The digital art therapy frame: creating a ‘magic circle’ in teletherapy

ABSTRACT

Background

There has been increasing attention to the use of teletherapy in art therapy with accessibility at the forefront of the argument for its use. Concerns have persisted around how to use art materials and media for therapeutic gain in a digital platform. The debate quickly needed to be reconsidered as the shutdown orders surrounding COVID-19 forced many of us to adopt online art therapy practice.

Context

My child, teen and family art therapy outpatient practice in the Northeast United States, quickly pivoted online in late March. This move entailed establishing a new framework for creating a ‘magic circle’ for emotional resonance to create positive change.

Approach

Adapting a new framework, we established routines and rituals for engaging even our youngest clients. Ethics and boundaries needed to be established in a new landscape of service delivery.

Outcomes

Adaptation enabled us to work with our clients. While many things worked, art making and responsiveness to client needs proved to be challenges, along with the limits of technology and other distractions.

Conclusions

We are now more adept, have developed shared art tools, and can assess how to build a working alliance for online art therapy practice.

Implications for research

Massive use of online art therapy affords us the opportunity to look at how it may operate in a virtual world. Research may parse out best practices, what doesn’t work, and for whom it might work best, and look at issues surrounding working alliance, therapist responsiveness and sensory processes in online art therapy.

Plain-language summary

The world-wide pandemic of 2020 forced therapists to provide services online. My art therapy practice was no exception. We immediately had to pivot our child-centered art therapy services to online platforms and adapt our approach. The ‘magic circle’ framework that we create through our physical space, presence and three modes of engagement during art therapy were translated into telehealth. This framework is explained with two case vignettes to suggest both challenges to online art therapy practice as well as the success of the new model. Implications for research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Child art therapy
• teletherapy
• COVID-19
• online art therapy
• digital art therapy

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges Kristen Rashid, Antonia Cianfrani, and Jordyn Staar for their hard work and consistency throughout this pandemic and shutdown and their contributions to our supervision group. Hank Carlton and Sara Sculley also joined us along the way; many thanks.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathryn Snyder

Kathryn Snyder is a registered, board-certified art therapist with a private practice in Philadelphia, PA. She founded and directs Parent to Child Therapy Associates, a clinical practice focusing on art therapy with children, teens and families. Spark is a non-profit arm of her practice that serves children in schools in Philadelphia through grant funding. Kathryn has been practicing for over 20 years and has been connecting with the community through workshops, speaking engagements and professional presentations. She began her PhD studies in Creative Arts Therapy at Drexel University in 2018 and will be proposing her dissertation research this fall to focus on the importance of art therapy in an early intervention/early childhood education context.