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Special Issue: Art Therapy and Disability Studies

Disability is an umbrella term; it can be understood as a developmental, cognitive, sensory, mental, or physical impairment. An individual might experience body–mind function limitations and/or exclusions in relation to participating in everyday life activities in an ableist society. Thus, people with disabilities might experience stigma and marginalization. Disability is a complex social, cultural, political, racialized, class-based, and gendered experience. The field of art therapy has had a long history of responding to disabilities based on an individualistic and interventionist (medical) model. In contrast, a social model of disability highlights the systemic nature of discrimination and oppression. In recent scholarship, the relational and political model of disability has called attention to the limitations of a binary that positions the medical model versus the social model. Given that disabled people are often “othered” in medical and mental health service settings, critical discussion on these topics is warranted. As a mental health field, art therapists have a long history of working with people with disabilities, but there have been few articles within the field’s professional journals citing perspectives and literature from disability culture and Deaf culture or from the field of disability studies. We seek research, theoretical perspectives, and practice models that complicate the meaning of disability in art therapy. Proposed papers could address, but are not limited to, the following topics: relationship of Deaf studies, Deaf culture, mad studies and mad culture to art therapy theory and practice; identity politics and disability within art therapy settings and art therapy education; disability and intersectionality; and disability and activism. Example questions might focus on, but are not limited to, the following: