Art therapy in an art school

Abstract

This chapter looks through an educational lens at the importance of studio practice for student learning on the art therapy programme at the University of Hertfordshire. The chapter discusses the historic and influential relationship the art therapy training has with the former School of Art in St Albans. In particular, the chapter looks at how studio practice offers the student a journey towards a new artistic identity while enabling a stronger relationship with therapeutic understanding to be acquired in the process of becoming an art therapist. The artist’s studio as a learning context is explored, as is the shift in dynamics and meaning when artwork made by a trainee crosses the boundary from the ‘open studio’ to either the art school’s media workshops or the closed experiential groups. This processing of visual acuity and engagement through various experiential learning settings is debated, as it allows for a nuanced understanding of the service user’s experience of art therapy occurring in different therapeutic settings.