February 5, 2026 | By Megan L. VanMeter, LPC, LMHC, LPC-AT/S, ATR-BC & Lisa D. Hinz, PhD, ATR-BC
This post is the third in a three-part series.
In this final blog article about Expressive Therapies Continuum myths and tall tales, we will wrap up the three-part series with a thoughtful look at the third category of misunderstandings. As a reminder, we’re students of ETC co-creators Vija Lusebrink and Sandra (Kagin) Graves-Alcorn. They taught us everything we know about the ETC, and we’re here to help our peers in art therapy develop improved ETC literacy and eradicate misinformation.
Did you see the other articles in the series? The first article explored myths related to the nature and purpose of the Expressive Therapies Continuum, and the second article explored myths about the nature of treatment within the framework. Both addressed the importance of accurate and consistent messaging about the ETC to help improve the art therapy profession’s image within the eyes of stakeholders; this is true regardless of how familiar an art therapist ultimately wants to become with the ETC.
Without further ado, the ETC myths category we’ll be examining here is myths about art materials and the Expressive Therapies Continuum. There are numerous myths in this category and so we’ve hand-picked a few to help highlight the problems that go along with equating the ETC to things you’d find in an art studio.
Myths about the Relationship Between Art Materials and the Expressive Therapies Continuum Framework
Myths in this category erroneously concentrate on art materials as the primary focus of the ETC framework. They include but are not limited to ideas about the fluid-to-resistive continuum, the selection of art materials to use in treatment, and the pairing of art materials with brain structures and functions.
Myth: The ETC is a collection of art materials that range from fluid to resistive.
Truth: This myth mistakes the Expressive Therapies Continuum for an aspect of itself. In short, the whole is being reduced to one of its parts. The fluid-to-resistive continuum is otherwise known as media properties. Sandra (Kagin) Graves-Alcorn discovered this continuum through careful analysis while conducting research for her master’s thesis, and she described the qualities on one end of the continuum as fluid and the other end as resistive. Together they are known as media properties, which is just one of the three Media Dimension Variables she discovered in the process of her research. The other two are task complexity and task structure (Graves-Alcorn & Green, 2014; Graves-Alcorn & Kagin, 2017). While the ETC is not media properties, it does harness these in conjunction with varying degrees of task complexity and task structure to achieve targeted therapeutic movement between and within levels of information processing. Media Dimension Variables are skillfully adjusted as agents of change to activate the Creative dimension of the ETC (VanMeter & Hinz, 2024).
Myth: The ETC is a method for selecting materials to use in art therapy.
Truth: Selecting art materials to use in treatment organized and orchestrated within the Expressive Therapies Continuum depends upon a variety of factors, most importantly the relationship between the client and their response to the art therapist’s previous decision (Hinz, 2020). The therapist’s rationale for making a recommendation should also include an awareness of how the client responded to task complexity and task structure, not just media properties. Changing any of these Media Dimension Variables can create a therapeutic shift in the client’s information processing experiences, or it can result in a disjointed or disruptive shift if the therapist doesn’t have the knowledge and skills to initiate changes that are relationally resonant and empathically attuned (VanMeter & Hinz, 2024). The entirety of the Expressive Therapies Continuum is a responsive, outcome-informed framework for making decisions in client-centered care, so limiting the ETC to the idea of art materials selection is not in concert with the actuality of a very sophisticated system that includes assessment, treatment planning, intervention, progress monitoring, and case conceptualization.
Myth: The ETC matches specific art materials to ETC components or brain processes.
Truth: Vija Lusebrink was interested in pursuing scholarly work that substantiated her initial claims about interrelated levels of information processing. She was also interested in pursuing scholarly work that sought to underscore how art therapy in general can be conceptualized in relation to contemporary advances in clinical neuroscience (Hinz, VanMeter, & Lusebrink, 2022). As she wrote, the topics sometimes shared the same article (Lusebrink, 2004; Lusebrink, 2010), causing confusion of ETC levels and components with art materials and brain structures or functions. The Expressive Therapies Continuum does not explain neuroscience for art therapists; art materials do not neatly pair with ETC components nor with any aspect of the nervous system. What a client does with an art material in terms of embodied engagement is more important as an indicator of both ETC component functioning and nervous systemfunctioning (VanMeter & Hinz, 2024). The material itself doesn’t cause or correlate with either of these phenomena.
Are You Ready to Learn More About Expressive Therapies Continuum Myths?
Accuracy and uniformity are important assets when members of a profession write about and give presentations about its collective knowledge base. We hope the idea of eradicating myths about the Expressive Therapies Continuum will provide you with the motivation to reexamine your own beliefs about the framework.
Watch for the other two blog articles in this series, and if you are inspired to learn even more about ETC myths and their effect on the profession, please join us for a two-hour webinar on Thursday, February 19, 2026, at 7:00pm ET/4:00pm PT. “Separating Expressive Therapies Continuum Truth from Myth: Guidance for Art Therapy Practitioners, Educators, and Researchers” will be sure to elevate your understanding of the framework and gently correct some of the erroneous stories and tall tales that have been spun about it.
References
Graves-Alcorn, S., & Kagin, C. (2017). Implementing the Expressive Therapies Continuum: A guide for clinical practice. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315624303
Graves-Alcorn, S. L., & Green, E. J. (2014). The expressive arts therapy continuum: History and theory. In E. Green & Drewes, A (Eds.), Integrating expressive arts and play therapy with children and adolescents (pp. 1-16). Wiley.
Hinz, L. D. (2020). Expressive Therapies Continuum: A framework for using art in therapy (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429299339
Hinz, L. D., VanMeter, M. L., & Lusebrink, V. B. (2022). Development of the Expressive Therapies Continuum: The lifework of Vija B. Lusebrink, PhD, ATR-BC, HLM. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 39(4), 219-222. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2022.2131951
Lusebrink, V. B. (2004). Art therapy and the brain: An attempt to understand the underlying processes of art expression in therapy. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 21(3), 125-135. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2004.10129496
Lusebrink, V. B. (2010). Assessment and therapeutic application of the Expressive Therapies Continuum: Implications for brain structures and functions. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 27(4), 168-177. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2010.10129380
VanMeter, M. L., & Hinz, L. D. (2024). A deeper dive into the Expressive Therapies Continuum; Structure, function, and the creative dimension. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 41(2), 107-110. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2023.224068