AATA Blog
Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association Resources for Responding to COVID-19
March 31, 2020 | Jordan S. Potash
As art therapists and their clients adjust to tele-art therapy and online education, Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association contains several articles to help navigate these challenges. The following are a selection of recent resources on key topics. The full journal offerings, going back to volume 1, are included with AATA membership.
Affirmations for Coping during Coronavirus Times
March 30, 2020 | Gioia Chilton
What I do matters for my community
I wash my hands, for myself and others
We can get through this together
Teamwork makes the dream work
Together we protect each other
To My Colleagues that are Changing Everything, Here are 5 Tips for Effectively Teaching Art Therapy Online
March 20, 2020 | Carolyn Brown Treadon
To say the last week has been challenging is an understatement! As we all quickly learn to navigate challenges in our daily lives in response to COVID-19, many are also working to get courses and clients transitioned to an online platform. With the help of my colleagues at Edinboro University, where we offer an art therapy master’s program that can be completed 100 percent online, I put this resource together to offer some advice to colleagues in other programs navigating this transition.
Reflections on Creative Arts Therapies Week during COVID-19
March 20, 2020 | Gretchen Miller
Every year we celebrate Creative Arts Therapies Week with the National Coalition of Creative Arts Therapies (NCCATA). Along with our colleagues not only in art therapy but also in music therapy, dance/movement therapy, drama therapy, poetry therapy, and psychodrama, we take time to bring awareness to the power of our professions and to our roles in the mental health field.
Best Practices for Using Art Supplies Hygienically during the COVID-19 Outbreak
March 16, 2020 | Andrea Davis
As we navigate the current coronavirus pandemic, it is a good time to be mindful about art supplies and ways to prevent the spread of illness. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) describes COVID-19 as an airborne illness. Droplets in the air can be breathed in and also land on surfaces including work spaces and art supplies. Protecting clients from harm includes having clean art supplies.
Legislation Progresses Amidst Coronavirus Crisis
March 12, 2020
While exciting developments in art therapy licensing legislation have continued to occur, uncertainties around COVID-19 have begun to impact legislative schedules as the public health crisis continues to unfold. Here is a quick update:
– The sunrise review proposal was approved in Nebraska
– A new licensure bill was introduced in Louisiana
– The Virginia licensure bill was presented to the Governor
Antiracist Approach to Art Therapy: Re-examining Core Concepts
February 26, 2020 | Jordan S. Potash
As a White art therapist who has worked cross-racially for almost my entire career, I am regularly reminded that there are always racial-social-political influences that enter into the art therapy relationship. My current work in an open art therapy studio at a drop-in center for runaway and homeless adolescents and young adults, most of whom are Black, reinforces three strategies for art therapists for understanding and responding to power differentials.
3 Ways for Therapists to Address Barriers to Seeking Therapy
February 25, 2020 | Angela Roman Clack
I am pleased to participate in this blog series reemphasizing the themes covered in the “Breaking the Chains of Racial Trauma in Therapy” panel at the AATA’s 50th conference . In the panel presentation, I shared examples from my work with Black women to demonstrate how racism contributes to a denial of one’s psychological stress or acknowledgement of how therapy could be beneficial. Living life in black skin is an undeniable racialized existence.
Creative Healing Spaces: Healing From Racial Wounds
February 24, 2020 | Lindsey Vance
Growing up in a community that did not speak of mental health care or seeing a therapist, this idea of a career path was foreign to me. Explaining to my family that I was going to be an Art Therapist was even more so confusing, however I went on to be one. The privilege to work in various clinical and community-based settings afforded me the opportunity to recognize that I was not alone in my childhood stigma of misunderstanding and distrust for psychotherapy, but rather various clients of color shared this same belief.
Framing Race in the Context of Art Therapy
February 20, 2020 | Cheryl Doby-Copeland
The 400th anniversary of the arrival in America of the first enslaved people from West Africa validated my interest in the generational impact of racial trauma. The New York Times Magazine 1619 Project galvanized me to consider how historical racial trauma has not been a primary treatment consideration in my client caseload.