Posted on

Absent

This video comes to us via the Adventures in Art Therapy blog, where the art therapist writes,

“This is a great film to share in your practice with those clients who can relate to this topic, and pairing the processing with art can really start a dialogue to work through this difficult issue.”

…and, thank you to all the fathers out there who are not absent

Posted on

Keeping Up With Social Media (and Everything Else!)

Eva Abreu writes:

I’m currently teaching an introduction to Facebook class for ages 50 and older, offered through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Rutgers University. We finished the second of 10 classes last week; however, Facebook just introduced several changes so the previous material that I covered is now obsolete. That’s how fast the changes are taking place and how confusing it is for casual users of Facebook to keep up with the changes.

Just as Kurzweil predicted, because technology is growing at an exponential rate, and we just happen to live during a time where we’re experiencing the later end of the growth curve, the amount of changes that we need to keep up with and how quickly they occur is gaining speed (until the Singularity takes place?).

Well…until that happens, we need to be on our toes! No more “I learned it, so I don’t need to revisit the subject”. No! Get used to constantly having to revisit the subject and relearn it. Information and change will not be settling down anytime soon. As scary as it may seem, you must remain flexible, open and willing to experiment at any and all stages of your life.

What an exciting time we live in!

Posted on

The Importance of Being Productive

In a recent article, the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson makes an important point about the need to increase productivity in the fields of Education and Healthcare. And, as always, Walter Russell Mead offers a concise yet insightful analysis,

Services – especially healthcare, education and a variety of government services – need to become more efficient and cost-effective if we want to avoid bankrupting ourselves. The best way to do this is to harness the power of new technologies to make these services both better and cheaper…Technological advances have already made products like refrigerators, cars and decent clothing accessible to even the poorest Americans, it is time for the to do the same for the basic services we rely on to keep our country running.

Interesting food for thought…how can we, as art therapists, use technology to become more efficient, thereby securing our futures?

Posted on

Art Therapy Internship

This question was emailed to me, and posted with the permission of the author, Miles. I hope this helps any student art therapists who want to gain experience practicing in venues that may not have an art therapist on staff.

Hi Liz,
I am looking for info on art therapists who work in the juvenile detention centers. I need to do practicum hours for MAAT. Can you help?

Hi Miles,

Off the top of my head, you have a few options. First, you can post a request for an art therapy supervisor who works in a juvenile detention center on the Art Therapy Alliance’s message board on LinkedIn. If you haven’t checked it out, it’s a very active board with many people from around the globe. Hopefully someone can help you out.

Secondly, I’m wondering why you need to work with an art therapist directly in that setting? In my program we were encouraged to go to facilities that didn’t offer art therapy and offer to design a program from scratch (for free, since your labor is free…the only thing they would need to pay for is art supplies). In this case, students would recieve supervision from an off site art therapist, as well as a licensed therapist on site. Which means that you’d have to find a facility that has a therapist willing to supervise you, as well as find an off site art therapist, which = lots of supervision. But in that setting, it’s probably very useful to have lots of supervision. Have you talked to your program director about this possibility?

The other thing that’s great about starting your own art therapy program in grad school is that if you prove yourself to be an asset to the team, you may be offered a permanent position after you finish your internship.

I hope this helps!

Warm Regards,
– Liz

Posted on

Tigers Be Still

A play that’s touring the country who’s main character is a recent art therapy graduate, who can’t find a job and who ends up moving back in with her parents.

Tigers Be Still has great reviews, and even had an extended showing in NYC. But, isn’t it disturbing that the whole basis of the play is that this recent art therapy grad can’t find a job? But, don’t tell that to the educators who claim a large percentage of new grads go on to work in the field.

Anyhow, I missed the play while it was in SF…but if anyone sees it, I’d love to hear a review. Next stop is the Dobama Theatre in Cleveland October 21 – November 13, 2011.

Here’s the Dobama’s description of the play:

Critically acclaimed in its 2010 New York premiere, TIGERS BE STILL is a quirky, endearing and deliciously dark new comedy. Sherry Wickman, a young woman expects the perfect career and life to fall into place immediately upon earning her master’s degree in art therapy. Instead, Sherry finds herself unemployed, overwhelmed and back at home hiding out in her twin-sized childhood bed. But when Sherry gets hired as a substitute art teacher, things begin to brighten up. Now if only her mother would come downstairs, her sister would get off the couch, her very first therapy patient would do just one of his take-home assignments, her new boss would leave his gun at home, and someone would catch the tiger that escaped from the local zoo, everything would be just perfect.