AATA Blog
Art Therapists Empower College Students through Craftivism
By Lauren Leone, Michaela Kirby, and Nancy Lautenbach, | June 29, 2016 | Education | Events
“Felt and yarn, things I only associated with being soft and warm, are now materials that I see as strong, empowering and secure. It also does help that there is so much meaning in using an art form that was really seen as women’s work to spread awareness about social justice for women.”
— Gopi Shah, Craft & Chat workshop participant
Bringing Art to Life through Storytelling
By Sarah Margaret Wade | April 27, 2016 | About Art Therapy | Community | #WeAreArtTherapists
I recently attended a celebratory gala and art show at the University of Alabama to honor five years of Art to Life, a program of art therapy and storytelling for adults diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive disorders. Art to Life is a course sponsored by University of Alabama’s Honors College in collaboration with the Cognitive Dynamics Foundation in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month at Make Studio
By Jill E. Scheibler | April 1, 2016 | #WeAreArtTherapists
Since the early 1970s, April has been recognized as Autism Awareness Month and, more recently, it has been additionally or alternatively celebrated as Autism Acceptance Month.
Charleston Heals Through Art: HeArts Mends Hearts
By Dianne Tennyson Vincent | March 2, 2016 | Trauma | #WeAreArtTherapists
June 17, 2015 was a peaceful evening in downtown Charleston, SC. A regular Wednesday night prayer meeting service was taking place in the historic Emanuel AME Church. After an hour of Bible study and prayer, the unthinkable happened. A young, unfamiliar white man welcomed to the group pulled a gun and killed nine parishioners, including State Senator Clementa C. Pinckney. A grandmother shielded her grandchild with her own body while they both played dead.
Art Therapy-Museum Collaborations in Colombia
By Andrée Salom | February 24, 2016 | Events | International
Across American museums, art therapy programs have been developed for individuals with disabilities, addictions, physical and psychological challenges, as well as for populations receiving disaster relief, and recovering from trauma (Peacock, 2012).
Panel Presentation of Killing Time: The Chronology of Creativity
By Irene Rosner David | January 27, 2016 | About Art Therapy
When asked to represent our field and organization on this panel during the Outsider Art Fair in New York, I was both honored and challenged. For decades I have welcomed opportunities to enlighten broadly and promote our work, however this was a new audience for me – outsider artists, outsider art gallery owners, arts-in-business people. I entered this project with the assumption that I would primarily explore aspects of Outsider Art and Art Therapy that may be perceived as overlapping, yet are different. This is a relationship I have pondered in the past, particularly having seen the infamous collection of L’Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Postpartum Imagery: Finding the ‘Good Enough’
By Kathryn Snyder, MA, ATR-BC, LPC | January 20, 2016 | Health Care
The postpartum period in the family life cycle is one that is fraught with ambivalence and anxiety. While a new mother’s body is flooded with the oxytocin meant to link her in love with her helpless charge, it is also, often, simultaneously flooded with the hormones of fear and worry, combined with the fogginess of sleep deprivation and the stress of learning to take care of this fragile, small human.
Art Therapy and Eating Disorders: Resolving to Make Authentic Change
By Michelle L. Dean | January 13, 2016 | Health Care
As the New Year unfolds, we may find ourselves inundated with messages to make resolutions, lose weight, and commence rigorous exercise programs in order to feel fit, fabulous, and most of all, loved. These ideals take hold and blossom for some because they play on underlying vulnerabilities and a need to look outside of oneself for assurances. As a result, each year countless seemingly innocent diets turn into deadly eating disorders.
Exploring Strengths through Masks: Art Therapy from a Positive Psychology Perspective
By Gioia Chilton and Rebecca Wilkinson | January 6, 2016 | About Art Therapy
Although masks are ubiquitous to art therapy, when we were recently asked to run several mask-making workshops we realized that we were both conflicted about what they actually represent. Are they meant to hide or protect some aspect of ourselves? Do they reflect what we show to the world and obscure our “true” selves? Or do they help us uncover and discover parts of ourselves?
Art Therapy and Social Justice at Chicago-based Women’s Shelter
By Sangeetha Ravichandran | December 9, 2015 | About Art Therapy | Community | Trauma
ApnaGhar, Inc., (“Our Home” in Urdu/Hindi,) provides holistic services, education, and advocacy across immigrant communities to end the different manifestations of gender violence. Gender violence can be broadly understood as violence impacting women and girls who are part of various margins of society. They are denied access, rights, and privileges and are stripped of personal power through forms of control exerted by an individual, a group, and/or systems of oppression, including domestic and family violence, forced marriage, trafficking, and honor killings. At Apna Ghar, we address issues of gender violence using a client-centered, trauma -focused, and empowerment-based approach.