This paper is an exploration of what culturally constitutes Latina identity formation pre and post immigration specifically looking at women from Mexico and Central America, with a special interest in looking at how acculturation impacts identity formation. This also investigates the mental health needs of immigrant Latina women particularly struggling with acculturation and lost sense of self. The eight women participants were selected from Santa Rosa de Lima church in Simi Valley. The women created art on three Saturdays in response to the directives presented by the researcher, all art prompt involved exploration on identity. The art was studied in a qualitative method with a presentation of the art, the analysis and the findings. The art demonstrates the importance of family cohesiveness and the challenge for Latinas to identify their personal needs away from the needs of their families. The art also suggests that acculturation can evoke stress, depression, anxiety and lost sense of self.

The journey to health using felt-sense and self-care is depicted in this qualitative sequential research design. While finding the balance between schoolwork and clinical work during art therapy graduate school, the researcher used Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy techniques to address somatic experiences and respond to them using art-making and written reflections. After completing the heuristic phase of the research, the researcher then Created a structured workshop to explore how other art therapists experienced and assessed the Focusing-oriented Art Therapy process to respond to their own felt-sense of stress and of self-care. The researcher was able to highlight the importance of attending to somatic experiences and utilizing self-care to counter- balance the stress associated with the art therapy profession both personally and for the workshop participants.

The main purpose of this qualitative research study is to explore first- and second-generation Chinese American’s immigration and acculturation experiences using semi-structured narrative interviews, inviting participants to engage in further exploration incorporating art making, a non- verbal method of expression. The research was designed to gain a greater understanding of Chinese Americans’ views and understandings of self, the experience and impact of cultural values on individuals and families, and to understand the role of communication and verbal and non-verbal modes of expression for this population. The findings are intended to potentially aid professionals working with this population: to promote greater awareness, understanding, and sensitivity to concerns of particular relevance, such as understanding the place of self-expression and expression of emotion, both verbal and non-verbal modes, and the role of value systems including traditional Chinese values, such as filial piety, interdependence and harmony, shame and face-saving reactions, and emphasis on achievement, especially in the context of family. Additionally this study contributes to the field of art therapy by exploring cultural and intergenerational considerations and the use of art in therapy with Chinese Americans.

Using a qualitative, narrative based, and art based approach, this study explored the experiences of Asian domestic violence survivors living in an Asian-based domestic violence transitional shelter, and how their cultural identity as an Asian immigrant woman played a role in their experiences. The participants were two out of six women living at the domestic violence shelter provided by the Asian Pacific Women’s Center. Three overarching themes were formed after the analysis of all the emergent categories: The women experienced isolation that were influenced from their marginalized cultural values, the shelter was viewed as a foundation for growth, and the art was useful as a means for communication.

BAAAMM was born in April 2016, when a group of six creative researcher-artists came together to investigate cultural identity through art making. Through searching, reaching, and wrestling, the group developed creative experiential processes by which to discover and communicate cultural identity through art and language. Over a few weeks, the creative researcher-artists generated a body of work expressing their unique cultural identities and felt responses to one another. This diverse collaborative wants to share their work to stimulate others to enter the realm of creativity, vulnerability, and receptivity to understand themselves better. BAAAMM is an exploratory cultural happening exhibiting individual and collective creative findings. BAAAMM is a collaborative endeavor to understand, communicate, and connect oneself to others. BAAAMM is a multicultural work of progress. This Jagazine (journal and magazine) chronicles the seven phases of BAAAMM's research. It provides brief biographies of the creative researcher-artist and captures our extended findings, additional art and written work inspired by the investigation. This Jagazine is part of our original research project in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Art at Loyola Marymount University within the Department of Martial and Family Therapy. This jagazine will be presented at the American Art Therapy Association Annual Conference on November 9, 2017. Warning! This dynamic research is not for the faint of heart. It tests boundaries, schema, nerves, and feelings. Those who passionately search for opportunities to express themselves artistically and verbally, disagree, negotiate, be called out, humble, connected to others, and be heard may find that this cultural identity research framework stimulates growth and gratification.

Guided by the limited previous literature of adolescent sexual debut and father behaviors, this study examined the influence of father warmth, involvement, and monitoring on adolescent age of sexual debut and likelihood of sexual debut before age 16. Participants and measures were drawn from the Flourishing Families Project and included 346 families and variables from measures completed by adolescents and their parents. A zero-inflated Poisson model was used to test the relationship between father variables and adolescent sexual debut. Gender differences were also analyzed. The findings indicate that an increase in father warmth correlates with a decreased age of sexual debut for adolescent sons and daughters. Results also suggest that an increase in father engagement is related to an increase in the age of debut. However, this variable was also associated with increasing the likelihood of debut for adolescent sons. No significance was found between father monitoring and the age or likelihood of debut. Findings suggest that father variables, independent of mother behaviors, uniquely influence adolescent sexual debut; these effects seem to be protective in some circumstances, while increasing risk in other instances. Implications for future research is considered.

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating effect of couple's attachment behavior on family-of-origin (FOO) issues and body mass index (BMI). Previous research has indicated that family and couple relational factors may influence BMI. The vulnerability and stress model provided a theoretical framework for understanding how attachment behaviors may give greater adaptability to managing vulnerabilities from family stress. 1214 couples between the ages of 18 and 70, who identified themselves as in a serious relationship were surveyed using the RELATE questionnaire; both partners responded. Results indicated that there was a significant association between FOO stress and adult BMI for both males and females. There was also an association between attachment behaviors and female BMI, but not male BMI. Finally attachment behavior did not moderate the relationship between FOO stressors and BMI. Clinical implications include using clinical models that focus on intergenerational problems when weight concerns are presented in therapy and, for women especially, focusing on couple attachment behaviors when there are weight concerns.

Little is known about the role that personality and emotional readiness factors may play in participation and outcomes of premarital education programs in varying formats. Data collected via the RELATionship Evaluation Questionnaire (RELATE: Busby et al., 2001) was used to analyze how personality and emotional readiness factors affect perceived change and helpfulness in self-directed and workshop formats of premarital education for 384 individuals who participated in such interventions. Depression was significantly and negatively related to participant perception of positive change and helpfulness in a workshop setting. Kindness was positively and significantly related to perceived positive change in both workshop and self-directed formats, and income was negatively and significantly related to perceived positive change in workshop settings. Anxiety was significantly and positively related to perceived helpfulness in workshop settings. Implications of these findings are discussed. More research is needed to compare these results to other formats of premarital interventions, such as classes and counseling formats, and to more diverse population samples.

The goal of this research was to understand the potential challenges and benefits of an integration between art and sex therapies. Three interviews were performed: two with certified art therapists, one with a certified sex therapist, in order to understand how each of these professionals has chosen to approach issues of sexuality and creative expression within his or her practice. The data from the interviews was critically compared within and between each interviewee, producing three overarching themes that provide a framework for understanding the potential benefits and challenges of this integration. These three themes are defined as: 1) The importance of theoretical training and scope of practice in unlocking sexuality; 2) Opening the door to sex and sexuality in clinical work using creative expression; and 3) Concerns and challenges for the clinician using artistic expression with sexuality. Through discussion of these themes, it was found that there is great potential for an integration of the two therapies, provided clinicians have access to appropriate training, as well as a deeper understanding of individual attitudes toward sexuality as provided by cultural experience.

This study uses heuristic research as the basis for an art exploration into the experience of exposure to traumatic events leading to complex trauma, from early adolescence to adulthood. This paper reviews the existing literature about Islamic religious fundamentalism, political violence and war. The literature on risk factors and the effect on this type of trauma psychology, human rights and women’s rights are discussed. The literature review considers psychological treatment considerations and existing art therapy literature. In the data gathering phase the researcher employs the Art Therapy Trauma Protocol to examine the residual of violent experiences; this includes a series of paintings created using the bilateral stimulation process. After a period of incubation, the data is further culled and analyzed by using filtering with suggested symbolic meaning from various theorists and literature and personal interpretation drawn from dominant themes. This analysis happened during Illumination and Explication phases of the study. The finding of this study supports that the effect of the traumatic life experiences during adolescence has caused splitting in the researcher. This research asserts that using the art therapy method (ATTP) in combination with the heuristic methodology has helped the researcher to gain clarity about herself and provided a new perspective and schema about self and the world. The research process has helped the researcher to gain a holistic sense of herself as thriving after the traumatic life experiences rather switching between the split selves of the victim and survivor.