ABSTRACT
In most inpatient work, the art therapist is part of a multidisciplinary team, all of whom combine their varied skills to help patients individually, in groups, and sometimes with their families. As with settings and populations, any art therapist beginning work in a new mode, whether couple or family or some other configuration—like brief psychotherapy—first ought to find out what has been done in that kind of art therapy by others. Group therapy as adjunctive is, of course, different from group as the primary mode of treatment, in art as in any other form of therapy. Many factors need to be weighed, including the perceived needs of the patients and their apparent readiness for one or another mode of therapy. Finally, it was found that screening patients in individual art interviews prior to placing them in groups made it possible to have more functional group compositions.
