Between March 11, 2020 and May of 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) counted over 100 million cases of COVID-19, resulting in three million deaths worldwide (WHO, 2021). In order to examine the effects of art-making on social and psychological well-being, seven graduate students from the Marital and Family Art Therapy Program at LMU conducted the following study utilizing a qualitative, arts-based research approach through collaborative autoethnography (CAE). The research question — What are the effects of personal art-making on well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic? — was posed by the seven graduate student authors. The data revealed that pandemic-time art-making impacted well-being through three primary avenues: by acting as a means to cope, to adapt, and to process. Each of our emerging themes highlighted the use of art-making as a tool, and each theme described this phenomenon in a unique and pointed way. First, our art-making impacted our well-being during the pandemic by serving as a tool to cope with the stressors of the pandemic by minimizing, banishing, or making them tolerable. Going one step further than coping, art-making also served as a tool for adapting. It acted as the mediating force between the pandemic’s external impacts and our ensuing internal experiences. Finally, art-making impacted well-being throughout the pandemic by serving as a tool to process corporeal experiences, emotional experiences, and other personal realities. In order to build upon our findings, we propose future research on the impacts of personal art-making on wellness through collaborative autoethnography by participant-researchers representing diverse cultures within their social and environmental contexts.

This heuristic research project examines my personal use of art making as a form of self-care while interning in a pediatric hospital. The review of the literature investigates the concept of self-care and the use of art making as a therapeutic outlet for working art therapists, for professionals in the healthcare field, and for art therapy students working specifically in hospital settings. The literature suggests that self-care is a necessary process, that self-care is not just for the physical self, but also for one’s mental health. The literature also indicates that art therapists have found that art making as a specific self-care modality is demanded. The research then contains my own personal use and record of art making as a way to support myself while working as an art therapy trainee at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. I gave myself the structure of making response art once a week on site for 15 weeks. The data includes said weekly art responses, as well as any written responses or observations made during art making. The patterns I found pertain to similarity in the materials used, the visuals created, and the contexts of each image. By actively making response artwork, I was able to deepen my understanding of the importance of art making for the art therapist. In addition, this research highlights the importance and responsibility that comes with self-care as an art therapist, and additionally, heuristic research in art making as a form of active self-care could be especially beneficial for the art therapy student.

This study looks at the effectiveness of digital media to create response art and deepen attunement with adolescent clients as well as develop self-awareness in the therapist. An arts- based qualitative heuristic self-study was used to analyze data gathered over a six-week period. The subject was the researcher/therapist and the data was gathered during the second-year practicum while working with adolescents at a non-public school. Data was gathered through a process of creating two post-session response artworks using video, animation, or digital drawing and a written reflection for each artwork. Nine artworks and eight written reflections were created in total. The data was analyzed using a phenomenological lens and a digital art therapy lens. Certain themes, such as use of color, rhythm and pace, self as subject, client process, progression of affect, management of environment, and representation of containment were analyzed. These themes revealed a high probability for digital media to assist in deepening attunement with an adolescent client and a more limited chance of development of self- awareness.

This study looks at the Summer Arts Workshop (SAW) and its impacts on the adult facilitators that are involved in the workshop’s programming and implementation. The study seeks to gain an understanding of how the workshop could be improved in order to strengthen the workshop so that its adolescent participants could continue to benefit from attending it. The research question is: What are the impacts of a therapeutically informed summer arts workshop/camp with adolescents according to participants? Strengths? Space for improvements? This study is a qualitative approach utilizing a semi-structured interview. The analysis of the data from the four interviews found several common emergent themes that highlighted the strengths of SAW, such as helping to expand childhood surroundings and experience and creating a space for self-expression and creativity while also shedding light on common areas of improvement, such as creating a mentorship training program and increasing the length and scope of the program. With these findings, SAW can extrapolate the necessary data to use in creating a stronger program for its adolescent participants.

This study examines the use of response art through a Jungian lens, and its impact on the researcher’s understanding of one school-aged client’s experiences in therapy. The research/therapist was the subject of this art-based qualitative self-study, and the data was gathered over a seven-week period during the researcher’s second-year practicum at a community-based mental health agency. Data was gathered through the researcher’s weekly creative responses to the client’s artwork during therapy sessions. The researcher created drawings, three-dimensional artwork, as well as written reflections to process feelings in response to the client’s artworks during sessions. A total of six artworks and six written reflections were created. The visual and symbolic approach of the Jungian lens was utilized during the analysis of the data in order to deepen the researcher’s understanding of the client’s non-verbal and internal experiences. Themes of containment, safety and individuation were found during analysis. The use of response art and its subsequent analysis through a Jungian lens allowed the researcher to address issues of countertransference and increase client attunement.

This research was a preliminary pilot study meant to encourage further exploration on the intersection of art therapy, art making, spirituality, and dialogue. This study topic is an important area of investigation due to the long-standing challenges of interfaith dialogue, both historically and currently. An abundance of reviewed literature linking interfaith dialogue and dialogue through art making guided the research hypothesis, which states that the act of viewing and being viewed by the spiritual other through art making could deepen one’s own spiritual practice, increase empathy, foster dialogue, and inform clinical work as psychotherapists. To explore this, the researchers held an explorative arts-based workshop, encouraging participants to use the art individually and in pairs to further reflect on their spiritual beliefs and experiences. In addition, the workshop allowed a space for participants and pairs to share and discuss their reflective art and personal spirituality, then create a dyadic art piece together. The qualitative findings revealed similarities for all eleven participants in both the art and written experiences, with universal themes and shared visual elements emerging. The analyzed data connected the universal themes with the participants’ stated spiritual identity and evidenced experiences of connection in dyadic pairs. As future therapists, and art therapists, the researchers intended this preliminary pilot study to be a basis for further research and inspire wider exploration.

There has been a lack of training and implementation of cultural humility in the helping professions. Clinician’s awareness of their own biases, assumptions, and cultural identities is critical when working with individuals who each have their own array of cultural identities. The following research examined the efficacy of cultural humility art-based training courses through surveys and examining the art experiential activity that was provided. The purpose of this research was to determine whether cultural humility art-based training would effectively increase mental health practitioners’ comfort, ability, and confidence in addressing culturally sensitive issues in their clinical work. The training focused on introducing the tenets of cultural humility with art directives to help participants reflect on their cultural identity. 47 Participants completed surveys that were analyzed in addition to their art in order to gain qualitative data. The data suggests that cultural humility art-based training effectively increased participant’s comfort, ability, and confidence in practicing cultural humility in their work with clients/patients and colleagues. More training and research are needed to generalize findings and determine their longevity.

This research study is aimed at evaluating the artwork created by a woman who has experienced the trauma of domestic violence. A qualitative research approach was used to capture the phenomenological outcomes in the art created during art therapy sessions using the theoretical lens of narrative therapy to analyze the art. For this study the subject was a young woman from Central America who had come into therapy per court mandate to address the issues of domestic violence at a community-based mental health center where the researcher was conducting her second- year practicum. The data (art) was gathered after each art therapy session. Five sessions in total were conducted where the subject was given various art making directives. The subject created six total pieces of artwork during the five sessions. The researcher then analyzed the artwork created by the subject using a phenomenological approach while looking for common themes found in the artwork using a narrative therapy lens with which to view the artwork. Many themes uncovered in the artwork were parallel to narrative therapy theory such as resilience and empowerment and held the possibility of assisting the subject who experienced domestic violence in finding new outcomes.

Adolescence is a critical stage of human development, one that can be especially challenging for teens that are navigating certain vulnerabilities in their identity formation. With the World Health Organization stating that 14% of 10–19 year-olds experience mental health conditions, educational environments are increasingly needed to address mental concerns in their curriculums. This qualitative research project used a combination of art based inquiry and narrative analysis to answer the following question, “How can educational environments promote resilience and positive youth development during adolescent identity exploration?” Findings illuminated several emergent themes that culminated in the following four recommendations for educational environments; 1) Integrate opportunities for creative self-expression in general education spaces, 2) Professional development for educators to integrate Social Emotional Learning (SEL), 3) Create opportunities for social interactions between students and educators, 4) Create and support opportunities for social interactions between students, and 5) Ensure educational spaces include mental health support for students.

The rapidly growing rate of the older adult population has created a need to better understand younger adults’ self-perceptions of aging and current trends of ageism. The purpose of this secondary data analysis research project was to determine changes, if any, in participants’ self-perception of aging after the Socially Nutritious facilitator or nutrition ambassador volunteer training, which aims to develop knowledge and skills related to aging trends, older adult nutrition, preventing ageism, and communication and educational considerations when working with older adults. Findings indicate that participants with more frequent interactions with older adults had a more positive perception of their aging at pre-test than those with less frequent interactions. However, these differences diminished at post-test. Training that includes information about healthy aging, as well as addressing ageism, may lead to a more positive self-perception of aging.