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영어

The purpose of this thesis is to study the reason why art plays a significant role in treating a mental problem. For this purpose, we intend to analyze the concept of aesthetic experience and analyze profoundly, based on it, what kind of therapeutic dimension art has. The essential characteristic of aesthetic experience is to find out and make up the world of meaning beyond the objective property of the object through a direct encounter with the object. The creative work with art works in arts psychotherapy facilitates the creative encounter with one's inside and enables one to express the inside world in art works. Based on this function of aesthetic experience, we can infer the therapeutic aspect as follows: First, art facilitates expression and communication. Second, art provides the space of play, the middle zone between reality and imagination to express reality liberally through imagination. Third, art helps one discover and form meaning. It is expected that this argument over the therapeutic function of aesthetic experience will provide a persuasive ground for the therapeutic power of art and greatly contribute to building up the academic identity of arts psychotherapy as well.