"Holding the Space": An art therapy open studio for preadolescent war evacuees as an analytic third

In this paper, six art therapists utilize an art-based focus group to explore their experience of facilitating an Open Studio in the context of mass trauma. The Open Studio, in this case, was formed to serve as a non-directive art-making healing space for preadolescent war evacuees. First, the literature review focuses on the conceptualizations of mutual recognition and the analytic third and their relevance to the Open Studio model for shared trauma processing. Second, using interpretative phenomenological analysis and visual analysis as the multimodal approach (Boden et al., 2019), the therapists' art responses and verbal reflections that were thematically analyzed are presented. The finding highlighted the shared group experiences for both the participants and therapists. Challenges and advantages arose from working within an ongoing and shared traumatic reality of war, as did the art therapists’ role when operating as members of a team. Art making and witnessing art made within a communal space appeared to support the emergence of the analytic third, in which multiple opportunities for profound mutual recognition, self-exploration, and connections played out despite and because of the context and setting.