The use of art has a long tradition within BPD treatment, studies of effective treatment programmes reveal less about the contribution of particular components of treatment, such as art therapy, and so a different research strategy is required. The contribution of a particular component of treatment can be examined through the lived experience of people who use that service. Such an approach acknowledges that art therapists are not the only contributors to the phenomena of art therapy. Those who have used art therapy services have a high investment in the practice. Their capacity to look back and review the art therapy they engaged in, from the inside of the experience, can help us to understand more about both the troubling psychological conditions they entered therapy with and how the interaction between people and art objects worked with the
effects of those conditions.