and discussion of his theory is offered in order to recognize his work and rescue part of the origin and identity of the profession, making accessible information until now little known. It was made from the review of documents provided by his sons, also psychiatrists, Jordi and Joan Obiols Llandrich, which include: conferences, articles, abstracts, correspondence, interviews; minutes of assemblies and congresses. The work includes six sections, it is observed that some of his thoughts are still contemporary to our current work, such as the therapeutic relationship, the transference to the image; the antagonistic principle; the graphic equivalence, the life of the image and the therapeutic triangle, the latter described by the author in 1974.