Metaphor in art therapy: Its use with vulnerable children

This article examines the role of metaphor in art therapy as both a tool for narrative comprehension and a means of transforming meaning, enabling new interpretations. The Brundibár Project, conducted over three years, implemented 25 workshops of 30 hours each across eight centers, involving 217 children and adolescents at risk or affected by trauma. Within these sessions, metaphor was used as a vehicle for meaning-making and transformation. The workshops fostered the development of a rich metaphorical repertoire among participants, reflecting their capacity to symbolically reframe experiences. The findings highlight how the attentive support of trained art therapists is essential in collecting and nurturing these metaphors, thereby enhancing their transformative potential. Relating the outcomes to existing literature, the study demonstrates that metaphor operates as a central element in art therapy interventions. It supports processes of identification, conflict management, and resolution, which participants can integrate into their own narratives. The art therapist’s shared perspective further strengthens these strategies, contributing to the possibility of personal change. As a result, the Brundibár Project has established a new classification of metaphors, offering a framework that may inform future applications and research in art therapy. • Beyond being a rhetorical device, metaphor encompasses similes, analogies, and platitudes, forming a core part of both language and cognition. • In contexts involving trauma, metaphorical expression helps individuals articulate what cannot be fully verbalized. • The metaphorical actions intrinsic to art—cutting, gluing, layering, holding, confronting, dissolving—symbolize internal processes of confrontation and integration. • The Brundibár Project shifts the focus to the patient’s point of view, empowering participants to generate and explore their own metaphors through artistic expression • Through this participatory and creative engagement with metaphor, the Brundibár Project fosters a deeper sense of agency, voice, and therapeutic transformation. • This categorization (…) becomes a resource for the children themselves—a medium for narrative construction and identity appropriation that amplifies both the reach of the creative process and the unfolding of symbolic expression.