ABSTRACT
The contemporary language-centric paradigm in family therapy provides a mature systemic framework for intervention, yet faces limits in conveying non-codable, embodied familial lived experiences. Although codifiable, linear language is the primary meaning-making tool; it often cannot fully capture latent emotional tensions, embodied experiences and power dynamics inherent in family interactions. When therapeutic practice encounters situations resistant to linguistic penetration, artistic interventions are often reductively construed as mere ‘emotional outlets’ or ‘ice-breaking techniques’, thereby significantly diminishing their ontological value in reconstructing family interaction systems. Grounded in the non-verbal turn of systemic theory and informed by a poststructuralist critique of discourse, this paper advances the central proposition of ‘art as a relational language’, moving beyond instrumentalist conceptions. It argues that artistic interventions are not supplementary to verbal therapy; rather, through the presence and interactive engagement of non-verbal symbols, they restructure the mechanisms of family meaning-making, dissolve discursive hegemony and externalise tacit relational rules. By analysing the deep operational logic of art in relational externalisation, power redistribution and co-construction of meaning, the study delineates therapists’ reflexive ethical boundaries in artistic practice and, through illustrative cases of symbolic transformation of implicit interaction rules, constructs an integrated ‘art–relation–system’ analytical framework. Ultimately, this framework demonstrates how art-based interventions facilitate a shift in family therapy from ‘discourse-dominated meaning construction’ towards ‘multimodal relational reconstruction’, providing theoretically robust and practice-oriented tools for addressing complex family dynamics.