Art Therapy Case Study

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The center ran many different hands on exams with Nala to find out her standing intellectually and physically. After the exams were performed, the results showed that Nala was years behind in comparison to her peers. She was further asses for learning disabilities and it was found that she had a lack of an attention span, the inability to concentrate, and extreme hyper-activity. The researchers did find that she possessed a level of creativity that her peers did not have, but the director of the art therapy program did not recommend Nala for this type of therapy due to her attention and hyper-activity disorders. The director thought that the art therapy program would be too intensive since it was ten sessions that meets once a week for two…show more content…
Nala had a passion for drawing mandalas and her therapist quickly noticed this interest of Nala’s. The therapist was starting to pick up on small conversational sentences in Thai, so she could ask Nala if she would teach her how to make them. The two of them spent hours every day sitting in silence drawing these mandalas. Nala, even though there was a major language barrier, was still able to be patient and teach the therapist how to create these images. Even though they were unable to share many words, it was clear that there was communication occurring and the relationship was developing rapidly. The entire case study further proves that art can be used in a cross cultural and cross linguistic therapeutic setting. It will enhance communication, strengthen the relationship, and increase the engagement and understand between the practitioner and…show more content…
Part of the skepticism on the efficacy of art therapy is due to the lack of trained art therapist in the field of experimental research methodology. Also, since the field is considered to be abstract, the outcomes tend to vary widely and the degree of structure and formality vary as well. Non-statistical, qualitative observations is often how the effectiveness of art therapy is evaluated; this is not a reliable and scientific source of data that can be used to form conclusions. The lack of concrete data from results often leads to unclear literature on the nature of the diagnostic of the participant. In future research, it is vital for researchers to try and quantify the results. This may include incorporating abstract ideas such as, quality of life, self-actualization, and redemption, in a quantifiable way. It has been suggested to include Likert Scale surveys for the patient at the end of each session to further show the level of improvement in a numerical fashion. Another suggestion to find a better way to validate the research on art therapy is to assemble a two-treatment group design. This would replace the idea use of a control group with an alternate form of therapy in order for the researchers to see how art therapy is effective in comparison to other available therapeutic styles. The future of art therapy is on an incline; this field of
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