Federal legislation mandates that students with disabilities receive their education in the least restrictive environment and with their non-disabled peers whenever possible. Unfortunately, for many students with emotional behavioral disabilities this is not possible. Teachers are often not provided adequate training to meet the needs of students with challenging behaviors. The effects art therapy as a teaching modality on pre-service teachers' attitudes and perceptions toward students with emotional/behavioral disabilities was studied. Data was gathered using the Interaction with Disabled Persons Scale, the Teacher's Personal Construct Repertory Grid, a demographic questionnaire, drawings, videotape analysis of the inservice sessions and a follow-up questionnaire. Additional data was collected via two case studies. Results of the quantitative data indicated significant changes within both instruments. Qualitative data indicated several changes occurred. Exposure to information on students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, over the course of two class sessions, led to increased awareness and did alter how preservice teachers view students with emotional/behavioral disabilities. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2005. / July 26, 2005. / emotional behavioral disabilities, personal construct psychology, attitudes and perceptions, pre-service teachers, art therapy / Includes bibliographical references. / Marcia Rosal, Professor Directing Dissertation; Carolyn Piazza, Outside Committee Member; Dave Gussak, Committee Member; Penny Orr, Committee Member.

Suffering traumatic events and the stress disorders that may develop as a result of these experiences disrupt the successful daily functioning and the quality of a person's life. The current art therapy protocols that serve to combat the effects of traumatic events are either intensive or lengthy. With the current state of minimized insurance coverage and managed care, these intensive or lengthy approaches come at a high price to the client. As such, the research study developed into one oriented towards the formation of a successful art-based, interdisciplinary trauma protocol that could be implemented in a short-term university counseling center or a brief-therapy model. This paper will present the research and experimental work leading to the development of a short-term art-based protocol for the purpose of processing traumatic memory and the reduction of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms at a university counseling center. As it pertains to this study, the nature and symptoms of PTSD and the storage of traumatic memory will be discussed. The research and literature review that was used in the formation of the protocol will be addressed. The research portion of this paper will discuss PTSD, the storage of traumatic memory, grounding techniques, successful art therapy interventions used with clients who have experienced traumatic events, and five existing art-based trauma treatment approaches some of which combine art therapy and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) techniques. The art-based research protocol developed for this study was originally 7 sessions, but in practice was shortened to 6 sessions in duration with a pre- and post-test measure using the Impact of Events Scale and pre- and post-interviews of the participant. The study was set up according to an action research model that required the participant to also have a role as a reviewer and feedback provider for the researcher. The feedback provided would offer valuable information in regards to any parts of the protocol deemed unnecessary or excessive in order to create a streamlined treatment. Although this protocol was not intended as a short cut to trauma treatment, it did aim to alleviate symptoms of PTSD so the client could return to more normal functioning after experiencing a traumatic event and after taking part in the protocol, decide if further counseling was needed. Once formed, this research protocol was tested with three consenting participants; two participants completed the protocol while the third discontinued participation after two sessions. The participants involved in the study and their presenting issues will be introduced and then the protocol sessions and art created, the results of the protocol, the participants' changes in functioning, the researcher's observations, and the participants' feedback will then be discussed, respectively. Both participants who completed the research protocol experienced an alleviation of their PTSD symptoms and an improvement in their functioning, but both also completed the study with needs that reached beyond the scope of the study. These changes will be discussed in more detail and in regards to how their presenting issues and functioning difficulties appeared in the artwork created in session. The progression in the art created in session also reflected the participants' improvements occurring during the course of the research protocol. The art created in session will be discussed from the participant/creator's standpoint and from the observation of the researcher. A summary of the study results will be presented, combining objective and subjective data gathered in the research, as will any changes the protocol underwent resulting from the protocol's application and/or participant feedback. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the challenges and limitations of the research study in addition to suggestions for further research and replication of this study. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Art Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester, 2010. / June 23, 2010. / Short-Term Protocol, Trauma, Art Therapy / Includes bibliographical references. / Marcia Rosal, Professor Directing Thesis; David Gussak, Committee Member; Tom Anderson, Committee Member; Dina Ricco, Committee Member.

No description available.

This research, as a multiple-participant case study, has explored the integration of Self Psychology and art therapy with three women who have disorders of self known as Narcissistic Behaviour Disorders. These disorders are defined in Self Psychology by the presence of perversion, addiction and/or delinquency that represent the enactment of fantasies that are markedly and decidedly narcissistic in nature. In this thesis, only addiction and perversion were considered feasible for psychotherapy in which the integration of Self Psychology and art therapy were achieved. The findings of this research support this integration as a form of psychotherapy that is successful in treating women who can be diagnosed as having Narcissistic Behaviour Disorders. In the case of the abuse of alcohol, the abuse of food and the presence of sexual self-mutilation, this integration was found to provide patient-participants with the opportunity to use the art as external, healthy transitional selfobjects that could replace the external ersatz selfobjects of food and alcohol and the objects that had become sexualised as part of the perversion. In breaking from findings on treating addiction within Self Psychology, this research provided evidence to support the use of the transitional selfobjects in the form of art within the self-selfobject relationship with the psychotherapist-researcher. This finding backs the move to the use of transference and the self-selfobject psychotherapeutic relationship as the guiding context for psychotherapy, while moving away from the notion that people with Narcissistic Behaviour Disorders should use the psychotherapist for the purposes of healing. Instead, the emphasis in the current findings is that the art can be used within the therapeutic relationship, providing two forms of selfobjects for the patient, each with a different purpose. This research has generated guidelines for psychotherapists and art therapists who wish to integrate art therapy and Self Psychology. An absence of literature in art therapy based on the paradigm of Self Psychology has made these guidelines a working model that will need further refinement and research. These guidelines are derived from the analysis of data that revealed how the integration of Self Psychology and art therapy articulated and manifested the diagnosis, understanding and treatment of three women with Narcissistic Behaviour Disorders in long-term art therapy informed by Self Psychology. / Prof. H.G. Pretorius

Changes in demographic characteristics and modernisation in Malaysia have contributed to relocation of many elderly people to an elderly institution which is rapidly growing in number in Malaysia in spite of traditional cultural values and the personal beliefs towards elderly people. Living in elderly institutions is often associated with deterioration in well-being as a result of negative issues in institutions such as occupational injustice, loss of meaningful relationships, loss of autonomy and individuality which lead to psychological problems such as depression. Subsequently these issues affect several domains in life including future orientation towards ageing (ERA), general self-efficacy (GSE) and quality of life (QoL). Various lifestyle redesign programmes based on occupational therapy have been conducted to prevent such deterioration. However, such programmes are conducted in Western countries and were design for elderly people in the community. To date, there is no substantial work exploring the applicability of such programmes to elderly people in institutions and in different sets of cultures, values and beliefs such as in Malaysia. This provides justification for the need for such a study. The aim of this concurrent embedded experimental mixed methods study was to explore the effect, and identify the ideographic experience, of forty-six elderly people living in a public funded elderly people institution in Malaysia before and after participated in a new lifestyle redesign programme known as the Lively Later Life Programme (3LP) on ERA, GSE and QoL. Another thirty-six elderly people in a control group participated in an ‘in-house’ programme. After six months of taking part in the 3LP, there were statistical significant changes in the scores of the study measures for the participants in the experimental group. In addition, the participants provided ideographic experiences exemplified in various themes relating to the experience of taking part in the 3LP which supported and elaborated the changes in the scores of the study measures. Findings from this study contribute to evidence based practice in occupational therapy, validate and expand previous lifestyle redesign programmes. In addition, the findings demonstrate that a lifestyle redesign programme based on occupational therapy can be successfully transferred to a different setting, transcend cultural barriers and philosophies of life.

This thesis is an exploration of the psychodynamic body and its mythos. I take a phenomenological approach to research that remains connected to lived experience. I begin with image making, painting from the subjective body in response to the ancient Mesopotamian myth of the flood and archaic cultural material on the flood theme. I discover a relationship between this imagery, this mythos, and earlier work on the Dionysian mythology and mysteries. I gather these images together and with work on my own family history I create a painting performance titled Wings from the Deep. The mythos, the poetic structure, of this performance and this thesis, is an exploration of how a people, a person, a body, can journey through traumatic states. The core phenomenon of this thesis is the psychodynamic movement from deadness to aliveness, a movement at the heart of the psychotherapeutic process. I apply knowledge of the psychotherapeutic conversation to the research process by writing to an important other, Etty Hillesum, a young Dutch Jewish woman who wrote a series of diaries during the Holocaust. I then link this conversation with my earlier imagery and the images of the Holocaust to the biblical myth of the flood. This linking of somatic states to mythic material through imagery and text is how I develop the poetic language integral to this thesis. I create a constant dialogue from body to image to word, a process, a language, that mirrors psychotherapy. The psychodynamic body structures the mythos of this thesis. The psychodynamic body structures a mythos of psychotherapy. CD SOUNDTRACK AND DVD PERFORMANCE AVAILABLE AT UWS LIBRARY. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis explores art therapy with patients experiencing psychosis who also identify as ‘artists’, and arose from encounters in a psychiatric setting. It is argued that these patients struggle with art therapy in a way that is different from other non-artist patients and they may appear to have difficulties relating to the emergence of emotional aspects in their own or others’ artwork. This poses a potential problem for the art therapist who hopes to evoke insight for the patient, based on their artwork as self-expression. This dilemma and the countertransference phenomena specific to this problem are, with one exception, unacknowledged in art therapy literature. This thesis reviews art therapy literature to explore possible defence mechanisms as used by patients experiencing psychosis who identify as artists in art therapy. Four case studies of artist patients who undertook art therapy with the author are then presented. The psychological issues contributing to the artists’ experience and the issues facing the art therapist are investigated. This is complemented by comments made by other art therapists from a questionnaire based on this area of enquiry. Finally the thesis addresses the topic with reference to art therapy practice providing strategies to work with patients experiencing psychosis who also identify as artists. The case studies revealed that patients were more receptive to using art to express emotions when art therapy was experienced as containing and the research found that art therapy was generally supportive for artists when their defences were viewed as appropriate coping strategies. / Master of Arts (Hons)

Art therapy as a way of social assistance, support for social risk group children is poor studied sphere in Lithuania, also in all over the world. It‘s extremely necessary for children, who are suffering form violence of parents and the surrounding, for those, who often run from their home regarding inappropriate lifestyle and reprobation of friends, relatives, they become aggressive, delinquent and commit the crimes; and also for children who experienced emotional and psychological violence. These are the children from social risk group, for who is very important to be needful, to find some friends, develop imagination and to experience positive emotions. This can be reached by using the method of art therapy. Art therapy is a quite new scope in Lithuania, so the purpose of this master thesis is to examine work particularity of Lithuanian art therapists, also to examine the impact of art therapy on social risk group children, attending art therapy classes, how this therapy effects their development and socialization. The purpose also is to explore what kind of difficulties art therapists face and what are the ways of solutions of these problems. In these master theses quantitive research is used. 40 professionals working with children in foster homes, day centers, children and youth house, municipal social support centers and schools were examined and answered questionnaires. The object of research is to examine the peculiarity of work of art therapists and the attitude... [to full text]

This thesis is autobiographical in nature and follows my life experiences relating to the development and subsequent removal of a large epidermoid brain tumour. The resultant impairment of my faculties, and its effect on my vocational, emotional and spiritual life is outlined. / My main means of expressing my journey from illness to partial recovery and self-renewal is through art-making. This art-making (a form of art self-therapy) is recorded in my paintings; included in my thesis as my main means of expression taking the place of the printed word, as my capacity to write and type is somewhat impaired. / The main value of my thesis relates to recounting the experience, for others of the renewal of my life, following a major illness. Most brain tumours are fatal or severely limit the ability of a person to communicate, or limit their intellectual functioning. I was fortunate in that I could still communicate through using the visual arts; an area where I had retained my competencies. / My thesis then, is aimed at increasing the understanding of illness, recovery and renewal for those in the helping and medical professions; also to give hope of life renewal through art expression and art therapy in cases where verbal and written means of communication are limited. / The field of my thesis is adult education and personal learning through experience. This learning has focussed on using creative painting experiences as a way of self-healing. / Those paintings that were significant in my recovery and renewal are exhibited in the Art Gallery section of this thesis. By viewing these artworks, you can share in, and understand my journey through illness, recovery and renewal through art-making, self-therapy. / Thesis (MEducation)--University of South Australia, 2005.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2007 / Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Social Work. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-86).