Making art therapy approachable

Could you share the journey that took you from being a research director at Rush Medical Centre to becoming associate professor in art therapy?

When I was studying art therapy at graduate school, the profession was still finding its feet in how it was being defined and what it was. After graduating, I shifted towards research which allowed me to better understand art therapy and explore its diverse theories and applications.

The postgraduate training in art therapy was heavily art based, and less about the art therapy theory. Going into research with a strong art background was interesting, because I started to see the ways in which we could integrate art and ways in which the theory could play a role in art making. I began to see how concepts work in practice and how boundaries blur. The individuals making art don’t necessarily need to understand the underlying theories, because art making often evokes feelings. Art therapists are good at explaining where certain feelings might come from, exploring what artworks might mean for a person, and how these thoughts, feelings and meanings can translate into everyday interactions and self-awareness.

That’s where I started to regain my interest in art therapy. I had to clean the slate and get back to basics. What does art therapy mean to me – and how does that overlap with what art therapy could do for people who don’t consider themselves artists? That was one of the biggest hurdles I encountered: how do we get people to move past the stigma of art, and past the stigma of therapy, so they can engage with art therapy in meaningful ways? Picking apart those aspects was what led me back to art therapy. I saw the overlap of art and therapy, and was able to better explain this to my clients, and most importantly, to myself.

One of the biggest ways to reach our clients and our audiences, is to reframe and shift the value of what art means to people, by speaking of it in the context of creativity. We’re not asking clients to be artists; we’re asking them to lean on their existing creative tendencies.

A lot of your work has been based in the community. Could you share how you’re finding this work?

When I began my career as an art therapist, I found it intriguing that there was always an emphasis on therapists attending therapy themselves and ‘practicing what we preach’.

However, I felt that this emphasis lacked another equally important aspect: creating art ourselves. Being both a therapist and an artist was important. I set out to focus on art therapy while also developing my own artistic practice. By doing so, I could explore what art does for me personally and how to use that understanding to better connect with my clients.

Being a ceramic artist, I delved into the materiality of my art, particularly in relation to my cultural history as a Filipino-American. I realised that I had been living on the margins of my cultural identity. I wanted to use my art to bring my personal narrative to the forefront. This journey became about reconnecting with and evolving Filipino aesthetics that had been erased or replaced by colonial influences.

A key part of this journey was to bring art to spaces that resonate with my community. Many Filipinos in America don’t engage with museums or galleries, so, I chose to display my work in spaces familiar to my community, such as Filipino-American community centres so that people could experience art in environments where they feel comfortable. This, for me, was meaningful community work—engaging people on their terms, rather than bringing them to spaces where they may feel alienated.

When working in community spaces, it’s crucial to understand the individuals within that community as experts by experience on what’s meaningful for them, rather than using a pre-determined approach or hierarchical expert-professional model.

In the article you co-wrote with Theresa Van Lith called ‘Creating Our Own Suspension Bridge Between Practice and Evidence’, you talk about the theme of equity and narrative formation. Can you tell us more about this?

Much of what I do, especially in the classroom, is exploring why art therapy is important. I often explain that an art therapist’s role is to help people increase their sense of agency over their own stories. Often, our stories are shaped by the systems we move through and by what others expect from us. When I explain it this way, students start to see it more clearly. It’s a tool to help people understand themselves better and recognise how they’re being influenced— by relationships, society, or outside pressures. By becoming more aware of their own narratives, they can see how much of their story is influenced by others.

And this is where the equity comes in. Why does someone make the decisions they do? Because it’s what’s expected? Or because the decision is right for that individual? This links to the idea of need and want-based decision making, which also stems from what the story is you’re trying to tell and where your story is at that moment.

It can be easier to view art therapy through this narrative therapy lens. We can start to create a trajectory or a storyline where the roles are better understood. Who are the protagonists and antagonists in these stories? Who do we shape these stories around?  Who needs to be in those stories?

In terms of equity, there is a lot of politics around equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). People are placing a lot of emphasis around these terms to the point where they sometimes lose their meaning. Sometimes in a narrative formation, we’re not necessarily talking about equity. We’re instead talking about an idea of fairness; fairness in the sense of feelings and emotions, where equity becomes more about empathy. With empathy, we can make more informed decisions and choices about the effects we have on ourselves and our own identity, and the effects we have on others. It’s through this that we come to equity, sometimes without even mentioning the word ‘equity’. Instead, we come to the idea of shared responsibility, and shared wellness.

Sometimes, moving away from terminology and back to what’s real for people can allow them to see things in more meaningful ways and come to conclusions on their own.

In your writing you have explored how art therapists have tried to fit into a psychology-based medical model, but now the profession is finding ways to work in a different way. Can you tell us more?

Early in my career, I struggled with how we relied on psychological research methods without really considering what that meant for the artwork that was being introduced. In research we used pre- and post-measures, but they didn’t get to the heart of what was happening in art therapy sessions. I’m really interested in developing our understanding of the mechanisms that make art therapy helpful for the people I work with.

Could you say more about how art therapy is growing? What is working in art therapy right now, and why?

What’s exciting about the current landscape is that art therapists work in a wide range of spaces. We’ve created an adaptability in the profession where art therapists can be situated in unexpected spaces. We can adapt and create spaces that are safe and meaningful to encourage people to be creative and expressive. This has led us to a point where we’re able to carefully and sensitively consider what we can provide for marginal spaces. That’s where art therapists are important.

We owe some of our adaptability to the beginnings of art therapy, where we fought within medical settings to work with clients in interesting and creative ways. That’s where the real evolution is occurring, with art therapists who are navigating spaces that weren’t seen as viable before such as food pantries, hospital bedsides, museums.

Something else that excites me is that I am seeing more art therapists leaning on the artist side of themselves. This is where art therapy becomes exciting as we go back to the roots of engagement, building self-awareness and the self-reflexive process. Art therapists tuning into their artist side and perhaps revealing their own humanity, means the art therapist becomes a model for other people to learn about and can encourage engagement in art therapy,

I always tell students to make for themselves—don’t feel like the art you’re making in therapy is your only art. Just like in life, we play different roles. The role of art in the clinical setting may be different from the art you make outside. It’s important to embrace all sides of making and creating because, ultimately, they all connect. Art becomes a lifestyle, not just a job or profession. No matter the situation, continuing to make art and developing artistic practice can often inform how we engage with people in our therapeutic work.

Read more

You can read the article James co-wrote with Theresa Van Lith, ‘Creating Our Own Suspension Bridge Between Practice and Evidence’ in Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association. Our members get free access to the journal’s articles via their memberzone.