ABSTRACT
The author set out her rationale, explaining why awareness of representations of gender is an important topic for mental health practitioners and art psychotherapists in their practice. In this chapter, she surveys and critically appraises her research and practice in this field since then. The author appraisal includes an exploration of key concepts and contributions, especially about the usefulness of a focus on gender representation, power, and identity, and its importance for mental health. She observed that art therapy can serve as a tool, potentially, to produce images that might challenge dominant or hegemonic representations. The rich ways of knowing generated by art and art therapy techniques are now being considered and used in arts-based research as well as in arts and health practices. One body of theory, which informs art therapy clinical practice, is that which comes from psychotherapy.
