Playing with race: A theoretical framework and approach for creative arts therapists

Our assumptions about race and the process of othering are crucial in the therapeutic relationship, with power, privilege, and personal and collective trauma impacting the encounter. In spite of this, race is seldom formally discussed in the creative arts therapies. This literature review suggests that the existing writing often problematically includes essentialist discourse, color-blind statements, unqualified suggestions that the arts transcend difference, or “how to” instructions for working with particular racialized groups. Drawing on critical race theory and performance studies, this article offers theory for understanding race as roles that are produced and performed, embodied and created in the encounter. By engaging with these roles, we may disrupt rigid notions of race, provide an ethical component of the therapeutic relationship, and work towards social change. Analysis of the “Developmental Transformations” (DvT) section of the Three Approaches to Drama Therapy ( New York University, 2005) video is included as illustration of the potential, complexity, and limitations of playing with race.     

State hospital social work staff: Role conflict and ambiguity

This study was funded for in part by an Alabama Research Grants Award, Univ. of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL.     

Unlocking conflict through creative expression

This study looks at art therapy, its relationship to conflict, and subsequently conflict resolution. It introduces a new concept called the conflict ladder based on theory developed by Alan K. Cooper. The study addresses the quantitative aspects of the theory with the practical intervention needed by art therapists. One hundred individuals were sampled, given a list of conflict-related words, and asked to make a line related to each word. They were further asked to create a line drawing about a positive or negative qualitative experience. The quantitative results had high inter-rater reliability and gave clear support for Cooper's Conflict Ladder as an instrument to further measure conflict for art therapists. The qualitative findings were consistent with the quantitative findings, clearly supporting the practical application of the instrument and furthering exploration and investigation of art therapy as a tool for assessment of conflict and avenue for therapeutic reduction of conflict.     

Looking back,looking forward: New masters-level creative arts therapists reflect on the professional impact of an interprofessional community health internship

In the Philadelphia area, the Bridging the Gaps Community Health Internship Program (BTG) is a city-wide community health service learning program primarily open to graduate-level students of health professions, including medicine, public health, dental, pharmacy, social work, creative arts therapies, occupational and physical therapy, and law. Interns in the seven-week, paid, summer program work in interprofessional teams four days per week at a community site and spend one day each week in presentations, workshops, and small group discussions. Six creative arts therapists who participated as graduate students in this non-curricular internship during the summers of 2007 and 2008 were interviewed in 2011 to examine their perceptions of the impact of BTG upon their professional identity as new creative arts therapists. The study suggests that the internship cultivated in these participants a foundation for interdisciplinary clinical work that is socially and culturally aware. Shared themes included awareness of social determinants of health, healthcare as a privilege, and differing perspectives in healthcare environments, as well as increased empathy for marginalized and vulnerable populations. The authors recommend interprofessional learning opportunities that foster the development of clinicians who acknowledge their clients’ sociocultural differences and systemic interactions.     

The creative arts therapies as "real therapies".

Elements of a standard definition of psychotherapy are used to support the argument that the creative arts therapies should not be characterized as adjunctive therapies, or discredited as not being "real therapies." Two concepts widely acknowledged as important in the application of the creative arts therapies are discussed: first, that the nonverbal media employed by creative arts therapists tap emotional rather than cognitive processes and evoke responses more directly and immediately than traditional verbal therapies, and, second, that creative arts therapies are reality-based and provide a more immediate and real link to a patient's experience than something he can portray only verbally.