Places We Practice • 235Health (NIMH) grant to study the usefulness of art therapy in California institutions—
including the Departments of Corrections and Youth Authority. Donald Uhlin (1972), an
art therapist who worked with Pasto, used projective drawings to evaluate defendants for
the criminal justice system.
Although “making art in a jail setting” (Wadeson, Durkin, & Perach, 1989) has been rare
in the United States, it is a growing area of service. There are all sorts of criminal art therapy
clients—like the mother who killed her child, treated by Rose Marano Geiser, whose explo-
ration of art therapy in prisons began when she was a graduate student (Wadeson et al.,
1989). While we in the United States have been rather slow to scale the walls of correctional
institutions (Gussak & Virshup, 1997), those in the United Kingdom seem to have been
more effective (Laing & Carrell, 1982; Liebmann, 1994, 1996).
Art as Therapy for Wellness
Art as Therapy in Everyday Life
From the caveman to the Sunday painter, normal people in ordinary settings have been
making art as a form of self-therapy. Sometimes it’s to unwind or to relax, as a way of deal-
ing with the stresses of everyday life. Sometimes it’s to cope with a trauma—an event that is
too much for the ego to assimilate. The very fact that creative activity is therapeutic is one
reason for the existence and the effectiveness of art therapy.
Making art available to more people in a way that allows them to honestly express
themselves is good medicine, like taking vitamins or getting regular checkups—a form of
primary prevention. When I was the Art Lady on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, a public tele-
vision program for young children (1966–1969), my goal was to demonstrate the value of art
expression for self-esteem, self-definition, and dealing with feelings (Figure 10.10). On the
DV D (10.7), you can see an excerpt from one of the shows where I visited Fred Rogers in his
kitchen, showed him children’s art, and made things alongside him (A).
Art as Therapy for Children and Families
Public and professional education can take many forms. For example, for many years I
contributed a child’s drawing for the cover of a journal for preschool educators, along
with a written commentary. The goal was to teach these professionals about the therapeu-
tic values of art in the classroom. Two of the chapters in Child Art Therapy are “Helping
the Normal Child Through Art” and “Helping Parents Through Art and Play.” When I
worked at the Pittsburgh Child Guidance Center from 1969 to 1980, half of my job was in
Community Services.
This involved not only work with children and families who were at risk, but also work
with teachers, parents, and children. This included things like teaching courses in the thera-
peutic value of art to art and classroom teachers, other caregivers, and interested parents.
We also trained professionals from different disciplines to run Art Awareness (B) groups for
adolescents and Parent Play (C) groups for adults, which included follow-up consultation.
The following vignette is from a preschool that was attuned to children’s expression of feel-
ings through art, due to mental health consultation.
Art as Therapy in a Preschool: SAMMY (4)
Sammy’s mother had just come home from the hospital with a new baby sister. She was the
first girl in the family, and everybody was making a big fuss over her. Sammy did too ... he