ABSTRACT
Reality can be a non-place, where our inner imagined and desired image collapses. In contrast, within a safe place, art therapy helps to co-create, offers a new chance for feeling truly and personally connected to interact with others. In his own particular crusade, Don Quixote's struggles have the sense of justice and longed-for freedom winning through. To do this, his nobility and his true compassion are placed at the service of those whose paths he crosses in his adventures. However, he does not ride alone: he is accompanied by Sancho. Between reality and fantasy, his search, like anyone else's, moves back and forth between the nooks and crannies of reality and the expanse of idealism, which can cast him into the abyss of the impossible. In the balance between the two, life unfolds and health blooms.
This chapter presents the theoretical framework and some of the conclusions of an art therapy programme designed, implemented and evaluated in three Madrid City Council community health centres (Madrid's Municipal Madrid City of Health Care Plan). From 2017 to 2018, 39 workshops targeting the young and adolescent population, groups of women, elderly people, people with autism spectrum disorder, people with functional diversity and mental health groups took place with the participation of 340 people.
Looking at the workshops for women, this programme facilitated art therapy self-care group spaces to promote health through accompanied creative processes and created support networks among participants, institutions and health agents. With the aim of minimising the discomforts of everyday life, confidence-building and mutual care were included in the conceptual basis to evoke and reinforce epistemic trust in the above agents, trying to balance inequalities caused by gender as a social determinant in health.
148The methodological design was based on interdisciplinary teamwork with healthcare professionals, as well as reality analysis, continuous assessment, confidentiality and respect. Other conceptual keys were participatory action research, process cross-disciplinarity, the art therapist practitioner as a guide and support worker, the exploration of different techniques and artistic materials and the symbolic and metaphorical value of productions. They are all part of the triple interconnection between art therapist, workshop/artwork and participant/group, underpinned by the museum as a health agent in the incorporation of new methodologies for promoting health and care.
Moods, anxiety, stress and depression, self-esteem, loneliness, general satisfaction, group cohesion and interpersonal relationships were observed and evaluated through mixed research methods, which is in itself an indicator of the lack of specific methodological art therapy tools.
As regards the professional development and establishment of art therapy in Spain, we focused on the implementation process, the identity of art therapists as co-researchers and the methodological design problems (related to both research and art therapy praxis in this context). They highlighted the need to question the foundations of community-based art therapy.
