ABSTRACT
Art therapy combines art and psychotherapy and ideally each is enhanced by its coupling with the other. Art involves the creation of aesthetically stimulating representations of reality. Psychotherapy involves the treatment of psychologically disturbed individuals. On the face of it these contrasting disciplines have little in common. In fact both are concerned with emotional issues and the practitioners of each need to be sensitive and intuitive. There are many forms of art therapy, depending on the proportion of art and psychotherapy involved, There are those who argue that the art therapist is essentially a trained artist who does therapy and those who argue that he is essentially a trained psychotherapist who uses art. In this country at least, the art therapist is usually an artist who has gone on to train in therapy. To my mind, the art component of art therapy is very much subsidiary to the therapy one and it concerns me that the degree of training in therapy which artists currently receive is far from adequate to enable them to be competent therapists.
