ABSTRACT
Having made a strong pitch for collaboration with those from other disciplines in developing sound research in art therapy, I shall now make what will probably appear to be a 180-degree turn and argue for greater independence in our thinking in the area of theory. It is significant, I think, that a number of art therapists have had to obtain advanced training in some other discipline, largely because such training has not been available in our own. While it is exciting to enrich our field with the well-digested perspectives of others, it is also depressing. It is sad that we so often seem to borrow theories in order to explain what happens when people create, just as we attach to ourselves the identities of others when we obtain doctorates in other disciplines.
