The term art therapy was coined when it was recognized that painting, drawing and modelling had healing effects on people. The early practitioners saw themselves as facilitators in setting free a spontaneous inaginative activity. In this text the author makes a plea for the therapist to return to a trust in the therapeutic value of the creative process itself. Drawing on her memories of working with some of the pioneers of art therapy, and on her own experience as a painter and as an art therapy practitionar, her argument surfaces through observation, speculation, case history and quotations from artists, poets and analysts.