Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 13:55, 18 June 2012

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Margaret Naumburg" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Margaret Naumburg (May 14, 1890-February 26, 1983) was an American psychologist, educator, artist, author and among the first major theoreticians of art therapy. She named her approach dynamically oriented art therapy. Prior to working in art therapy, she founded the Walden School of New York City.

Life and Work

Naumburg finished undergraduate studies at Vassar and Barnard colleges in New York. She did graduate work at Columbia University with John Dewey in education and at the London School of Economics. While in Italy she studied with Maria Montessori. She opened Walden School in New York City. It began with two teachers and ten students focusing on letting children develop their own interests and ideas. Naumburg believed children would not only learn knowledge, but learn how to use knowledge to their advantage .

"Up to the present time, education has missed the real significance of the child’s behavior by treating surface actions as isolated conditions. Having failed to recognize the true sources of behavior, it has been unable effectively to correct and guide the impulses of human growth.... The new advances in psychology, however, provide a key to the real understanding of what makes a child tick." Quote from Margaret Naumburg

Many notable individuals taught at the Walden School including Lewis Mumford, Hendrik van Loon, and Ernest Bloch.

Married writer Waldo Frank, with whom she had a son, Thomas, in 1917 and divorced in 1924.

Margaret Naumburg is attributed as introducing art as a therapeutic modality in the 1940s. Naumburg utilized art for diagnosis and therapy. However she was not alone in this endeavor. She was unique in using it as a primary agent rather than an auxiliary tool. She called her approach Dynamically Oriented Art Therapy based primarily on Freudian theory. Naumburg viewed Art Therapy as a Distinctive form of psychotherpay. She was also sympathetic to Jungian notions of universal symbolism and Harry Stack Sullivan's ideas about interpersonal psychiatry. Building of the work of Freud and Jung, Naumburg explored the inner personal meaning of symbols. Naumburg insisted the only valid interpretation of anyone's art came from them. She was skeptical about simple or rigid approaches to symbolic meaning consistent with Freud's teaching about dream analysis . Naumburg's directive of choice was scribble drawing. Naumburg would have her client close their eyes and then scribble on a piece of paper. She would then ask the client to develop the images they saw in the scribble. Scribble drawing was developed by her sister Florence Cane. She used this technique believing it helped release unconscious imagery .

Dynamically Oriented Art Therapy is based on recognizing that man's fundamental thoughts and feelings come from the unconscious. Often thoughts and feelings are reached through expression in images rather than words. Like psychoanalytic procedures, images may deal with dreams, fantasies, daydreams, fears, conflicts and memories. Whether trained or untrained individuals have the capacity to project their inner conflicts into visual form. In this approach, the therapist withholds interpretation encouraging clients to discover what their picture means to them.. Naumburg used art as the means for clients to visually project their conflicts.

Books by Margaret Naumburg

• The child and the world: dialogues in modern education, Harcourt, Brace and company, 1928 (Digitized Oct 29, 2007)
• Studies of the "Free" Expression of Behavior Problem Children as a Means of Diagnosis and Therapy , Publisher Coolidge Foundation, 1947 - Art - 225 pages
• Schizophrenic Art: Its Meaning in Psychotherapy (1950)
• Psychoneurtic Art, Its Function in Psychotherapy: correlation of the patient's Rorschach and other tests with the patient's art productions, by Adolpf G. Woltmann., Published 1953
• Dynamically Oriented Art Therapy: Its Principlas and Practice,(Copyriihgt 1966 by Gune & Stratton, Inc.), Publisher:MAGNOLIA STREET PUBLISHERS, 1987, ISBN 0-9613309-1-0
• An Introduction to Art Therapy: Studies of the "Free" Art Expression of Behavior Problem Children and Adolescents as Means of Diagnosis and Therapy (Copyright 1950 and 1973 by Margaret Naumburg), by Margaret Naumburg, Foreward to the first edition by NOLAN D. C. LEWIS, M.D., Publisher: Teachers College Press, Teachers college, Columbia University, New York and London, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 73-78074

See also

• Sigmund Freud
• Carl Jung
• Adrian Hill
• Edward Adamson
• Rawley Silver
• Edith Kramer
• Florence Cane
• Bruce Moon
• Rhodha Kellogg
• Harriet Wadeson
• John Dewey
• Maria Montessori
• Waldo Frank
• Lewis Mumford
• Hendrik van Loon
• Ernest Bloch

Notes

1. Approaches to Art Therapy: Theory & Technique, Judith A. Rubin, (2001 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC),Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group, 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, ISBN 1-58391-070-0
2. Brorowsky Junge, Maxine (2010). "Margaret Naumburg". The Modern History of Art Therapy: In the United States Biography. Charles C Thomas-Publisher, LTD. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-398-07941-3.
3. The Art Therapy SOURCEBOOK, Cathy A. Malchiodi, ATR, LPCC (2007 2nd ed.).Publisher: McGraw-Hill, Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2298, ISBN-13-978-0-07-146827-5
4. Cane, K. D., Frank, T., Kniazzeh, C. R., Robinson, M. C., Rubin, J. A., & Ulman, E. (1983). Roots of art therapy; margaret naumburg (1890-1983) and florence cane (1882-1952) a family portrait. American Journal of Art Therapy, 22, 111-123.
5. Milite, G.A. (2011) "Naumburg, margaret (1890-1983)". Encyclopedia of Psychology. FindArticles.com.
6. Altman, Julie. "Margaret Nuamburg". Jewish Women A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Retrieved June, 17th, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
7. Cane et al. (1983)
8. The Art Therapy SOURCEBOOK, Cathy A. Malchiodi, ATR, LPCC (2007 2nd ed.).Publisher: McGraw-Hill, Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2298, ISBN-13-978-0-07-146827-5
9. The Art Therapy SOURCEBOOK, Cathy A. Malchiodi, ATR, LPCC (2007 2nd ed.). Publisher: McGraw-Hill, Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2298, ISBN -13-978-0-07-146827-5
10. Rubin, J. A. (2001). Approaches to art therapy Theory and technique. New York, NY. Brunner-Routledge.
11. Rubin, J. A.(2001)
12. Naumburg, M. (1966). Dynamically oriented art therapy; its principles and practices. New York, NY. Grune and Stratton.
13. Naumburg, Margaret (1928). The child and the world: dialogues in modern education Biography. University of California. p. 328.

References

1. Arrington, Doris Banowsky (2001). Home is where the art is : an art therapy approach to family therapy. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas. pp. 19, 20, 21, 141. ISBN 0-398-07161-6.

• Cane, K. D., Frank, T., Kniazzeh, C. R., Robinson, M. C., Rubin, J. A., & Ulman, E. (1983). Roots of art therapy; margaret naumburg (1890-1983) and florence cane (1882-1952) a family portrait. American Journal of Art Therapy, 22, 111-123.
• Naumburg, M. (1966). Dynamically oriented art therapy; its principles and practices. New York, NY. Grune and Stratton.
• Milite, G.A. (2011) Naumburg, margaret (1890-1983). Encyclopedia of Psychology. FindArticles.com.
• Rubin, J. A. (2001). Approaches to art therapy Theory and technique. New York, NY. Brunner-Routledge.

Template:Persondata

This article about a psychologist is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

This biographical article about a person notable in connection with Judaism is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• Art therapy
• American psychologists
• 1882 births
• 1961 deaths
• Psychologist stubs
• Jewish biography stubs