Art Therapy Now More Than Ever: Re-Assembling, Revisioning, and Shifting Creative Practices During Stormy Times (L’art-thérapie plus que jamais : réassembler, réviser et changer les pratiques créatives en ces temps tumultueux)

We have had a year unlike any, but it is not unprecedented. Waterfall wrote a moving article in The Tyne titled, “For First Nations, these are precedented times” (2020). The author explains that, for Indigenous and First Nations people, the pandemic may bring back memories of past losses, experiences of isolation, and of not being able to touch and be together, echoing a history of Residential Schools and genocide.

Social justice issues that have been highlighted this year through critical movements have also been here for a long time, but we have reached a place where truth-telling has finally been valued. Now the need and readiness for change and reconciliation has come to the forefront. The impact of media and the social Internet has been overwhelming since the first reports of COVID-19 on December 31, 2019 (World Health Organization, 2020). Since that time, in mind-numbing numbers, it has become hard to conceive of the immensity of grief and loss. The year’s crisis has spotlighted the values and ethics of those in places of power and privilege.

Volume 34, Issue 1 of the Canadian Journal of Art Therapy/Revue canadienne d’art-thérapie explores diverse research methodologies that address the importance, challenges, and possibilities of art therapy during times of disrupting social injustices with imperative movements. It explores innovative art therapy methods and research to inspire readers during the unrelenting trials of the COVID-19 pandemic after more than one year of intermittent lockdowns across the world. This theme is inspired by the Canadian Art Therapy Association’s 41st Annual Conference in Fall 2020. Similar to many conferences that have moved to virtual platforms to prevent contagion, this was the organization’s first online conference. Through the increased use of videoconferencing platforms to connect and learn, this conference highlights changes in how location and space are experienced. With the inability to connect face-to-face and with an increased embrace of virtual platforms for everyday tasks (e.g., ordering groceries, seeing a doctor, and learning), understandings of location shift from an offline physical colocation to a virtual copresence (Beaulieu, 2010; Howlett, 2021).

With therapy, conferences, and research moving to virtual platforms, our perceptions of space, location, public, and private spheres have shifted (Howlett, 2021). At this year’s virtual conference, we directly connected from our home spaces to the houses and offices of presenters through laptops, phones, and iPads. The liminal (Beaumont, 2018; Beech, 2011; Van Gennep, 1960) and transitional spaces (Winnicott, 1971) within art therapy studios and offices have now become relational cocreations within new virtual and technological spheres. These virtual locations of copresence connect us across divergent time zones, spaces, households, and countries. Thus, this current issue intends to contribute to the growing body of knowledge that documents resourceful and innovative art therapy research and practices during the COVID-19 pandemic by exploring new innovative practices and materials (Kaimal et al., 2020; Miller & McDonald, 2020; Potash et al., 2020; Shaw, 2020).

This issue

Articles: Art therapy, stress, and anxiety

As many Canadian provinces remain under lockdown and as coronavirus variants spread across the nation, new information and protocols have continued to change our lives over the past year. Uncertainty is prevalent everywhere and none of us have the answers. We are being called upon to be resilient and flexible, to change and adapt, within a changing reality and landscape. We ask the questions, and we struggle to answer each other: What is going to happen? How soon? How long will it go on? Will I die? Will I lose the people I love? What is safe to do? Who is it safe to be with? What does it mean? Creatively, art therapists and clients may seek answers through art making.

The combination of the climate emergency, a global pandemic, and the all-pervasive social justice issues have amplified core existential issues. According to Spinelli (2015), these issues are relational anxiety, uncertainty, impermanence, and existential anxiety. Even before the pandemic, anxiety and mood disorders were the most common health challenges for Canadians (McRae et al., 2016). During this current health crisis, anxiety and depression have become “overwhelmingly prevalent” in Canada and across the world as very natural reactions to this shifting world (Shah et al., 2021, p. 101). This documented increase in anxiety and depression is described as an “echo pandemic” (Dozois & Mental Health Research Canada, 2021, p. 1). Furthermore, vulnerable populations, such as newcomers to Canada, are even more susceptible to stress, anxiety, and depression due to various factors, including lack of equitable access or culturally informed mental health care (Evra & Mongrain, 2020).

In the Article section of this issue, Gerami (2021) presents a quantitative study that examines the effects of group art therapy program on stress and quality of life for newcomer Iranian children and tweens (ages 8-12) who relocated to Montreal. The researcher compiled multiple forms of data, including cortisol levels in saliva and three validated assessments, to measure changes before, after, and at four weeks following the art therapy group. With this collection of noninvasive and integrative results, the author found that 10 weeks of group art therapy reduced stress levels and increased quality of life for participants, while the results remained significant at the four-week follow-up.

Art therapy in practice: Reassembling and shifting practices

While many Canadians report that “the quantity and quality of mental health supports has decreased” during COVID-19, researchers also predict an increase in Canadians seeking mental health services (Dozois & Mental Health Research Canada, 2021, p. 1). Therefore, mental health professionals, such as art therapists, must “dramatically modify” their practices to become more accessible, community-focused, and help clients engage in pleasurable and mastery-oriented activities (Dozois & Mental Health Research Canada, 2021, p. 6). Across the country, art therapists have worked to creatively adapt their ways of practice. Some have gone online to support both groups and individuals, while many learning institutions taught students exclusively through virtual platforms.

At the Kutenai Art Therapy Institute in British Columbia, we had to rethink the studios and art materials. Separate art bins of tools and materials were created for students and participants. Assorted recycled and natural materials were placed in “mystery bags” for creative projects, as it would not be hygienic to have artists grazing through shelves filled with materials (Muggeridge, 2019). Natural materials were gathered outside that were free of contaminants (see Figure 1). Nature remained abundant and provided prolific opportunities for creativity and “safe” places for therapeutic engagement (Carpendale, 2010). At the Institute, online virtual art therapy sessions focused on simple home art materials, digital art making, collage, and available natural and recycled materials (see Figure 2 for an example of connecting student art). The use of natural materials, found objects, and unusual recycled materials builds skills in flexible repurposing, innovative thinking, and imagination (Eisner, 2002). It was important to consider accessibility and ease of creative engagement.

Figure 1. Making a labyrinth of painted shoes at Kutenai Art Therapy Institute.

Figure 2. Creating quilts to help art therapy students stay connected during the pandemic at Kutenai Art Therapy Institute, 2020.

In the first article of the practice section, McBride and Worral (2021) use the metaphor of switching gears of a vehicle from automatic to manual-drive to describe their experience of adapting their face-to-face expressive counselling groups to online. The authors provide “specific, applied recommendations to enhance the delivery of online counseling groups that integrate expressive arts therapies” based on various challenges that they had experienced when running a series of online groups during the COVID-19 pandemic (n.p.). Topics of accessibility, simplification, online platforms, and building community are explored with examples.

New digital media in art therapy can create opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds and abilities to participate. In this issue, Olena Darewych’s (2021) clinical practice article explores the potential of digital media, such as digital apps, to support adults on the Autism Spectrum in art therapy groups. Darewych describes her practice and learnings at the Paparella Innovative Arts Center at Lawson Ministries Hamilton, where the author integrates digital media to “maintain [the groups’] imaginative thinking abilities, strengthen their executive function skills, expand their digital media faculties, and promote their social engagement capabilities” (n.p.).

In another Art Therapy in Practice article, Khan (2021) shares a transnational participatory action research study that engaged Pakistani adolescents in an eight-week synchronous online art therapy group. In this virtual group, members created online comics about their lived experiences, which included coping with the pandemic. Through analysis of created questionnaires, recorded sessions, reflexive drawings, and comic art, the author found that participants developed self-awareness, emotional regulation, and relational connections.

Book reviews

Before the pandemic, a World Health Organization systematic review highlighted the significant role that the arts play in developing community and social connection to improve mental and physical health (Fancourt & Finn, 2019). In this special issue, Parker (2021) reviews an edited book by Coles and Jury that explores the various roles of art therapy in museum spaces to build reflexivity, connection, inclusion, and community for visitors. The reviewer situates this book within the current COVID-19 pandemic and highlights the importance of ceaselessly challenging systems of oppression within institutions.

From a clinical perspective, Valkanas (2021) reviews Horovitz’s (2020) book, The art therapists’ primer: A clinical guide to writing assessments, diagnosis, and treatment. The author details components of this synthesized collection of assessment research and practice. Valkanas (2021) writes, “As an art therapy profession, I believe that we need to continue working on enhancing research and applications of art therapy-based tools to enrich diverse clients’ well-being throughout the course of therapy” (n.p.).

The storm clouds and creative practices

The storm clouds have been brewing for a long time now, but it seems that we are like the proverbial frog in the pot with the water getting hotter and hotter but getting gradually used to it and not taking it seriously enough to get out (see Figure 3 for artistic exploration). Climate emergency affects everyone and everything: extreme weather, floods, fires, earthquakes, glaciers melting, arctic ice melting, loss of species and habitat (Fawzy et al., 2020; Paul, 2020, Sippel et al., 2020; Williams, 2020). The global pandemic has highlighted the health risk factors for all, particularly the elderly, the poor, the marginalized, and the homeless, as well as the systemic racism and social justice issues, and the discrepancy between the rich and the poor in coping with the social isolation and lockdowns (Corak, 2020; Olijnyk, 2021; Roy et al., 2018). We have learned that in a time of crisis, stress, domestic violence, and social injustices increase, and inequities and disparities will become clear and highlighted. The Black Lives, BIPOC, and Indigenous Lives Matter movements have highlighted the reality of systemic racism and opened our understanding of the pervasiveness of injustice and oppression. The intense awareness of disparities of power and privilege has been crystalized. With increased voices that disrupt dominant oppressive discourse, everyone can become aware that racism is evident in the social construction of our world. We all need to examine not if we are racist but how we are, and how do we change it to ally more effectively.

Figure 3. Students painting umbrellas as symbolic of protection from COVID-19 and keeping safe distance at Kutenai Art Therapy Institute, 2020.

Haraway (2016) speaks of how we need to “stay with the trouble” (p. 3) and the importance of our ability to be “response-able” (pp. 114-116). This term describes the ability to be responsive to what is happening. A core aspect of all expressive art therapies is training in imaginative and creative processes and the ability to be responsive and empathic. These are important skills in these uncertain times. Pema Chodron (2019) talks of how we need to “welcome the unwelcome” in her new book of that title: Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted living in a brokenhearted world. It is a similar theme of staying open to what the unwelcome is telling us and being willing to shift our perspective and be transformed by what is difficult and uncomfortable. Thus, it is only by being willing to engage in the shadow (Jung, 1971) aspects that the light is revealed (Haraway, 2016).

For therapists, increased awareness and empathy for the “inter-being” (Davenport, 2017, p. 20) of humanity may increase compassion fatigue and vicarious traumatization. The increased social responsibility and awareness of the overwhelming disparity between privilege and poverty, social justice, and systemic racism can lead to moral injuries and burnout. If we can reconfigure and reframe the need for internal reorganization as a growth outcome of burnout, we can focus on building resiliency, self-compassion, and self-care (Patterson, 2020).

One of the silver linings in the pandemic is that many of our ways of being in the world have had to stop, be examined, and changed. We need a paradigm shift to align the internal experience with the external realities. Creative processes can support emotional exploration and expression. Nature is often identified as a place of safety and restoration, and the development of an ecological identity can deepen one’s relationship to nature (Carpendale, 2010; Parker, 2008; Thomashow, 1995). This can help in developing an awareness and experience of resources, both internal and external.

Going forth: Revisioning

Art therapy is needed now more than ever. Professional training that is responsive, reachable (Scott-Alexander, 2020), and response-able (Haraway, 2016) will be of great value as we re-vision, re-assemble, and re-create new ways of working. Our next journal special issue, titled Art Therapy Education: Research and reflections from the field, will explore how art therapy pedagogies and programs have adapted to meet these current challenges and needs.

New directions point to increased services through online art therapy with copresence (Howlett, 2021), nature settings with environmental art therapy, and engaged community development with therapeutic arts. Art therapy is moving even more to both give expression to systemic racism and to redress the multilayered social justice issues in our nation and world. We live in a beautiful and bruised world, and we need all the creativity and imagination we can engender to recreate, reimagine and re-story. As art therapists we can make art, make sense, and make special (Carpendale, 2009; Dissanayake, 1995; Scott-Alexander, 2020).

Monica Carpendale, BFA, DVATI, BCATR, RCAT
Kutenai Art Therapy Institute, Founder and Academic Dean, Nelson, British Columbia, Canada
[email protected]
Haley Toll, PhD Cand., RCAT, CCC, RP (inactive)
Canadian Journal of Art Therapy: Research, Practice, and
Issues Editor-in-Chief
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
[email protected] © 2021 Canadian Art Therapy Associationhttps://doi.org.10.1080/26907240.2021.1922190