Social Action in Practice: Shifting the Ethnocentric Lens in Cross-Cultural Art Therapy Encounters

Abstract

With the advance of globalization and changing demographics, an intercultural perspective that is self-reflexively aware of ethnocentric bias is increasingly important for art therapists. This article draws from cross-cultural art therapy in the international service realm to consider the nature of art therapy as a distinctly cultural practice. The professionalization of distress within the activist paradigm of care is examined and exemplified with two lenses viewing the same encounter, one monocultural and the other ethnorelative. Cultural frame switching and other conceptual tools to disrupt conditioned responses and to develop ethical praxis, multicultural competency, and intercultural sensitivity at home and abroad are presented.