Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Feminist approaches to art therapy / edited by Susan Hogan.

Contributor(s): Publication details: London : Routledge, 1997.Description: xvi, 279 pages : illustrations ; 25 cmISBN:
  • 0415148405
  • 0415148391
Subject(s):
Contents:
Intro -- Feminist approaches to art therapy -- Contents -- Illustrations and tables -- Acknowledgements -- Contributors -- Foreword -- Introduction: visions of difference -- 1 Problems of identity: Deconstructing gender in art therapy -- 2 Invasive art: Art as empowerment for women with breast cancer -- 3 Alice, Dora and Constance from the eve of history -- 4 Feminist-perspective art therapy: an option for women's health: An Australian perspective -- 5 Women, art therapy and feminist theories of development -- 6 Liberation and the art of embodiment -- 7 Ageing: another tyranny?: Art therapy with older women -- 8 Women and conflict -- 9 Looking and reflecting: returning the gaze, re-enacting memories and imagining the future through phototherapy -- 10 The pregnant art therapist's countertransference -- 11 Art therapy and empowerment in a women's self-help project -- 12 Black on black art therapy: Dreaming in colour -- 13 Many murders: Art therapy with a 'traditional' woman -- 14 A tasty drop of dragon's blood: Self-identity, sexuality and motherhood -- Index.
Summary: The practice of art therapy has been slow to embrace the critical and theoretical viewpoints, including feminism, which have made a huge impact in other areas of the humanities and social sciences in recent years. Art therapists are excellently placed, however, to respond to the growing awareness that language and images have a role to play in creating and maintaining gender inequality and the pressures that can lead to mental ill-health among women.In Feminist Approaches to Art Therapy, leading international practitioners in this field explore the ways in which gender issues can be addressed in art therapy and suggest that by being sensitive to the socio-cultural dimensions of women's lives therapists can become more receptive to the needs of their female clients.Within their own specific areas of expertise the contributors challenge the over-reliance on universally applied psychological theory, and use case studies to illustrate how issues of class, race, age and gender can introduce a social element into what is normally regarded as a purely personal, cathartic process. Chapters also discuss empowerment, sexuality, pregnancy and childbirth, providinga comprehensive survey of women's issues within art therapy which will prompt a reevaluation of current training and practice in this field.

Includes bibliographies and index.

Intro -- Feminist approaches to art therapy -- Contents -- Illustrations and tables -- Acknowledgements -- Contributors -- Foreword -- Introduction: visions of difference -- 1 Problems of identity: Deconstructing gender in art therapy -- 2 Invasive art: Art as empowerment for women with breast cancer -- 3 Alice, Dora and Constance from the eve of history -- 4 Feminist-perspective art therapy: an option for women's health: An Australian perspective -- 5 Women, art therapy and feminist theories of development -- 6 Liberation and the art of embodiment -- 7 Ageing: another tyranny?: Art therapy with older women -- 8 Women and conflict -- 9 Looking and reflecting: returning the gaze, re-enacting memories and imagining the future through phototherapy -- 10 The pregnant art therapist's countertransference -- 11 Art therapy and empowerment in a women's self-help project -- 12 Black on black art therapy: Dreaming in colour -- 13 Many murders: Art therapy with a 'traditional' woman -- 14 A tasty drop of dragon's blood: Self-identity, sexuality and motherhood -- Index.

The practice of art therapy has been slow to embrace the critical and theoretical viewpoints, including feminism, which have made a huge impact in other areas of the humanities and social sciences in recent years. Art therapists are excellently placed, however, to respond to the growing awareness that language and images have a role to play in creating and maintaining gender inequality and the pressures that can lead to mental ill-health among women.In Feminist Approaches to Art Therapy, leading international practitioners in this field explore the ways in which gender issues can be addressed in art therapy and suggest that by being sensitive to the socio-cultural dimensions of women's lives therapists can become more receptive to the needs of their female clients.Within their own specific areas of expertise the contributors challenge the over-reliance on universally applied psychological theory, and use case studies to illustrate how issues of class, race, age and gender can introduce a social element into what is normally regarded as a purely personal, cathartic process. Chapters also discuss empowerment, sexuality, pregnancy and childbirth, providinga comprehensive survey of women's issues within art therapy which will prompt a reevaluation of current training and practice in this field.