Home
/
Archives
/
Психология человека и социальной среды, 2026, Volume 1, Issue 3
/
Abstract Art as Projective Stimuli in Counseling Work with Mental Trauma

Произведения абстрактной живописи как проективные стимулы в консультативной работе с психической травмой

2026
Volume №1
Issue 3
Publication date: 09/15/2026
Section: ОБЩАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
Бардиер Галина Леонидовна
Irina A. Samusenko
Русская христианская гуманитарная академия им. Ф. М. Достоевского
DOI:
10.25991/3033- 8794.2026.85.20.001
Download article file

Annotation

This article discusses the complexity of counseling for trauma patients in situations where clients seeking psychological help are not fully aware of their traumatic experiences and, therefore, are not always able to verbalize their feelings. To support such clients and assist them in verbalizing their traumatic subjective experiences, the authors examine the feasibility of using projective stimuli. Within the framework of the narrative approach and the associative method, the authors propose using abstract paintings as projective stimuli when working with traumatized clients. The article presents the results of two pilot studies aimed at selecting abstract paintings as projective stimuli. During the experimental work, five paintings were selected that could hypothetically be associated with one of the five most common types of psychological trauma: trauma of attachment disorder, incomplete separation, interpersonal relationships, physical health, and the trauma of loss. In the first pilot study, psychologists with extensive counseling experience (n=7) served as experts, while in the second pilot study, young psychologists (n=18) served as experts. To eliminate the additional influence of color, selected abstract paintings were presented to the experts in black and white for associative association with five types of trauma. The study's results confirmed the feasibility of using abstract paintings as projective stimuli for psychotherapy and psychological counseling for various types of traumatic experiences. The selected tools can form the basis for the development of new counseling techniques.

Keywords

abstract painting, projective stimuli, counseling, associative method, psychological trauma.

Literature

Arnheim, R. (2012). Iskusstvo i vizual'noe vospriyatie [Art and visual perception]. Moscow: Arkhitektura-S.

Burlachuk, L. F. (1997). Vvedenie v proektivnuyu psikhologiyu [Introduction to projective psychology]. Kiev: Nika-Tsentr; Vist-S.

Chirkova, Yu. V., & Kolosova, T. A. (2026). Proektivnye metody v diagnostike narushenij razvitiya lichnosti v detskom vozraste [Projective methods in the diagnosis of personality development disorders in childhood]. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Yurait.

Dagldiyan, K. T., & Polivoda, B. A. (2018). Abstraktnaya kompozitsiya: osnovy teorii i prakticheskie metody tvorchestva v abstraktnoj zhivopisi i skul'pture (s elektronnym prilozheniem) [Abstract composition: Fundamentals of theory and practical methods of creativity in abstract painting and sculpture (with electronic appendix)]. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo VLADOS.

Elger, D. (2008). Abstrakte Kunst. Köln: Taschen.

Feldmann, T. B. (1989). Creativity and narcissism: A self-psychology examination of the life and work of Jackson Pollock. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 16(3), 201–209. doi:10.1016/0197–4556(89)90023–3

Frankl, V. (1990). Chelovek v poiskakh smysla [Man's search for meaning]. Moscow: Progress.

Goldwater, R. (1952). [Review of the book The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology, by R. Motherwell (Ed.)]. The Art Bulletin, 34(3), 249–251.

Hamilton, J. (2012). A psychoanalytic approach to visual artists. London: Routledge.

Hess, B. (2005). Abstrakter Expressionismus. Köln: Taschen.

Jung, C. G. (1939). Diagnosticheskie issledovaniya sotsiatsij [Diagnostic association studies]. In Izbrannye trudy po analiticheskoj psikhologii [Selected works on analytical psychology] (Vol. 3). Zurich: Rascher Verlag.

Kopytin, A. I. (2020). Art-terapiya v epokhu postmoderna [Art therapy in the postmodern era]. Saint Petersburg: Rech'.

Kurbatova, L. N. (2020). Proektivnye metody v diagnostike emotsional'nykh sostoyanij [Projective methods in the diagnosis of emotional states] (Doctoral dissertation). Saint Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University.

Leahy, R. (2021). Terapiya emotsional'nykh skhem. Prakticheskoe rukovodstvo [Emotional schema therapy: A practical guide]. Moscow: Dialektika.

Petrenko, V. F. (2020). Psikhosemantika iskusstva [Psychosemantics of art]. Saint Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta.

Reshetnikov, M. M. (2026). Psikhicheskaya travma [Psychological trauma] (2nd ed.). Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Yurait.

Sedlmayr, H. (2008). Utrata serediny = Verlust der Mitte [Loss of the middle = Verlust der Mitte]. Moscow: Territoriya budushchego; Progress-Traditsiya.

van der Wijngaart, R. (2023). Reskripting v voobrazhenii. Teoriya i praktika [Imagery rescripting: Theory and practice]. IOI.

Vygotsky, L. S. (2025). Psikhologiya iskusstva [Psychology of art]. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Yurait.

Yalom, I. (2021). Ekzistentsial'naya psikhoterapiya [Existential psychotherapy]. Moscow: Klass.

Zashchirinskaya, O. V. (2025). Preodolenie travmaticheskogo stressa. Rabochaya tetrad' [Overcoming traumatic stress. Workbook]. Saint Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo Piter.

Zashchirinskaia, O., Brakamonte, N., Hagedorn, U., & Nikolaeva, E. (2019). Methods of cognitive impairment and assistance to children and adults in correctional pedagogy and psychotraumatology study. In XVI European Congress of Psychology (p. 177). Moscow: Lomonosov Moscow State University.

Language
© 2026 «Психология человека». Все права защищены.
© 2026 Русская христианская гуманитарная академия. Все права защищены.