Art Teacher Vs. Art Therapists

Many art therapists have relayed that we, as students and going into the field, have to make it clear we're not arts and craft teachers. I also resent being called this, on the few occassions it's happened, but I can understand how people might see art therapists like that. We are, after all doing art. I have had to take art classes and I do know how to do use (and teach) some techniques. The difference is that an art teacher teaches techniques and has a direction to get a student there. They try to get a student to be an artist or at least understand how the technique will help them in their realism. There might even be critiques with other students where people look at a student's work and offer suggestions on how to make it better or what they like about it. An art therapist may help a client with a technique if the person asks.

Most of the time, the art therapist wants a client to express themselves, not labor over the technique or materials. There are often not critiques in a group art therapy session. Mostly, an art therapist attempts to get a person to say something about their work and what it might say to others about them, if that's the art therapist's theory. Sometimes it's just that the person is able to express themselves (and often want to talk about it). There is an importance on titles and dates of pieces. A title to give an indication what the subject is or what the person thought. And a date so that there can either be a review or the client can go back to that artwork and remember what they were going through and if it's reflected in the art. This also marks progress, which is a benefit of doing art therapy compared to talk therapy. In the groups that I run that involve art therapy, I ask clients about what they liked about their work or the activitiy and what they might change about the work or activity or how they generally feel that day or at that time. I'd venture to guess that whether a student liked the activity or materials is inconsequential to an art class. I see this as a major difference between an art class and art therapy-- the art therapist cares about what the person liked and didn't like and how they are feeling.

I hope that more people in general are able to either participate or observe groups that art therapists run because it might give some clarity about the difference between art classes and art therapy.

Creative Writing Class-- Memoir

It's my junior year of college and I'm not taking any psychology classes. I'm making sure I take the classes I need before I go on to be an upper classman in psychology. I signed up for a creative writing class. It is taught by a graduate student. He is a muscular black man who loves BBQs. He used to be a butcher. He looks it. There's something in the way he teaches that I can tell he is new and anxious. Things don't seem to run smoothly. He pauses and appears like he's thinking but I think he just doesn't know what to do next. He puts his hand up to his chin when he thinks. He goes over the syllabus-- short stories first and then poetry. I am not into poetry. I used to write it when I was 12 and people liked it. It was terrible. I have it in a binder in storage and I don't intend to look at it again. There are some poems in my journal. They're just for me. I shared one with my boyfriend because it was about him. I think he liked it.

We read stories in our book, written by famous writers, and comment or talk about them. We pretend like we read other stories that are included in our book but I really don't. A guy with a red hat mentions "Yellow Wallpaper" and I remember reading it once for a women's studies class so I say that I read it too.

We have to write stories for the class. They're supposed to be anonymous. They're not. Even if you don't know who it is, you can tell in the class discussion by who isn't talking. My short story is 10 pages and I want it to be more. I don't think I capture what I wanted in it but it is a story. I did some research for it by reading The Outspoken Princess and the Gentle Knight. My story is based on my friends and their dramatic girlfriends. When I took Abnormal Psychology a year later and found about the word hysterionic, I know that that's what they were. With my story, in the end, the prince, who wants to marry the princess who is cheating on him, realizes that she's not going to change so he throws himself off a cliff. I realize after I write this to not have a set ending because the characters didn't seem like the type to kill themselves-- just leave and move on. I don't want to make it longer than it is. I have to copy it at school and it's going to be a lot of money to copy it for the 15 students.

The night before I have to turn this story into the class so they could take it home and criticize it, the library card reader wasn't working after I just put ten dollars on my card to be used for the copies. I was upset. I wanted my money back so I could make these copies for the students.
I get up early the morning its due and go to the library early. The card reader was thankfully working and I copied and stapled them right there.

I walk five minutes to the building where my class is and step into the classroom. I set the copies on the professor's table and sit in my chair next to the door and wait for the class to start. The class before ours must have been cancelled because no one is lingering in the class, trying to talk to the professor. They usually look happy when they leave. I would have rather been in that class.

My story is ok. I think it's clever. It isn't too bad. It has a lot of potential and I hope others would see that.
This class we discuss a student's story about coming out at Thanksgiving and another story about an adventure-er with an inflated ego and how he changed by climbing a mountain and facing a lion. I heard a similar story in "Wayne's World."

The next class came. I am dreading this day. The girls in the corner don't like me, even though one has a Polish sounding last name like mine. I hang out with Mike and Vanessa in the corner near the door. They are nice. Vanessa is always trying to find a story in her life. I thought she wasn't creative or maybe she didn't know how to be. This class sure wouldn't teach her to improve.

We didn't go over how to do constructive criticism. I get back all the stories I had copied. They now have edit marks by the kids who don't know how to do criticism well. Each person has to do a write up on the story on top of editing it. The professors gives these to me too after he had checked that everyone had done one. I could tell that he unfortunately doesn't read what's written on them.

The most horrible thing is from that bitch in the corner with the Polish sounding last name. She wrote, "This author displays no creativity." I keep a journal for class about the things I read and what I think about certain things. I write about how I read up on modern fairy tales and there is only one where someone falls off a cliff and it isn't even for suicide. The professor mentions this in class after he reads the journals. He gives me a little inspiration but the damage is done. He said that no matter if we all write about the same thing, we will bring a part of us into it.

After that all meanness stops and instead there is nothing more than, "Wow, that was nice and well written." I don't think anyone actually improved their writing, just their attitude, worried about being too mean. Or maybe that bitch with the Polish sounding name in the corner gave an F-U to every thing she read and the others don't want to be mean like her anymore.

It's unfortnate that such damage came from a place that is supposed to be supportive and encouraging.

I stop writing after this; until my second senior year in college where I took a class about writing. The professor was encouraging. She even had me looking through the Writer's Resource book from the library, looking for periodicals to submit my memoir about my cat. The professor of the second writing class is much better at refining writing, about educating us on how to do critiques, about giving us an opportunity to learn about the writing we'll do in our future fields. I have been writing memoir stories ever since.