The Use of a Body Sculpture Experience as a Means of Addressing Body-Image with Five Women
Graduation Date
Spring 1995
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy
Degree Granting Institution
Notre Dame de Namur University
Program Name
Art Therapy
Abstract
This study into women’s body-image issues was designed to evoke and report experiential thoughts after a sculptural intervention. The Kidd method of qualitative research was adapted to fit the project. Subjects were interviewed and screened for safety issues (e.g. breathing problems, claustrophobia) and for demographic information.
The researcher and an assistant draped the subjects with cheese cloth that had been dipped in a Plaster of Paris and glue solution. The subject decided upon the pose she wanted to see herself cast in. The result of this process was a replica of the subjects body in the form of a light weight cast from the shoulder to below the knee.
Questionnaires were given to each subject containing open-ended questions regarding the experience of being in the cast, thoughts and feelings upon viewing the cast, and how the body cast experience may have changed their body-image.
The results of the process were positive for all five women. A new point of view of their bodies, as a whole, proved illuminating, a sense of physical boundaries was enhanced. The tactile experience of being in the cast was soothing and nurturing to some of the women. The women were all satisfied with their casts and found the experience healing, in various ways to their body-image issues.