Professional Issues • 257The purpose of the committee is to provide information, networking, and mentoring
for all art therapists to develop their cultural competence and to increase the diversity
and pluralism within the AATA membership.^2
Many art therapists, especially those who have taught in different parts of the world, have
discussed cross-cultural considerations. Landgarten’s Magazine Photo Collage (19 93) is sub-
titled A Multicultural Assessment & Treatment Technique. Like the primers for beginning
readers that finally included pictures of people of color as well as whites, the technique
allows the minority patient to find images with which he can identify. The book also has
case material on assessment and therapy with Asian, Black, and Hispanic clients, filling a
previously unmet need (Cf. Coleman & Farris-Dufrene, 1996).
The 1996 AATA Conference focused on multicultural issues, with many presentations
that helped to sensitize the largely white, female, middle-class members of the organiza-
tion. Even though artists as a group tend to be color-blind, there is always the danger
that an individual art therapist might be equally blind to her own unconscious socioeco-
nomic, gender, or racial biases. These are so much a part of the dominant culture that
even those who consider themselves open-minded may harbor prejudices of which they
are completely unaware.
It would seem, therefore, that the ethics of respectful treatment require as much soul-
searching about one’s internalized attitudes regarding race and class, as about those regard-
ing mental illness and other disabilities. The standards for training, practice, and ethics
outlined in this chapter are central to responsible art therapy. They provide the necessary
context within which the art therapist can use the tremendous power of the creative art
experience to help—without doing harm.
Figure 11.11 Georgette Powell teaching in a library.