Remedial-education art therapy (Menzen)

Domain VIII · Creative & expressive arts therapies · Karl-Heinz Menzen · 1994

What it is

Heilpädagogische (remedial-education / special-needs) Kunsttherapie is not a single manualised therapy. In Menzen's account it is one of six historical approaches (Ansätze) from which art therapy grew: the "heilpädagogisch-rehabilitative Ansatz", alongside the art-psychological, art-pedagogical,…

Format

• Menzen does not publish a fixed phase model or session count for this approach in the available material. The 2021 reading sample says only that therapy proceeds "in bildnerischen, psychologisch und physiologisch angemessenen Schritten" and does not name or order these steps. Its "drei großen…
• Format. Individual, group, family and mother–child settings; mostly complementary to medical, rehabilitative or educational care, and also used in diagnostics and medical rehabilitation. Menzen describes art-therapy practice as project work in his practice chapter on sensory promotion. In dementia…

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 any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• 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?
• 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

• dominance, damage to others' work, contagion of agitation.
• images that trigger (violence, loss); your own motives for choosing an image.
• do not claim to deliver Validation or maieutic care without the respective training.
• requires psychodynamic training and supervision; avoid interpretations the client cannot use.
• objects small enough to swallow (avoid); working = spontaneous comparing, choosing, linking object and trace.

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.