The planned meet up yesterday by the IATO (International Art Therapy Organization) and the Art Therapy Alliance at the Pyramid Bar in the Fairmont Hotel was a success! Lots of schmoozing, eating and drinking. More events by these two groups have been organized for tonight and the rest of the conference.
Thank you Cathy and Gretchen, for organizing these events!
Some highlights of the sessions I joined today:
Judy Rubin’s video Visionaries, Pioneers & Early Settlers-the Story of the American Art Therapy Association was a fun retrospective on the past 40 years of AATA’s existence. The video highlighted both conflict and support within the organization (but mainly conflict), which is to be expected when lots of strong willed people come together attempting to merge or find space for their ideas and philosophies. We are indebted to Judy for keeping records of the past. Despite the poor sound quality at times, it was exciting to see and hear influential art therapists speak, past and present, such as Myra Levick and Bob Ault.
I thoroughly enjoyed Christopher Belkofer, ATR, LPC’s presentation entitled The Changing Brain: Applying Clinical Neuroscience Approaches to Expressive Therapy Interventions in Residential Care. He’s a dynamic speaker who discussed art therapy’s hypothesized neurological mechanisms of change within the context of his case study.
The paper presentation on Ethics Documents in a Multi-Licensure/Certification Environment by Mercedes ter Maat, PhD, ATR-BC, LPC and Donald Cutcher ATR-BC, LCAT was an important addition to my understanding of how to go about figuring out how to integrate various ethical codes set forth by different credentialing organizations. Once I’m back home and have a minute, I definitely will update my past writing on the subject of ethics.
Related
