Philosophy of Science

Rethinking the concept of Therapy in Feminist Art Therapy: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Hoda Hamdieh 1
mohamadreza sharifzadeh 2
mostafa Hamdieh 3
Hossein Ardalani 4

1 Ph.D student in Art Research, Faculty of Art, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch,Tehran,,Iran.

2 Professor, Department of Art, Faculty of Art, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch,Tehran,Iran.

3 Professor Department of Psychiatry Faculty of Medicine Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences ,Tehran. Iran

4 Professor, Department of Philosophy of Art, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Islamic Azad University, Hamedan, Iran

https://doi.org/10.30465/ps.2026.54835.1836
Abstract
This article, adopting a theoretical approach grounded in Foucauldian discourse analysis, examines the conceptual foundations of feminist art therapy. Within Michel Foucault’s framework, discourse is not merely a collection of language and concepts, but a truth-producing system through which power/knowledge relations construct subjects, bodies, and therapeutic norms. From this perspective, therapy in classical approaches often functions as a disciplinary technology, and through mechanisms of normalization, stabilizes the treatable subject within the truth regime of mental health. In contrast, feminist art therapy, with its emphasis on women’s lived experience, embodiment, and suppressed narratives, creates the possibility of resistance against this dominant subjectification. By posing the question of how feminist art therapy, within a Foucauldian discourse-analytic framework, redefines therapy as a field of resistance, this article demonstrates that in this approach, art, as a discursive and cultural practice, goes beyond being an instrument of individual healing and becomes a space for the representation of the body, the production of alternative narratives, and the reclamation of agency for the female subject. The theoretical findings of the study indicate that feminist art therapy, in a Foucauldian reading, defines therapy not as a reading, defines therapy not as a return to normativity, but as a multilayered process of resistance, meaning-making, and the transformation of the dominant truth regime.
Keywords: Foucauldian discourse analysis, feminist art therapy, power/knowledge, embodiment and subjectification, redefinition of therapy and resistance.

Extended Abstract
Introduction
This article develops a theoretical, Foucauldian discourse-analytic reading of feminist art therapy, examining how this approach redefines the very concept of “therapy.” Contemporary art therapy remains, in many of its classical formulations, embedded within normalizing discourses of mental health that frame therapeutic success as a return to a socially sanctioned “normal” state. Building on Michel Foucault’s account of discourse as a truth-producing system, the study argues that therapy cannot be understood as a neutral or purely psychological practice; rather, it is constituted within relations of power/knowledge that regulate bodies, subjects, and therapeutic norms. Feminist art therapy, by centering women’s embodiment, lived experience, and previously silenced narratives, opens a space of resistance to this dominant mode of subject formation. The central research question asks how feminist art therapy, read through a Foucauldian discourse-analytic lens, redefines therapy as a field of resistance rather than normalization. The guiding hypothesis holds that, by critiquing the truth-regime of classical/modern therapy, feminist art therapy reconceives treatment not as conformity to a norm but as a multilayered process of producing alternative narratives, representing the body, and reclaiming female subjectivity.

Materials and Methods
This is a theoretical-analytical study rather than an empirical one. Its material consists of theoretical and scholarly texts: key works by Michel Foucault on power/knowledge, subjectification, normalization, and the “truth regime” (notably The Archaeology of Knowledge, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality), together with the foundational and contemporary literature on feminist art therapy, particularly the work of Susan Hogan, alongside recent related studies. The analysis proceeds in three stages: first, Foucauldian discourse-analytic concepts — power/knowledge, subjectification, and normalization — are outlined and set against classical conceptions of therapy; second, feminist art therapy is examined as a discourse of resistance and body politics through this same framework; third, the theoretical implications of this redefinition are drawn out for art therapy and interdisciplinary art research.

Discussion andResults
The analysis shows that classical art therapy, despite its humanistic aims of emotional expression and psychological well-being, cannot be separated from the power/knowledge network Foucault describes: it operates within a therapeutic truth regime that determines which forms of suffering are legitimate, which emotions merit expression, and which subjects are recognized as “treatable.” In this configuration, art therapy functions as a disciplinary technology that returns individuals to a socially normative state, effectively reproducing rather than questioning existing structures of power — especially with respect to gendered bodies, which have historically been subject to control and medicalization.
Feminist art therapy emerges, by contrast, as an alternative discourse. Rather than treating the female body as an object of correction, it positions the body as a site of political contestation and resistance. Drawing on Hogan’s clinical and theoretical work, the study illustrates how practices such as collage, imagery, and embodied performance allow women to reconstruct imposed gendered narratives, shifting authority from the therapist’s interpretation to the voice of the subject herself. Where classical therapy relies on a confessional model — in which the subject discloses an “inner truth” for expert interpretation — feminist art therapy replaces confession with symbolic and visual meaning-making, enabling non-confessional forms of self-narration.
The discussion further develops the notion of empowerment as a discursive and political achievement rather than a merely psychological one: it entails producing a different truth about the body, suffering, identity, and desire. The female subject moves from being an object of diagnosis to becoming an active narrator and agent, capable of contesting the therapeutic truth regime itself. The paper situates this shift within broader debates in visual and cultural studies, arguing that art is never a neutral or apolitical medium but is itself constitutive of regimes of seeing and knowing. Read alongside contemporary theorizations of the body as simultaneously discursive and material, this reframing extends Foucault’s account of biopower into the domain of art-based practice, suggesting that therapeutic encounters are always also sites of epistemic and political negotiation over what counts as suffering, health, and recovery.

Conclusion
The study concludes that therapy, viewed through a Foucauldian lens, cannot be reduced to an individual, neutral, or purely psychological process; it is always embedded in power/knowledge relations and truth regimes. Feminist art therapy challenges the therapeutic truth regime through three interrelated mechanisms: replacing the therapist’s interpretive authority with the subject’s own narrative agency; employing a visual, symbolic language that escapes the logic of confession; and foregrounding the female body as a site of resistance rather than an object requiring correction. Consequently, feminist art therapy should be understood not merely as a clinical technique but as a discursive and political field that redefines therapy as a multilayered process of resistance, meaning-making, and transformation of the dominant truth regime, with significant implications for future interdisciplinary art and therapy research.

Keywords

Foucauldian discourse analysis
feminist art therapy
power/knowledge
embodiment and subjectification
redefinition of therapy and resistance
Subjects
Bal, M. (2002). Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide. University of Toronto Press.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Routledge.
Butler, J. (2004). Undoing Gender. Routledge.
Collier, J. (2025). The case for case studies: Art psychotherapy as a feminist methodology with women in prison. Art Therapy Online.
Deepwell, K. (2020). Art criticism and the state of feminist art criticism. Arts, 9(1), 28.
Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge (A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.). Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Vintage Books.
Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). Pantheon Books.
Gordon, C. (Ed.). (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. Pantheon Books.
Hall, S. (1996). Introduction: Who needs “identity”? In S. Hall & P. du Gay (Eds.), Questions of Cultural Identity (pp. 1–17). Sage.
Hogan, S. (1997). Feminist Approaches to Art Therapy. Routledge.
Hogan, S. (2001). Healing Arts: The History of Art Therapy. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Hogan, S. (2002). Gender Issues in Art Therapy. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Hogan, S. (2013). Your body is a battleground: Art therapy with women. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 40(4), 415–419.
Kalmanowitz, D., & Ho, R. T. H. (2016). Out of our mind: Art therapy and mindfulness with refugees, political violence and trauma. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 49, 57–65.
McLaren, M. A. (2002). Feminism, Foucault, and Embodied Subjectivity. State University of New York Press.
Mirzoeff, N. (2011). The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality. Duke University Press.
O’Farrell, C. (2005). Michel Foucault. Sage Publications.
Rancière, J. (2004). The Politics of Aesthetics. Continuum.
Rabinow, P., & Rose, N. (2006). Biopower today. BioSocieties, 1(2), 195–217.
Rose, N. (1999). Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self (2nd ed.). Free Association Books.
Rose, N. (2007). The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton University Press.
Talwar, S. (2019). Art therapy for social justice: Radical intersections. Art Therapy, 36(2), 67–69.
Warriner, D. S. (2017). Language, Discourse, and Identity in Applied Linguistics. Routledge.
Wei, W., & Du, S. (2025). The F-A-X pathway: Integrating XR and arts-based action research in feminist art therapy. Communication in Humanities Research, 87, 52–57.
Wright, T., & Wright, K. (2022). Critical feminist praxis and art psychotherapy: Feminist politics of care. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 79, 101912.
 
Philosophy of Science
Volume 15, Issue 2
February 2026
Pages 1-29

Home

Guide for Authors

Submit Manuscript

Reviewers

Contact Us