Professional Issues • 243in a dentist’s chair, Claire could master the traumatic event by expressing her feelings in art,
effectively turning passive into active (Figure 11.1).
More important for her future, the age-appropriate drawing revealed that Claire’s intelli-
gence was much higher than anyone had imagined (B). She was again placed in a classroom
and resumed language therapy. In both settings, she used a Talking Book to communicate
with others (Fig ure 11. 2). The pictures were drawn by Claire and then labeled by the teacher
or speech therapist, as in her picture of the doctor and the nurse (C).
Learning by Sharing with Others
In 1967, I heard about a child psychiatrist named Marvin Shapiro who was interested in the
arts therapies, and in 1968 I went to see him. He invited me to join a weekly expressive arts
study group he had recently started at the Pittsburgh Child Guidance Center (PCGC), the
outpatient teaching clinic of the Department of Child Psychiatry. The chairman offered me
the opportunity to start a pilot program at PCGC that was to be a one-day-a-week “trial”
(his word) of art therapy in that setting.
Learning in Personal Psychotherapy and Supervision
Having consulted with both pioneers in the early 1960s, I again sought the advice of
Margaret Naumburg and Edith Kramer. They were very generous with their time—meet-
ing with me, allowing me to visit their classes, and because Kramer was working at the
Jewish Guild for the Blind and Jacobi Hospital, I was also able to observe her conducting
art therapy sessions. Their ideas about art therapy were different, but their advice about
learning to be a good clinician was not. Each, independently, said there were two key things
I needed to do if I was going to become an art therapist. One was to engage in my own
psychotherapy, which I had already initiated in 1967. The other was to be supervised by an
experienced clinician.
Both pioneers said that a supervisor’s professional discipline mattered less than their
respectful support of art therapy. I was fortunate to have an enthusiastic mentor in Marvin
Figure 11.1 Drawing after a dental visit.