The COVID-19 pandemic is a global, collective, traumatic experience. Trauma-aware museum educators can play a therapeutic role in helping visitors reengage with life as the world reopens. This article explores the dynamics of what a trauma-aware approach to engaging with art may be, specifically detailing methods that can create new cognitive,…

The authors recount a collaborative art-making journey centered on self-reflexivity to sustain a partnership across racial, social, and cultural differences. The image of a chair, re-imagined as a Humble Chair, was a symbol to anchor critical inquiry. The authors' explorations provide a pragmatic and artful approach to fostering cultural humility.

Four recent art therapy graduates created reflective artwork to process the COVID-19 pandemic and U.S. antiracist demonstrations and protests. This viewpoint describes their arts-based responses and intersubjective meetings to practice reflexive cultural humility. Key discoveries included themes of power and privilege, vulnerability, and moving…

The Artist in Residence at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland offers an arts program that is deeply engaged with the field of disability studies. By moving beyond an exclusively medicalized model of disability, hospitalized children and adolescents are situated as experts on their own lived experience. Artists, art therapists, and pediatric…

This article presents the author's experiences of practicing as an art therapist with a visible disability working alongside disabled art therapy participants in two settings--one that operates from the social model of disability and the other from the medical model of disability. Based on autoethnographic research, the author describes community…

This article defines the term twice-exceptional as being gifted (highly able) and having challenges with learning or physical disabilities. The focus is on understanding these children, who are brilliant in one way but at the same time in some situations are at risk. The biggest challenges they face are misunderstanding and misdiagnosis. This…

Portrait therapy entails an art therapist co-creating portraits of patients diagnosed with life-limiting illnesses and exhibiting it in a museum art gallery. A description of portrait therapy practice draws on the portraits, collages, and prose poems of two patients, along with feedback from exhibition visitors and patients' families. For…

Students with a newly acquired disability may struggle with adjusting to their life postdisability; therefore, they represent a unique facet of students within schools that require specialized services and support by school counselors. Creativity, used by school counselors within therapy sessions, may help promote personal growth and the…

There is a growing understanding for the integration of art therapy into hospital settings. This viewpoint explores a newly introduced art therapy program at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. Launched with private funding, the success of the program has been predicated on communicating the importance of art materials and studio…

Women hospitalized on an antepartum unit can benefit from an open studio art therapy group. A case description follows six women over five group sessions. Several common experiences that occurred throughout the sessions included isolation/boredom, uncertainty, lack of control, and family. Art therapy in a group setting allowed the women to express…

This viewpoint describes the case of a 4-year-old boy's journey in art therapy after his cancer had returned, which despite surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, ultimately claimed his life. The patient and his family participated in art therapy over the course of 18 months. As an integrated, palliative component of treatment, art therapy helped…

Relational social justice integrates psychological theories and practices with political and social change paradigms to situate relationships as central to ethical decision making. The core of this approach entails strong assurance of human rights and commitment to dialogue across racial, cultural, social, and political differences. Typical…

Art therapy has the unique potential to serve the mental health needs of the Deaf community. Art therapy practitioners and educators from the dominant (hearing) culture can become allies by de-centering verbal and audiological communication. The unique visual storytelling practice within Deaf culture makes art therapy a fitting modality for…

Art therapy in the United States has historically failed to document the contributions of people of color in the foundation of the profession. The American Art Therapy Association sought to correct the record when it created the criteria for the Meritorious Contribution award. This honor was conferred on 4 Black art therapists--Georgette Powell,…

An autobiographical, narrative art therapy approach to treat drug addiction was co-developed at the Methadone Clinic of Muhimbili National Hospital, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. The 10-session art therapy intervention included a group of 7 men. The protocol, as illustrated with a case example, suggests that it could help resolve deep-seated pain,…