Perspectives on Change: An Intercultural Dialogue on Art Therapy Research

Now in its 40th year of continuous publication, Art Therapy published some of the field’s earliest research, along with lively discourse on how art therapy should be defined in terms of what, how, where, with whom, and why. But the world today has greatly changed. In this commentary, we—two art therapists from different generations, nationalities, and life circumstances—share perspectives on art therapy research over time and in new locales. Kai Ying Huang is an educator and researcher at The University of Taipei in Taiwan, the country’s only masters-level art therapy program. Lynn Kapitan retired from a long career at Mount Mary University in the U.S., where Kai completed her doctorate under Lynn’s guidance. The following conversation was initiated when Kai was translating Lynn’s text, Introduction to Art Therapy Research (Kapitan, 2018), into Chinese. Translation, between one reality to the next, became a theme in our exchange. Kai: The development of art therapy in Taiwan has characteristically been a struggle to fit into the country’s “Westernized” mental health system (i.e., developed primarily from U.S., UK, and European constructs and influences). Art therapy was introduced 30 years ago via international speakers and sojourners who studied elsewhere and then brought their newly-acquired knowledge home. With few local educators and researchers, published research is necessarily limited to their own expertise and focus. Furthermore, to get research published in core social science journals, it has been necessary to position art therapy as an intervention; important societal and cultural aspects of art therapy have gone unstudied. I am concerned that if our body of knowledge is shaped by these limited perspectives, then the development of art therapy as a mental health profession will continue to stagnate. Lynn: It strikes me that what you describe, Kai, parallels the early development of art therapy I experienced in my locale in the U.S. Midwest, having brought my knowledge home after studying at a physical and cultural distance in one of only a handful of programs that existed at the time (in my case, on the east coast). Although I did not have to endure the level of cultural dissonance you experienced, there were few models to learn from and none were particularly amenable to my milieu. The pressure to fit art therapy into dominant cultural systems, whether health care, academic and clinical psychology, or counseling, has long been a developmental concern. Likewise, when I first started teaching research, in the early 1990s, quantitative methodology still dominated. Qualitative studies were starting to appear, but they faced an uphill battle in getting published. Consequently, a dominant idea emerged that research wasn’t “natural” to art therapy and could only be seen as cold, distant, scientific, and even irrelevant. Kai: In Taiwan, I would say that art therapists only recently have been able to conceive of research as a natural part of their professional responsibilities. Most publications have been written by educators and their students; research ends with the art therapist’s entry into professional practice. The research–practice gap, therefore, is great. Many practitioners cannot make the connection between the role of research and the growth of our profession. I find that incorporating research into education is critically important because it helps students recognize the broader social, economic, and political contexts in which art therapy is situated, both locally and internationally. Exposure to such abundant knowledge often results in greater respect for art therapy and recognition of the need for more research to advance the profession. I emphasize the key role that art making can play in designing a study, as an efficient guide for surfacing everyday problems and questions of practice. Conducting research helps art therapists build claims to knowledge that are distinct from other fields, as well as consolidates their knowledge, understanding, confidence, and professional identity—all of which they will need in order to face the unique challenges of the art therapy field in Taiwan. Lynn: Your point raises the question of why we do research in the first place and why it is key in growing the profession. As individuals we often ask, “What do I want to do?” but it seems to me that the more effective question is “Who needs our research?” Clients and therapists need our research to improve treatment; agencies and governments need it to help make decisions about Kai Ying Huang, DAT, is an Assistant Professor in the Art Therapy Program at The University of Taipei, Taiwan. Lynn Kapitan, PhD, is Professor Emerit at Mount Mary University, Milwaukee, WI. Correspondence concerning this commentary should be addressed to the first author at kaiying0702@gmail.com