Chronic pain is acknowledged as a phenomenological experience resulting from biological, psychological, and social interactions. Consequently, treatment for this complex and debilitating health phenomenon is often approached from multidisciplinary and biopsychosocial perspectives. One approach to treating chronic pain involves implementing…

In the context of AIDS, the Botswana Government has adopted a group therapy program to help large numbers of orphaned children cope with bereavement. This study explores the effectiveness of the therapy and examines how it interacts with cultural attitudes and practices concerning death. Ten orphaned children were involved in five rounds of data…

Numerous studies have tirelessly and comprehensively accounted for the effects of art as a recreational therapy on mental well-being. However, there has been no previous study on the use of TFA (Traditional Filipino Arts) in the form of "Puni" as an intervention in facilitating the enhancement of self-esteem of Filipino elderly in a…

This article discusses ethics in the context of the participatory culture of social media as it relates to art therapy. The authors present the view that social media formats are important venues for expression that contribute to interpersonal connections and social learning via the active participation of their members. To make informed ethical…

The primary purpose of Del Giacco's Neuro-Art Therapy is to help the client regenerate the sensory system at a decoding/encoding (for our purposes we use the two words interchangeably) levels in the brain while using developmental visual spatial exercises or the Therapeutic Drawing Series (TDS). The specialty of Del Giacco Neuro Art Therapy (DAT)…

Educating and meeting the multiple needs of students at risk of low academic achievement has been a growing concern for public schools in the United States. Many at-risk students require alternative school-based interventions. This study examined the operation, premise, and objectives of art therapy integrated in 14 school districts across the…

This research project extends a previous study (Vick & Sexton-Radek, 1999) in examining the relationship between artmaking and pain among 127 migraine sufferers. A basic overview of migraine symptoms and treatment is presented along with a discussion of concepts relating to "migraine art" in order to provide a context for this project. Surveys…

This article discusses the authors' dialogue and collaborative writing regarding their professional views on the subject of parenting. The use of metaphor and analogy for parenting as a collaborative, cocreative relationship is woven throughout with references to the authors' own collaboration, research, and clinical applications in the fields of…

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems in the United States today. It is the number one mental health problem among American women and ranks as a close second to substance abuse among men. In fact, alcoholism is the only other disorder that affects a greater number of people throughout the county. Fifteen percent of the American…

This article discusses the creative making of boxes as a cross-cultural art therapy intervention in Kigali, Rwanda, with survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The box as an art form is particularly applicable with young adult survivors, given the nature of their prodigious trauma and the possibility of posttraumatic stress disorder, as well as…

Students who enter a creative arts therapy program without prior exposure to a patient population experience a complex developmental journey towards creating their own identities as art therapists. In this study, 21 graduate students were asked to draw how they saw their patients and how their patients saw them. The directive was repeated 3 times…

This article presents the results of a pilot study investigating the efficacy of art therapy to enhance cognitive performance in a sample of 24 elderly Hispanic/Latino members of a community center who participated in a weekly structured thematic therapeutic arts program. A 12-week, quasi-experimental, pretest/posttest, nonrandomized, controlled…

This article illustrates an art activity for use in psychotherapy with children or adolescents. The purpose of the activity is to utilize creativity to increase problem solving for child clients and to allow their narratives to expand therapeutically. The processing of the activity allows the art to be transformed into language, thereby involving…

Electronic media provides rapid delivery and unlimited access to pictures, sounds, and information. The ubiquitous presence of techno-digital culture in the lives of today's adolescents may influence or contaminate the art therapy process. This article presents two case studies that illustrate how cyberspace entered into art therapy sessions and…

14 Secrets for a Happy Artist's Life is an online art exchange group founded by Gerity in 2006 as an egalitarian virtual community art studio. The online and mail art format provides a safe arena to create, view, and generously exchange artwork of all kinds. Ideas discovered within the virtual art studio have been applied to art therapy settings.…