Category: AATA Conference

I’m sitting in the Salt Lake City airport for the next 3 hours (layover) and have access to free wifi. I thought about maybe watching some tv, but then I remembered how busy I was over the past few days, causing me to neglect to discuss the AATA conference since Thursday. I actually got more than 6 hours sleep last night, which was great, so my writing can actually make sense! Between the time difference, the 7am Masters Supervision Groups and the schmoozing with art therapists I connected with through the Art Therapy Alliance and the IATO, I was pooped.

Why does AATA schedule anything before 9am? Seriously.

Some highlights:

I attended a box making workshop, where learned how to fold a box from paper. I love boxes, origami and anything sculptural. This directive has tons of applications and is self-esteem building. Possible metaphors of the box can be containment, safety and inside/outside. The workshop leaders, Maureen Vita MA and Mary Donald ATR-BC, LPC did a fantastic job and they gave attendees a video of how to make the box, which they graciously are allowing me to share with you. I will be posting the video over the next couple of days.

Thank you Maureen and Mary for helping to expand our field of knowledge for free, accessible to all who could not attend the workshop or the conference.

I attended a Panel entitled Inspiring Frontiers in Independent Practice: Creating an Ethical, Practical, and Successful Business hosted by P. Gussie Klorer ATR-BC, Cathy Malchiodi Ph.D., ATR-BC, LPCC, HLM, and Donald Cutcher MA, ATR-BC, LCAT. Boy, was I surprised about the facts and figures of working with managed care and public health insurance, ie: Medicaid. One stat that stood out was given by P. Gussie Klorer, who stated that Medicaid payments in her state (MO, I think?) have not been raised since 1990. Jokes about working at Starbucks followed.

The consensus was, however, that even though it’s difficult to make a private practice worthwhile financially when working with underserved populations, it’s certainly rewarding. I’m sure we can agree that Art therapists do what they do because it’s rewarding.

Also, Cathy discussed other ways of working as a consultant, professor, or at will, which provides different opportunities than a formal private practice.

There was much more to the panel than what I’m prepared to write about here. I suggest that art therapists interested in private practice, attend workshops or classes similar to this panel to gauge the reality of the work in the city/state that they live.

Adam Blatner M.D. presented a General Session entitled Mandala Making in Clinical Practice and Everyday Life. How could I not enjoy a session that included the humorous cartooning of a rather interesting doctor discussing mandalas?

Check out Dr. Blatner’s presentation here.

Going to the Drexel reunion and seeing Ron Hayes was a special moment for me. Ron recently retired from his position as faculty member of the Creative Arts in Therapy Department at Drexel University. He taught several classes to my cohort (and many others before me). We grew to love and appreciate his colorful ties, giant bottles of diet coke, his insightful and empathetic way of teaching and his jovial way of being. Other career highlights include his involvement in advocating for art therapists to become licensed in the state of Pennsylvania.

Since moving away from Philadelphia, I have not seen him and I fear he may not make it to the next conference in Sacramento. So happy I had the chance to say hello.

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.

Early registration is now available for the 2009 AATA conference in Dallas, TX, coming up this November.

I’m teaming up with Melissa Solorzano ATR-BC, LCAT from the Creative Therapy Sessions Podcast available on iTunes to offer a workshop on Sunday November 22nd, which focuses on creating a blog or podcast (audio blog). We also plan to talk briefly on the subject of ethics, professionalism, copyright/plagiarism, cyber-counseling, and the benefits of using new technology within the field of art therapy.

Hope to see you there!

So…I’m back from the AATA conference in Cleveland, and I was thoroughly impressed with the excellent key note speaker we had, Dr. Bruce Perry. He was so inspiring and very much in tune with what us art therapists are up to- to the point that he’s even developed his own way of charting and evaluating for the developmental level of an individual (something that Art Therapists can do through assessing the artwork of a client). I also picked up his book The Boy Who was Raised as a Dog. I’m only about 50 pages into it, but I can tell that its a great read for those of us who work with (or are interested in working with) traumatized individuals. It also very much parallels his key note address, so if you missed the conference, you can get the gist of what was discussed.

I also took some fabulous workshops that were full of excellent ideas and theory. One of my favorites was the day long workshop I took with Lucille Proulx, who worked for many years at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and was the president of the Quebec Association of Art Therapists. She specializes in attachment issues between parents and children, and helps to facilitate normal attachment through art therapy group work with moms, dads and their kids. I haven’t checked out the book yet, but its supposed to incorporate the theory and directives she discussed throughout her workshop. It should be an excellent resource. Although I don’t work with families, many of the directives that she’s created have the potential to work well the with the population I do work with- Adults who are developmentally disabled and who have an Axis I diagnosis as well.

I also very much enjoyed the seminar on Contemporary Issues in Art Therapy, Psychoanalysis and Children. Some of who I would consider masters of the profession (i.e., Judith Rubin) participated in a case presentation that had the air of supervision. They said that this is a regular seminar that they’ve been hosting for the past 5 years, and hopefully they’ll do it again in Dallas.