ABSTRACT
A long-term project, from 1992 to 2004, was to assist in developing two postgraduate training programs in art therapy in Switzerland that achieved validation through the University of London when they were offered independently at university level. Following a long campaign to persuade the British Department of Health to support it, in 1997, by means of an Act of Parliament, arts therapy became one of the 16 professions in the UK (including psychology and social work) regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council. Art therapists have worked in dining rooms, corridors, boiler rooms, and huts. In the old psychiatric hospitals, art therapists often had large studios secluded from the rest of the hospital, where the staff sent “difficult patients.” For interview participants who had a strong background in psychiatry and mental health but none in psychoanalysis, presenting as any kind of challenge or as posing a potential risk to the group was difficult.
