34 • Introduction to Art Therapy
The art as therapy approach is actually quite close to Joan Erikson’s position. It assumes,
however, that deeper clinical understanding, rather than interfering, facilitates an artist’s
work with vulnerable patients. As its main spokesperson, Edith Kramer, had written:
The artist who applies modern psychology in the field of art has to adapt his methods
to the medium so that the therapeutic value of art is heightened and reinforced by the
introduction of therapeutic thinking, not destroyed or weakened by the introduction
of concepts and methods that might be incompatible with the inner laws of artistic
creation. (1958, p. 6)On the DVD you can see Edith Kramer doing an art assessment with a young boy (I).
Potter/poet M. C. Richards, while not an art therapist, was in favor of using art in therapy:
Not everyone agrees that art should be used in a therapy situation. Some artists, some
teachers, some doctors think it is demeaning to the seriousness of art to apply it as a
kind of medicine or mending tape. I think they are wrong.... Artistic experience is
central to the human being and where it is sleeping, it should be awakened however
modestly—for it is the person who will awake—and be strengthened—and aided in
his growth and development. (1973, p. 32)
In any case, after heated debate and covert anxiety about sharing the territory, a broad set
of recommendations was articulated by the Task Panel and the healing potential of a wide
range of possible art interventions was made explicit in the panel’s report.
Medical Art Therapy and Arts Medicine (DVD 2.4)
Twenty years later, an even greater openness to avenues of healing through the arts is evi-
dent in a growing movement in both the United States (Palmer & Nash, 1991) and Great
Britain, sometimes referred to as “Arts Medicine” (Graham-Pole, 2000; Kaye & Blee, 1996;
LeNavenec & Bridges, 2005; Rollins, 2004; Senior & Croall, 1996). The program at Shands
Hospital in Gainesville, Florida, seen on the DVD, is a fine example (A).
Within the last decade, one of the most rapid areas of development is that reflected in the
remarkable growth of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare (SAH).^5 Founded in 1991, it is
reported that, in part due to the efforts of this group, the majority of health-care settings
in the United States now have some kind of arts programming. This ranges from perfor-
mances, often at the bedside, to a variety of expressive activities for individuals and groups.
Because work in the hospital and other health-care settings is often conducted or supervised
by art therapists, it is not surprising that the SAH board of directors has always included art
therapists as well as physicians, artists, administrators, and supporters.
Parenthetically, academics in Thailand are currently in the process of developing both
training and service programs. The planning is a collaborative effort by the School of Fine
Arts, the School of Nursing, and the School of Public Health of Burapha University. This is
quite different from the development of art therapy in both America and England, which
began primarily in mental health settings, although some art therapists worked in schools
for children with disabilities. As a member of the advisory board for the Asia Pacific Art
Therapy Center at Burapha University near Bangkok, I have been privileged, along with
other art therapists, to help guide its development, which will include training for nurses
and other health-care professionals in the therapeutic use of art in their own work.
These recent developments suggest that in the future there will be many kinds of people
in more and more medical settings offering art activities to patients, a welcome development
in helping those in pain and suffering when they need it. There is a spectrum of possibilities,