Art therapists’ perceptions of what happens when they create art alongside their clients in the practice of group therapy

Abstract

Although case studies and personal accounts since the founding of the art therapy field discussed creating art alongside clients as a valuable practice, few systematic studies have explored this method. This collaborative art-based dissertation explored art therapists’ perceptions of what happens when art therapists create art alongside their clients in their group art therapy practices. Four group art therapists (3 females, 1 male) with 5–31 (median 8.5) years of experience contributed as coresearchers. They participated in six hours of semi-structured interviews that incorporated art-making and discussion. As the researcher, I used personal response art-making, creative writing, painting, and poetic responses to gain a holistic sense of the inquiry and generate four video summations. These summations identify and present the individual co-researchers’ ideas, thoughts, gestures, phrases, and concepts related to the research questions. Finally, I created a culminating video to synthesize outcomes from work with all co-researchers. The outcomes suggest that creating art alongside clients affects four interrelated aspects of group art therapy: (a) developing an egalitarian group environment, (b) expressing authentic leadership, (c) augmenting therapist presence, and (d) boosting group member engagement.