Authors:Silke Hilgers, Ange Morgan Abstract: As the ATOL editorial team gathered together before this issue was conceived, we found that we shared a common desire to spend more time in creative processes, as we considered matters arising from the inclusion of visual material within the journal generally, and more broadly, its representation within our published and presented work as clinicians and academics. As art therapists, lecturers, supervisors, researchers and artists ourselves, there was a shared longing for time to create and discover. PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Lesley Morris , Jill Westwood Abstract: ‘Subterranean Cosmic Dreaming Part 2’ is a film-assemblage that explores aspects of the experiences, images, and collective dreaming that unfolded in the process of creating a ‘temporary wild museum of futurology’ on the shores of the Thames at Shoeburyness, as part of the Estuary Festival Associated Programme 2021. As Art Psychotherapists, guided by a posthuman, new materialist perspective and trusting art as a process of inquiry we move towards deepening our understanding of materiality, time, space, and place in a process of diffraction as a form of critical consciousness (Barad, 2007). Artwork in the form of a Film accessed on YouTube: Subterranean Cosmic Dreaming Part 2
Authors:Miles Temple Abstract: This case study presents two samples of reflective art-making from two different points in my life as an emerging art therapist working in Melbourne, Australia. The first piece of reflective work was created during the final year of my art therapy master’s program and clinical placement in an inpatient mental health unit for adults. The second collection of reflective work was created during my second year of work in a private mental health inpatient facility, running art therapy groups for adults. These two works will be held up to the light and examined side by side to explore how the function of my reflective art-making evolved alongside my inner changes as I moved from student to practitioner. PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:The MAAP Team 2023-24 Abstract: In this piece we present a visual ‘snapshot’ of artworks made in a staff art making group for tutors on the Art Psychotherapy training at Goldsmiths University, London, as we start the academic year 2023-24. In the group, which happens twice termly, the teaching team gather in the studio to talk, make artworks, and reflect on their meanings for the staff group in the dynamic context of the training. Our art making as a team has come to signify a place for critical thinking, connecting, and creating together in a way that feels authentic and that has become an essential part of our cohesion and survival as a team. We decided to show this aspect of our practice to foreground the role of art to think about personal, political, social and institutional dynamics. We believe that the value we place on art making as art psychotherapists can be part of our functioning and resistance in ‘the hostile environment of neoliberalism’ (Skaife and Martyn 2022). PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Uwe Herrmann Abstract: As a child, I felt determined to become an archaeologist – someone digging up hidden, often fractured, sometimes beautiful things that act like lenses. Things that help us to look at and better understand the past. I must have been about eight years old when I recovered a fragment of a putto head from a dilapidated, overgrown drywall in my street. It was missing its upper part, the stone split across the eye line (fig. 1). Though searching, the head’s missing part, including most of the eye section, stayed lost. I remember feeling compelled to take it, ‘rescue’ it from oblivion, to give it dignity and a home. And I remember my strong wish to keep looking at it. Five decades later, I must admit to my younger self that I did not become an archaeologist, but an art psychotherapist. As a profession, it may have much in common with archaeology. Holding mental and emotional fragmentation, helping splinters of memories - or what is thought of as memories – to surface and to transform through the making of art is archaeology of sorts. PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Uwe Herrmann Abstract: Als Kind war ich fest entschlossen, Archäologe zu werden - jemand, der versteckte, oft zerbrochene, manchmal schöne Dinge ausgräbt, die wie Linsen wirken. Dinge, die uns helfen, die Vergangenheit zu betrachten und besser zu verstehen. Ich muss etwa acht Jahre alt gewesen sein, als ich ein Fragment eines Puttenkopfes aus einer baufälligen, überwucherten Trockenmauer in meiner Straße barg. Ihm fehlte der obere Teil, der Stein war durch die Augenlinie hindurch gespalten (Abb. 1). Trotz Suchen blieb der fehlende Teil des Kopfes, einschließlich des größten Teils der Augenpartie, verloren. Ich erinnere mich wie wichtig es mir war, ihn mitzunehmen, ihn vor dem Vergessen zu „retten", ihm Würde und ein Zuhause zu geben. Und ich erinnere mich an meinen starken Wunsch, ihn weiter zu betrachten. Fünf Jahrzehnte später muss ich gegenüber meinem jüngeren Ich zugeben, dass ich nicht Archäologe, sondern Kunstpsychotherapeut geworden bin. Als Beruf hat er vielleicht viel mit der Archäologie gemeinsam. Fragmentierte mentale und emotionale psychische Anteile zu halten, Erinnerungssplittern - oder dem, was man für Erinnerungen hält – zu helfen, an die Oberfläche zu dringen und sich durch das Schaffen von Kunst zu transformieren, ist eine Art Archäologie. PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Ulrike Holtermann Abstract: A story in pictures from art therapy in paediatric oncologyPictures by Marco, words by Ulrike HoltermannFig.1: Marco: "Hai!"(SHARK!), white paint pen on postcard, DIN A4 PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Ulrike Holtermann Abstract: Eine Geschichte in Bildern aus der Kunsttherapie in der pädiatrischen Onkologie Bilder von Marco, Texte von Ulrike Holtermann PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Clare Mitten Abstract: Stay Alive was made on placement as a trainee art therapist with a National Health Service (NHS) Arts Therapies team, at an acute adult Mental Health unit in a diverse London borough. The drawing was a visual response to attending patient review meetings with families and representatives from the multidisciplinary and community teams, present both in-person and remotely. PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Susannah Morrison Abstract: The Book Paradox was created as part of my studies in creative arts and health at the University of Tasmania. I was encouraged to work mostly within only one medium, and I chose paper. This inspired me to create something with repurposed materials both out of my own curiosity, and from a sustainability viewpoint. PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Jésica Frustaci Abstract: I have been suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome which impacted on my career and the fulfillment of childhood dreams. I started practicing art therapy at the recommendation of my therapist. That practice helped me improve my symptoms. This work speaks about my analysis of the past as much as my expectations about the future. PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Jésica Frustaci Abstract: He estado sufriendo de síndrome de estrés postraumático y esto afectó el desarrollo de mi carrera y el cumplimiento de los sueños de la infancia. Empecé a practicar arteterapia por recomendación de mi terapeuta. Esa práctica me ayudó a mejorar mis síntomas. Este trabajo habla tanto de mi análisis del pasado como de mis expectativas sobre el futuro. PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Chris Wood Abstract: This book contains a lot to think about. Reviewing it has taken me a long time because it concerns a discussion of many important issues in my life and my work. It unpacks the challenges of working and living in a world dominated by austerity politics. In particular, the book looks at the impact of austerity on art therapy and art psychotherapy groups. Sally Skaife and Jon Martyn explain how their experiences of political activism enabled them to work together on editing and shaping their book. It is unusual and yet welcome to me when therapists discuss the effects of the political world on their theory and practice. PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:David Edwards Abstract: All books are written, published and read in a context, be this historical, cultural, political and/or personal. This being so, I begin my review of Charlie English’s important book with a personal preface. PubDate: 2024-04-24 Issue No:Vol. 14, No. 1 (2024)
Open Access journal
