ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the development of educational programs in art therapy, the training required to be a competent art therapist, and some of the unique aspects of learning in this field. It is also about evolution of standards for educational programs and for practice, as well as the development of art therapy in regard to public and professional awareness. Establishing and consolidating a professional identity takes time in any profession. It may be especially difficult in art therapy, because of the inevitable tug of war between the clinician’s artist-self and therapist-self. Even if issue of their relative importance in one’s clinical work has been settled, there is still the pragmatic problem of finding the time and energy to make art. One of first and most difficult tasks, after agreeing to credentialing, was to define standards, since it was quite a challenge to assess competence in a discipline with hardly any formal training, and widely different kinds of preparation among practitioners.
