During the 1930s and 1940s art increasingly came to be used as a therapeutic tool with children who were perceived as damaged by their experiences of war or displacement. This article explores two related exhibitions--"Children's Art from All Countries" (1941) and "The War as Seen by Children" (1943)--which provided a platform…

The purpose of this study was to explore the anxiety and stress-reducing effects of drawing, using different drawing materials by promoting the development of student confidence. The drawing activities were designed to foster the exploration of identity, emotion, and sense of self, while encouraging the exploration of materials and mark making.…

This article describes an art-based inquiry that explored two contemplative strategies--the conceptual strategy and the awareness strategy--through observation of art images and processes of creation, conceptual understanding, assessment, and the inner movements of self-awareness. Art media and directives were used to subjectively test key…

This study examined the relationship among projective drawings and mental health symptomatology to determine if projective drawings provide clinical utility in pet bereavement. Projective drawings, standardized questionnaires, and clinical interview results were collected from 33 adults grieving the loss of a pet. Drawings were coded into a…

Assessment is the foundation for conceptualizing effective interventions. Due to their nonverbal nature, art therapy assessments have an advantage over traditional verbal assessments in some populations and potentially across cultures. This pilot study provides preliminary reliability data to support the cross-cultural use of the Formal Elements…

A student's lack of belief in his or her own ability to do well in school can be a driving component of disengagement. In response, the author created art activities aimed to build students' confidence in their ability to learn, carry out a given art task, and identify a competence; such asset-based thinking approaches encourage students to reach…

This article provides a historical overview of computer-assisted art assessment, introduces the basic concepts of computerized assessment of art-based instruments (CAABI), and offers a tutorial to assist art therapists in the study of its application. Understanding this emergent technology may assist art therapists in overcoming hesitancy in…

Adult coloring books have flooded the market with titles alluding to therapeutic value, yet it is unclear whether they fulfil that promise. Here, we tested whether adult coloring was related to improvements in psychological outcomes. Female university students (n = 104) were randomly assigned to a coloring intervention or a logic-puzzle control…

This case study illustrates how parents can help their children cope with the fear and pain of surgery by engaging them in expressive drawing. As part of a parenting class that utilized art therapy techniques, a father shared his 6-year-old son's spontaneous drawings that had been created directly before and after surgery. Through guidance by the…

To evaluate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based structured versus unstructured coloring on test anxiety, 52 participants (53.8% female; M[subscript age] = 10.92 years, SD = 0.82) were randomly assigned to either a structured mandala (n = 26) or free coloring condition (n = 26), and completed a standardized anxiety measure to assess anxiety…

This pilot study examines an aspect of construct validity of the Draw-a-Person-in-the-Rain (DAPR) assessment utilizing a sample ("N" = 58) of third-grade public school children from three geographic regions of the United States (Great Plains, Rocky Mountain, and Pacific Northwest) that differ in climate and frequency of precipitation. A…

This study examined the effects of expressive media (drawing versus writing) and emotion regulation strategy (coping by venting versus coping by distraction) on short-term mood repair. After inducing a sad mood in 40 participants, the researchers randomly assigned them to one of two conditions: drawing or writing. Mood valence was assessed before…

An estimated 30,000 drawings remain of the concentration camp artworks generated over the course of the Holocaust. Fabricated in a reality conceived to eradicate not just life but the very will to live, concentration camp art raises the question of the persistence of creativity in traumatic situations. This article explores the witness function of…

This grounded theory study utilized art therapy techniques to explore the experiences of 8 Latino families that had immigrated to the United States. Focus group facilitators invited the parents and adolescent children in the families to share their acculturation experiences verbally and in family drawings. Emergent themes from each of three focus…

The Person Picking an Apple from a Tree (PPAT) is an art therapy assessment task that is scored using the Formal Elements Art Therapy Scale (FEATS) to identify a client's mental health symptoms and progress in art therapy. Normative data are needed to empirically validate assumptions about the PPAT. This report summarizes a normative study of the…