Abstract
Art therapy has been recognized as beneficial and effective since first described by Adrian Hill in 1942. Even before this time, art therapy was utilized for moral reinforcement and psychoanalysis. Art therapy aids patients with, but not limited to, chronic illness, physical challenges, and cancer in both pediatric and adult scenarios. Although effective in patient care, the practice of art therapy is extremely underutilized, especially in suburban areas. While conducting our own study in northeastern Ohio, USA, we found that only one out of the five inpatient institutions in the suburban area of Mahoning County, Ohio, that we contacted provided continuous art therapy to it’s patients. In the metropolitan area of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, only eight of the twenty-two inpatient institutions in the area provided art therapy. There could be many reasons as to why art therapy is not frequently used in these areas, and medical institutions in general. The cause of this could be the amount of research done on the practice. Although difficult to conduct formal research on such a broad field, the American Art Therapy Association has succeeded in doing such, with studies showing improvement of the patient groups emotionally and mentally in many case types.
Highlights
Art is known as one of the earliest forms of communication, dating back to the cave art of the Paleolithic age.[1]
Our study found that in urban Cuyahoga County, only 8 of 22 (36%) inpatient facilities utilize art therapy as a treatment modality
We believed the practice of art therapy would be much higher in urban areas, and our study concluded that this is not necessarily true
Summary
Art is known as one of the earliest forms of communication, dating back to the cave art of the Paleolithic age.[1]. Art therapy has shown to be effective as a treatment for traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia, sexual abuse, breast cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as numerous other conditions.[2,3,4,5,6]. This has been described and studied since Adrian Hill’s published work in 1942. Hill personally discovered the therapeutic quality of art making when he was recovering from tuberculosis himself in 1938, and recorded his ideas in 1945 in Art versus Illness.[6] He was employed as the first official art therapist in 1946 by the Netherene, a state psychiatric hospital in the United Kingdom. Hill’s contributions became a milestone for the acceptance and practice of what we know today as art therapy
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