The Importance of Writing (and Writing Well)

Art therapists are passionate and creative practitioners. And they are smart. In the last issue of 2015, I argued that it is vital for practicing art therapists to educate their colleagues about the work they are doing. For those readers who are practicing art therapists, there is an eager audience waiting to learn from the proficiency and know-how you have spent years nurturing. Many of you have wonderful stories to tell. How can you share your experiences and contribute to building a cumulative knowledge tradition in Art Therapy? To do this it is important to write, and to write well. It is important to tell your stories within conceptual frameworks that guide practice. Alas, this is a struggle even for the best of scholars.

Reflecting on the numerous submitted manuscripts I have read over the past year, considering my own struggles to write well, and pondering the years of guiding students through master's theses, I am convinced that good writing is crucial to the continued advancement of our field. And it is crucial for those who are adept at art therapy practice to share their work with fellow professionals. For these reasons I urge all practicing art therapists to write about the work you are doing and to share your best practices. Although there is certainly benefit in conference presentations, it is through journal publication that a lasting documentation of best practices is incorporated into our body of literature. To make a lasting, enduring contribution to our field, and to assist those receiving art therapy outside your smaller sphere of practice, prepare and submit manuscripts to the Journal.

What does it take to compose writing that can be published professionally and perhaps have an impact on the art therapy knowledge base and future art therapists? Can this be cultivated, or is it a gift that some have and some do not? I firmly believe, no matter what your prior experience, that good writing can be cultivated. I offer these words of encouragement to get you started.

What makes a good practice-oriented manuscript? It is a combination of telling your story—describing what you do—and also situating that work within what others have documented. Yes, this does require reflection and the conceptualization of your work so that it can be understood and applied by others when they gain a deeper comprehension of your framework to contextualize it for their particular practice situation. Yet, this is an incredibly rewarding process. So, how do you get started? Here are some ideas.

First, get inspired. A gem of a book that may spur you on is Anne Lamott's (1995) Bird by Bird: Some Inspirations on Writing and Life. I love this book. It is charming, funny, passionate, a joy to read. I first read it during a time when I was intent on improving my own writing skills and have since recommended it to students and colleagues time and again. Emphasizing the rewards of writing itself over publishing, Lamott, in her introduction, affirmed:

Writing has much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward. (1995, p. xxvi)

Once inspired, what's next? What's next is the work of writing that is “about as easy and pleasurable as bathing a cat” (Lamott, 1995, p. 3). Harry Wolcott (2001), a well-known educational anthropologist, penned one of the best academic books on writing I have come across. Writing Up Qualitative Research tackles one of the most difficult challenges in research writing: the qualitative report. His book contains excellent suggestions and commentaries with applications far beyond the difficult composing of naturalistic research. He said, “Writing is thinking” (Wolcott, 2011, p. 22); by writing a person captures the emergent, not-yet-fully-articulated tacit knowing they possess. The knowing unfolds through the writing of words on paper that once read back push articulation of ideas and concepts further along. Then through successive drafts the concepts become richer and more specific. This has been termed “conceptual progressions” that emerge out of repeated drafts of creative scholarship by scientists as they successively develop their concepts, evaluate for shortcomings, and revise considering alternate perceptions of the framework they produced (Wallace & Gruber, 1989, p. 55). Not only does this tighten the writing, it also improves one's ideas and practices, ultimately providing benefit for clients as the concepts about the work evolve.

Writing can be a frustrating, isolating experience. It is also an ability that can be cultivated. Although it is helpful to read about writing and to read examples of good writing, it is even more helpful to write with the support of others. Find a trusted first reader who can provide constructive feedback. Seek out others interested in writing and form a writing group. Great first steps are to present work at conferences and then use that as a jumping-off place for further developing a manuscript for journal submission. Although it may seem daunting, every article in this issue started just in the same place. Start writing today and you may well end up with the thrill of seeing your work in print!

The papers in this issue of the Journal cover a range of topics related to both practice and research in art therapy. Jennifer Marie DeLucia describes her work with veterans in an outreach center in Rochester, New York, by emphasizing the significance of the studio and the gallery in her art therapy practice. She frames these services as integral to creating space for veterans to reconnect with family and community during the difficult reintegration into civilian life.

Sarah Dorothy Kowitt and colleagues contribute a research report on their pilot evaluation of the Burma Art Therapy Project in Orange County, North Carolina. Therapists at the Art Therapy Institute developed the project in 2009 to provide art therapy to youth who are refugees in the Chapel Hill–Carrboro school system. This program evaluation pilot is an example of art therapists collaborating with researchers in public health to determine the feasibility of incorporating evaluation into services to ensure their effectiveness and undertake a full-scale program evaluation based on the pilot. This is an excellent example of collaboration between art therapists and researchers in a field situated to provide resources practicing art therapists may not have.

Teresa Raffaelli and Elizabeth Hartzell report on their qualitative study comparing the responses of adults who identify as non-artists to using two common art therapy materials in an initial art-making session. Their aim was to discover possible concerns and benefits of working with these materials that can inform art therapists who are beginning work with clients new to making visual art. What they found highlights the voices of their participants and contributes new information for consideration that art therapists might find surprising as well as useful.

In a study of the effect of art therapy on adults with cancer in a hospital setting, Leara Glinzak investigated changes in distress before and after art therapy using a proxy pretest study. Using the evaluation measure adopted by the medical facility to determine the impact of art therapy for all patients receiving these services, she collected data from an oncology floor, an infusion clinic, individual sessions held in patients' rooms, and an open studio. Her results suggest the value of art therapy for patients receiving various cancer treatments and point to the need for more research in this area.

Three brief reports complete this issue. The first is a study of the Mindfulness Art Therapy Short Version for hospitalized patients with advanced cancer in Japan. Michiyo Ando, Haruko Kira, Shigeru Hayashida, and Sayoko Ito built on the work of Caroline Peterson (2015), who developed mindfulness-based art therapy, to develop this program for short-term use in the hospital setting. Following this, Tisah Tucknott-Cohen and Crystal Ehresman, art therapists from Canada, contribute a clinical case about a woman with late stage dementia who benefited from art therapy services that were tailored to meet particular needs allowing for specific challenges of her condition. The final brief report by Rachel Abrams and Emily Nolan describes their collaboration conducting action research projects at a center for adults who are homeless. They consider their teamwork in this setting to have accomplished several benefits for residents and to have provided distinctive value for Abrams, a master's student, in developing both research and clinical skills during her final academic year.

In closing, I reiterate my invitation to write about the work that you have cultivated over the course of your career and submit it to Art Therapy so others may benefit from your knowledge. Art therapists are indeed passionate and creative practitioners and our field will flourish as even more art therapists tackle the challenges of writing well and become published authors.