The Basics • 77This means that part of any art therapist’s job is to be active in gathering support within
the working environment. When I began work at the Pittsburgh Child Guidance Center, I
offered to give a presentation at a clinicwide staff meeting about art therapy, where I was
able to invite requests from others for consultation, collaboration, and research. Meetings
with the heads of each department within the center were also fruitful and led to in-service
training for the psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers who worked and who were
training there. These initial presentations and meetings also led to a series of research inves-
tigations, as well as the development of a family art evaluation and conducting co-therapy
with a number of colleagues from different disciplines (Rubin, 2005a, 2005b). On the DVD
(4. 3), you see my colleague, the gentleman with blond hair in the upper left of the picture,
observing a child in a family art evaluation (A) that he and I created and conducted. His
support for art therapy as Chair of Psychology at the Pittsburgh Child Guidance Center was
extremely helpful.
Collaborating with colleagues is probably the most effective way of gaining support and
is enriching for all participants. On the DVD you can listen to Irene Rosner-David describe
how it is done at Bellevue Hospital, where she is the director of the Creative Arts Therapy
Department (B). You can also watch Roger Arguile meeting with other staff in his work at
a school for exceptional children (C), and see Ellen Horovitz collaborating with a speech
therapist on one boy’s treatment (D).
Support for the art therapist’s work needs not only to be requested but also nurtured. Only
then is it possible to create conditions that are as good as possible under the circumstances.
Art therapists learn to be flexible about the fact that optimal conditions are rare. Knowing
what would be ideal, however, helps an art therapist to maximize the potential of any partic-
ular situation, and to work toward improving it. It is similar to having a model of a mentally
healthy person in mind, while helping each patient to come as close as he or she can.
Physical Conditions
An ideal physical setting for art therapy is private and protected from intrusion, has ade-
quate light and working surfaces, contains within it an easily accessible water source, and
has sufficient space for storage and display of art supplies and products. In the best of all
possible worlds, it does not need to be shared or used by anyone else.
While it would be lovely if all could operate under such conditions, that is rarely the
case. More often, the art therapist must access her own considerable creativity in order to
make the best of a less-than-ideal situation. Although art therapists are usually required
to accommodate to the setting and its deficits, a clear understanding of the importance
of a safe and secure physical framework helps in obtaining both administrative and staff
support. Being willing to help others in their work in whatever fashion they request pays
off handsomely when it comes to getting and maintaining the necessary conditions for
creative work.
Psychological Conditions
It could be argued that a safe and secure psychological framework for all therapy, including
art therapy, is even more critical than a physical one. It is probably that which accounts for
the remarkable fact that powerful art therapy can take place in suboptimal situations, like
a patient’s bedside on a crowded hospital ward, or the corner of a hectic shelter for battered
women. “Art is a quiet place,” even in a noisy room or in June’s cage at the zoo (cf. Chapter 3).
Despite the possibility of conducting art therapy under difficult circumstances, a stable
set of physical and psychological conditions is still best. This requires the same kind of