Bad Press, Artx and the Rehabilitation of Terrorists—Reaction of the Art Therapy Community

4 Replies to “Bad Press, Artx and the Rehabilitation of Terrorists—Reaction of the Art Therapy Community”

1. Pingback: On Art Therapy, Counterterrorism, and a Call for Action « creativity in motion

2. To me, the definition of torture is to prevent self expression so ‘art therapy’ is our way of showing that we are a compassionate society that understands basic human needs.

   I think art therapy may help calm down people who have been locked up but I doubt it will rehabilitate anyone. Everyone has a core of creativity as everyone has a need for love in some form or another but that doesn’t stop people from being both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ at the same time. Art therapy will be of assistance, on a humanitarian level, to any one in a stressful situation and should be encouraged.

3. ^^^ o_O

4. Hi Darren,

   While, I know you’re very supportive of art and its healing qualities, I hope that in the (near) future art therapy research will expand it’s range so that we can definitively answer the question, can art therapy “rehabilitate anyone”. My hope is that art therapy (possibly combined with other interventions) will be shown time and time again to provide a positive effect for most people, in comparison to no intervention at all. In fact, there is lots of neuroscience data emerging to support the efficacy of art therapy in treating trauma— to the point that art therapy is considered by many as an effective first line intervention.

   The lack of empirical data, and the lack of knowledge by art therapists in general on how to conduct proper empirical research is a huge issue that has been discussed for decades amongst professionals. Unfortunately, many art therapists are simply not trained to conduct anything but qualitative research. I know if I wanted to go the quantitative route for my thesis, I could’ve, but I would have largely been on my own trying to figure out how to go about putting the study together— never mind the interpretation of data, or funding. A previous supervisor while I was in grad school shared that she conducted empirical research and hired a statistician from her own pocket so she could have valid results. Most grad students don’t have the personal financial resources to hire someone as a consultant, or pay for an extra statistics course or two. Also, as Cathy Malchiodi pointed out in the comment section of her blog, most art therapy faculty are not producing empirical research as a faculty requirement. In the psychology field, this is where lots of research comes from— labs run by professors (with students helping, and thereby being trained in vivo to conduct research), which produces data, later to be analyzed and published.

   However, as mentioned above, the study of art therapy on a neurological level is beginning to bring art therapy into the realm of scientific validity. Noah Hass-Cohen has spear headed this movement. My hat goes off to other hard working art therapists who have dedicated their time to empirical research— many of whom publish within art therapy journals exclusively. As Susan pointed out in the last post, art therapists (including myself) must be mindful to reach out beyond the art therapy community. Otherwise, we’re simply “preaching to the choir”.