Exploring a dyadic approach to art psychotherapy with children and young people: A survey of British art psychotherapists

Abstract

Dyadic art psychotherapy, which routinely involves parents and carers together with the child in sessions, appears to be an important emerging practice. We designed a non-standardised questionnaire to estimate how many art psychotherapists working with children and families adopt a dyadic parent–child approach and what influenced them to do so. Participants were asked about the frequency of involving parents and carers in assessment and therapy, their theoretical influences and their degree of familiarity with related interventions. The majority (60%) of the respondents reported involving parents and carers in art therapy sessions with some degree of frequency.

Keywords:

• Art therapy
• dyadic
• attachment
• process
• practice
• survey
• children
• families

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the participants for sharing their thoughts and completing the questionnaire. Particular thanks also go to the art psychotherapists who trialled the questionnaire and to the members of ATCAF and ATE who helped to launch the questionnaire. This article presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.

Notes

1. The chi-squared test and the t-test are significance tests. The most appropriate test is chosen based on the type of data being analysed. Types of data might include categorical data, which can be sorted into categories (e.g. male or female), and continuous variables, which can have any value on a given scale (e.g. weight).

2. The p-value is the probability of obtaining the observed response (or a more extreme response) if the null hypothesis were true. A p-value of less than 0.01 suggests that the result is 99% likely to be a true outcome and not a random error.