Describes the evolution of art therapy in Miami, Florida public schools over the past 20 years. Suggests the variety of tasks that must be accomplished to incorporate art therapy into the normal educational program, such as organizational and legislative collaboration, and how it will accommodate changing times. (RJM)

Describes how art therapists can clarify their roles and assertively sell themselves to the public. Looks at the future of art therapy, defines assertiveness, explores the need for art therapists as mentors, details the need for change, and introduces some practical solutions to achieve change. (RJM)

Interview of Cliff Joseph, one of the first African Americans to participate in the American Art Therapy Association and to become a registered art therapist and teacher. Details Joseph's impact on art therapy and cultural and social issues, as well as his relationships with other prominent art therapists. (MKA)

Study uses art to evaluate an all day seminar for graduate students on research methods, to explore students' feelings about research concepts, and to foster understanding of these concepts. Results suggest that the seminar was able to reduce most participants' anxiety about research without a loss of creativity and energy. (Author/GCP)

Discusses how the art experiential is the central technique of art therapy, making it different from other therapeutic approaches. Uses the authors' personal experiences with mask-making in clinical and training settings to illustrate ideas about selecting particular art experiences. (Contains 31 references.) (GCP)

Summarizes a case study that examines how art assists in the healing process of a person suffering from a life-threatening illness. Takes a qualitative approach to illustrate the participant's engagement with art in self-healing. Demonstrates how art can illuminate insights that emerge from the experiences of a critical illness, and how it can…

Discusses art therapy interventions with children (n=25) who were victims of the Los Angeles earthquake in 1994. Offers clinical observations about issues most relevant to the trauma, symptomology, and defenses exhibited by children during treatment. (JPS)

Presents an archetypal teaching model that contemplates research as a contemporary form of an ancient hunting and gathering tradition. Argues that admonishing art therapists to engage in research creates an unintended consequence of identification with powerlessness as a primary motivation for expanding the knowledge of the profession. (MKA)

Presents an ethnographic model of art therapy results. The model requires the researcher to approach informants who are in art therapy as an anthropologist entering another culture. Describes basic principles of the ethnographic model. Introduces the concept of disability culture and concludes with recommendations for art therapists wishing to use…

Provides an overview of the three major philosophical debates regarding art therapy research: qualitative or quantitative research, integration, and teaching research. Presents thoughts about art therapy research based on the author's experience as an educator of art therapy research. (MKA)

Chapman Art Therapy Intervention (CATTI), an art therapy research project at an urban trauma center, was designed to reduce Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms in pediatric patients. Early analysis does not indicate statistically significant differences in reduction of PTSD symptoms between experimental and control groups. Children…

Examines the tension between the particular and the general in art therapy and makes a case that the art therapist's concern with particularity does not obviate the need for research in the field. Consideration is given to two frequent stumbling blocks for beginning researchers: the use of statistics and the possibility of obtaining negative…

Based on the American Art Therapy Association Research Committee's interest and support for learning how research is taught, a quantitative and qualitative survey of master's-level programs was conducted. Twenty four of the 44 surveyed programs responded. Twenty three (95.8 per cent) of the respondents required a course of at least three credits,…

This paper describes a 2-day conference at Lesley University for art therapists and people with mental illness who have experienced art therapy or make art for self-expression. Designed as a "participatory dialogue," the conference was a form of participatory action research (PAR) developed by the Center for Mental Health Services in Washington,…

Can music in and of itself tell anything about the mind of the person who composes or performs it? This question is of general philosophical interest, but it takes on more than philosophical significance in contexts where there is reason to think that music may be the only significant point of contact between one human being and another. There are…