This thesis is designed to reconsider art therapy through the lens of a well educated and newly experienced art educator. It follows the relationship between art education and art therapy as they evolve, following largely separate paths over time, to develop a conversation that will begin to examine how art therapy has been applied to art education in the past, and to offer possible suggestions for further research in several overlapping points of study. I use a critical pedagogy framework and a generic qualitative research methodology as I conduct my research to develop ideas and raise questions that I feel have the potential to improve my pedagogical strategies and to open up a new set of possibilities for other art educators as to how art therapy might be reconsidered. The main research question that this inquiry explores is how can art therapy inform an art education curriculum?
This study includes a historical inquiry, emphasizing events, theories, and some of the key figures who have made significant contributions to both art education and art therapy, and a review of recent accounts in which art therapy and art education have been used in conjunction. My own experience and practice is another focus of this study, and I relate trends in literature back to my own ideologies and approach to pedagogy.
The purpose of this study is by no means to offer advice to art educators on how they can function as art therapists,. This study does not suggest that art educators can or should expect to function in the same ways as an art therapist might, and it does not encourage art educators to try to diagnose developmental problems or disabilities in their students because of the information that can be garnered from art therapy. It is my goal in writing this to simply begin a preliminary conversation that can perhaps offer ideas to art educators on how to think about improving their practice, and ideas for me on how I might improve my own, from ideas that are rooted in the tradition of art therapy.