Art Therapy Education: A Tool for Developing Verbal Skills

Abstract

The ability to make verbal interventions and use spoken language in a therapeutic manner is an essential competency for the art therapist to possess. Those responsible for the education and training of future art therapists must devote more direct attention to the development of verbal skills for our students within the art therapy curriculum. Many agencies who take our students for field-work as well as those who employ our graduates expect art therapists to counsel verbally in addition to providing art therapy services. Feedback from students as well as graduates who are now working as professionals in the field clearly indicates that this area of art therapist competency is one that needs greater attending to. In this article, the author addressed this very real need by offering a teaching-learning tool for students, supervisors, and art therapy educators.