ABSTRACT
In Britain, trainee art therapists are usually art graduates. They has extensive practical experience of using art materials and most people have had art education in their school curriculum. In parts of Europe and certainly elsewhere in the world, art education is not in the school curriculum and trainees who undertake art therapy are often psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses who have little or even no practical experience of art. The fact that art therapy is a new discipline in many countries and to the strangeness of having art activities in places designed for care and treatment of patients. It was not such a problem in the old psychiatric hospitals with their rambling wards and huge spaces, and sometimes old craft rooms which had been converted to art therapy studios. David Maclagan makes a pertinent point in his discussion of the 'mythology of art therapy'.
