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What Should Be Published in Art Therapy? What Should Art Therapists Write About?

The call for research demonstrating the efficacy and effectiveness of art therapy has been reiterated over several decades of our profession’s existence (for example, see Gantt, 1998; Kapitan, 2012). This past year, as I have gained experience in my role as editor, I have increasingly recognized a need to publish more practice articles to complement and inform the growing body of research in our profession. Over the past 10 years the number of research articles in this publication has increased dramatically. At the same time, we have seen fewer and fewer of the kinds of case studies frequently published in the earlier literature. Although case studies, as a type of praxis article, can shed light on how individual art therapists work, what is needed now is literature detailing what practicing art therapists do that includes how they conceptualize their day-today work providing art therapy services. In addition to providing valuable information for other practicing art therapists, articles like this also help inform researchers in their development of study designs. Documenting the practice of art therapy as it is performed today, including what art therapists are observing with clients and the concerns they are challenged with daily, will provide researchers with valuable information. Linking practice, research, and theory is increasingly essential to adequately develop our body of literature and all aspects of practice in the field. This issue features two practice articles about art therapy with specific populations that have only occasionally appeared in this journal. Aimee O’Neill and Hilary Moss, in their very interesting work in Ireland, describe a community art therapy group for those with chronic pain, an area that has been explored more in music therapy—Loewy’s (1997) Music Therapy and Pediatric Pain was published almost 20 years ago and research on music therapy and pain is robust (for example, see Bradt et al., 2014). Yet, literature on art therapy and pain is scant. The work of O’Neill and Moss can potentially spur development of similar programs elsewhere and stimulate future art therapy research on this important topic. The time is ripe for this kind of investigation. In the second practice article, Jessica Masino Drass presents a Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) framework that informs her art therapy work with individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder. Although there seem to have been and still probably are many art therapists working with individuals with similar serious treatment concerns such as emotion dysregulation, disturbance of identity, and suicidality, there have been only a few peer-reviewed publications on this topic lately (Heckwolf, Bergland, & Mouratidis, 2014; Huckvale & Learmonth, 2009) and these do not provide specific practice knowledge grounded in a conceptual framework that art therapists will find worthwhile. It is instructive to learn about Drass’ work and how she has incorporated constructs of DBT into art therapy that is informed by contemporary theory and practice from other mental health disciplines. In addition to these instructive articles about practice, four timely and notable research reports provide enlightening results critical to how art therapists practice. Mattye Laurer and Renee van der Vennet present results from a replication of the effects of making art versus sorting of art prints done with a sample of individuals in outpatient treatment for substance abuse. Taking a cue from Bell and Robbins’s (2007) study design used with undergraduates, they found similar reductions in anxiety and negative mood with individuals with significant clinical symptoms. Although the intervention was a free art task, not specifically art therapy, it still holds implications for art therapy practice with clients who need help with improving mood and decreasing anxiety. Elizabeth R. Kimport and Elizabeth Hartzell report a study on the use of clay with individuals in an inpatient setting who have major psychiatric diagnoses. Even though this is a population identified as needing attention in research (Kaiser & Deaver, 2013) there is a dearth of systematic investigation in this area. Their preliminary evidence supports using a structured clay intervention to help with anxiety reduction and adds to previous work on the use of clay in art therapy. Clearly more research is needed on the use of various art media with different populations and it is useful to see investigations on the use of threedimensional and tactile materials such as clay. In a study with individuals who have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related to a history of childhood sexual abuse, Carol-Lynne J. Becker, a psychologist with the Veterans’ Administration, finds that integrating art interventions with exposure treatment for PTSD appears to enhance reduction of depression and the symptoms associated with PTSD. Though the sample was quite small the results suggest the need for more study in this area especially with the sustained reductions at one month in anger,