This brief report serves as a call for creative and artistic works relative to family social work. Recognizing the "art" of family social work, Mazza's (2003) multidimensional poetry therapy practice model is used as a framework for addressing all arts-based approaches to practice and research.

This paper describes methodology, data analysis, and initial results of a research study with the long-term goal of establishing contemporary normative data on drawings from children living in the United States. The pool of participants was composed of 316 fourth graders (mean age 9.69 years) and 151 second graders (mean age 7.56 years) who each…

The ability to attend to the human face is a striking and possibly characteristic deficit for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study collected and reviewed data on how people with ASD approach the drawing task and represent faces in particular. Drawings that were created by 25 children and adolescents with autism spectrum…

Common symptoms reported by cancer patients include pain, fatigue, breathlessness, insomnia, lack of appetite, and anxiety. A study conducted by an interdisciplinary research team (Nainis et al., 2006) demonstrated statistically significant reductions in these cancer symptoms with the use of traditional art therapy methods. The study found a…

This article presents an introduction to cross-cultural psychotherapy, with reference to historical theories of art, symbols and myth, and to the therapist working with the client--both individual and groups. Cross-cultural dimensions of art therapy are delineated with a support for further research and cooperation between cultures, with attention…

From a systems perspective, the role of the art therapist as social activist at a time of deep and crucial change for our clients, mental health systems, our country, and the world is discussed. Despite the fact that art therapists, through our artists' identities, are natural agents of change, our education and strivings for professional…

Head Start, a U.S. federally funded program, prepares children for school through early childhood intervention in social-emotional and cognitive arenas. This article describes program evaluation survey results from the past 5 years of an 18-year collaboration between a university graduate art therapy program and 8 Head Start centers. Graduate art…

This article discusses how an art therapist working in a hospital palliative care unit has incorporated a ritual of hand casting to help bring closure to dying patients and family members who are grieving as death approaches. The finished hand sculptures depict the hands of the patients and, sometimes, of their loved ones. They are faithful and…

This study presents a modified, single subject design that measured the patterns of electrical activity of a participant's brain following an hour spent painting and drawing. Paired t tests were used to compare pre and post art-making electroencephalograph (EEG) data. The results indicated that neurobiological activity after drawing and painting…

Chronic pain among children is poorly understood, and few studies portray the experiences of sufferers and their families. This qualitative case study aimed at gaining a rich description and a contextual understanding of the experiences of a young chronic pain sufferer, aged 6, and her family members through an art-making process. Several examples…

Children today are continually bombarded with visual and auditory stimulation, and many make their connections in cyberspace to the detriment of real-time face-to-face encounters with other people. The negative effects of multitasking and technological overload on children and adolescents are discussed in this viewpoint article from the…

This article examines the teaching approach of art educator Friedl Dicker-Brandeis as a historical antecedent to the art therapy profession. Dicker-Brandeis's philosophy and her specific methods of teaching art to children in the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia between 1942 and 1944 are described. The influence of the Bauhaus…

This study provides a basic overview of in-service preschool teachers using drawing as intervention with children. Art therapy is used more often for the smaller children who have more difficulty to describe their emotions and feelings in recognizing words, such as anger, resentment, and different kind of abuses. As a matter of fact, the drawing…

Art therapists increasingly are turning to educational and presentation technology to expand awareness of their field and to inform others in mental health care. This trend supports inquiry into how art therapists interact with and emotionally respond to the demands of technology. This paper presents a qualitative study that used 3 art-based focus…

Disclosures of child sexual abuse create an immediate crisis within the child's family unit. Reactions of nonoffending caregivers in particular may prevent them from being emotionally available to respond immediately to the needs of the child victim. This article describes an art therapy intervention of visual mapping used in a support group of…