The G.M. Nazloyan Psycho­therapy Centre (Institute of Mask Therapy) was established for prophylaxis and treatment of psy­chic disorders by traditional and non-traditional methods.

Specialists of the Centre treat their patients in Moscow without resorting to methods of orthodox psychiatry.

Patients undergo a programme of complex treatment at the Cen­tre, based on individual and group psycho­therapy and on the methods of sculptural portraiture, self-por­trait, medicinal make-up, rhyth­mic plasticity, psychodrama and other kinds of art therapy.

Besides the classical means of treatment, for the first time, a unique method of sculptural psychotherapy was used at the G. M. Nazloyan Psycho­therapy Centre. The influence on the patient's psyche takes place in the process of creating his realis­tic, full-size portrait by the phy­sician. This method appeared as a result of thorough study of path­ological estrangement, or autism, which is considered the main cause of many psychic and psychosomatic diseases by the re­searchers of the G. M. Nazloyan Psychotherapy Centre. This approach to the problem of psychopathology determined a general direction of the Centre's studies.

It is supposed that autism forms as a result of distortion, impover­ishment or misinterpretation of one's mirror image of "self" (ar­chetype of man and his mirror double). The main goal of our therapy is reconstraction of the patient's lost mirror image that leads to normalization of his in­ner dialogue and dialogue with the outer world.

Besides sculptural portraiture, a complex technique of self-portrait is used: a patient creates his own sculptual or pictorial image, as well as psychotherapeutic make-up, bodyart therapy and a complex of special movements in a plastic psychodrama.

Methods of art therapy worked out by the specialists of the Cen­tre found their development in a new form of group psychotherapy known as "Campfire Conver­sations".

The treatment is characterized by its humaneness as the relations between the doсtor and the pa­tient, or, in other words, the artist and the model, are those of spir­itual love and there reigns the at­mosphere of mutual creativity. Based on the canons of portrai­ture the ritual of psychotherapeu­tic treatment for the first time acquires clear-cut limits of the be­ginning, the stages, and the end, thus leading to the catharsis and complete recovery from mental disease.

The methods of teatment used at the Centre are the result of twenty years of intensive scientif­ic and clinical work of Dr. G. M. Nazloyan and his associates. Art therapy practiced by Dr. Nazloy­an, a psychiatrist, Candidate of Psychology, Honorary Doctor of the Institute of Maieutics, Lausanne, gained wide recogni­tion among the specialists of ma­jor psychiatric and psychothera­peutic research centres in Mos­cow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Zurich, Paris and Seoul. It was given wide coverage in scientific and popu­larscience literature.

In recent years, a full participant in the treatment process acts son of G. M. Nazloyan, director of the Psycho­therapy Centre, psychiatrist, artist G. G. Nazloyan.