ABSTRACT
Before I began to work on this chapter, I asked myself, how did it happen that I came to write on the similarities and differences between art teaching and art therapy in the first place? What aspects of these two professional activities can usefully be subjected to a comparison? Furthermore, why should it even be necessary to compare them-is it just because they include the word ‘art’, or is it that they have often been confused? Do they have common ground, and if so, what and why is this? If there are differences, do they arise because of the environment in which they are practised-that is to say, teachers work in schools with ‘normal’ children and therapists work in hospitals with ‘sick’ people? But what about the teachers who work in hospitals and the therapists in schools? By changing their title, would they be doing the same thing?
