Ulman's art therapy

Domain VIII · Creative & expressive arts therapies · Elinor Ulman · 1961 · Washington, D.C., USA

What it is

"Ulman's art therapy" is not a manualised therapy. It has three parts: (a) a definitional framework for art therapy, (b) a clinical stance that runs from art studio work to art used within psychotherapy, and (c) one standardised assessment procedure, the UPAP. Elinor Ulman (1910–1991) was a…

Format

• Ulman's sources contain no phase model, session count or transition criteria. What can be reconstructed is a two-part clinical sequence: assessment first (UPAP), then ongoing art therapy placed somewhere on her art-to-therapy spectrum. Session counts and the criteria for moving between stages below…
• Stage A: Assessment with the UPAP (one session).

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Version difference: Tripp (2019, abstract) and Steinhardt (2006, p. 113) describe four drawings in a single session, which matches the four drawings Ulman introduces in the Walter Reed video. John (2012, p. 17), describing Ulman's 1976 film Art Therapy: Beginnings, reports a series of three drawings: a free drawing, a scribble drawing, and a free choice between scribble and free drawing, that is, the four-drawing…
• Format, frequency and length: not specified in the available secondary sources. Ulman's own programmes ran in general-hospital psychiatry (DC General), in training (the Washington School of Psychiatry) and in art education for emotionally disturbed children (Ulman 1971, as cited).
• Version followed: Elinor Ulman's position as set out in her chapters in Ulman & Dachinger (eds.), Art Therapy in Theory and Practice (Schocken, 1975; reprinted Magnolia Street, 1996): "Art Therapy: Problems of Definition" (first published 1961), "Therapy Is Not Enough" and "A New Use of Art in Psychiatric Diagnosis" (the Ulman Personality Assessment Procedure, UPAP). For the UPAP this guide follows the four-drawing,…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• fatigue over four pictures. Offer a pause between directives.
• changes that alter standardisation. Record every adaptation in the report.
• team members reading a single image as proof of pathology or of abuse. Correct this explicitly (see section 5).
• performance anxiety, and requests for exact instructions. Answer briefly and hand the choice back to the client.
• intellectualising, and the client making pictures to please you. Switch toward the studio pole if talk replaces making.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.