32 • Introduction to Art Therapy
often sensitize and train artists and art educators who offer creative experiences. Because
they understand both the art process and the disability, art therapists are ideal consultants
for other art professionals doing such work.
In 1970, I conducted a pilot art therapy program at the Western Pennsylvania School for
Blind Children with a group of youngsters who had multiple disabilities. I worked with a
team that included people in art and special education (Figure 2.7) as well as students who
wanted to become art therapists. Although that program was labeled as recreation and not
therapy, due to the then-discomfort among educators with the idea of counseling, it was
unquestionably therapeutic in more than a superficial way from the very first individual
assessment settings.
Since blind children are so dependent on those who care for and teach them, expressing
hostile and anxious feelings was not easy to do verbally. However, given art materials and a
safe, contained environment for the children’s intense need to express what was troubling
them, there was no question that we were doing art therapy. This is evident on the DVD,
where you see a child with artificial eyes working through the trauma of his 50 previous
operations by playing doctor and patient, giving himself a shot (D). The program itself can
be seen in the film We’ll Show You What We’re Gonna Do! which has been remastered and
is available on a DVD including a videotaped introduction, as well as on a later videotape
by Susan Aach (Figure 2.8) about her work with higher-functioning children at the school,
Creating, For Me^3 (in Rubin, 2008d).
Figure 2.7 An art teacher working with a blind child.