هنردرمانی در زمینه آموزشی: برخورد فرهنگی

The effectiveness and necessity of therapy in a school setting is no longer contested between school psychologists and counselors Prout and Brown 1999 and Kazdin and Johnson 1994. A number of analyses of school-based psychotherapies have all concluded that the therapies are productive Brantley et al 1996, Prout and DeMartino 1986, Kazdin and Johnson 1994, Prout and Prout 1998 and Shechtman 1993. Despite this, there is still very little written about the use of arts therapies in educational settings, and there are those who remain skeptical about its viability. Therapists who work in schools occasionally feel that they are expected to intervene as teachers of art, rather than therapists. They feel that the unique nature of their professional identity goes unrecognized. They are occasionally confronted by teachers and school principals who balk at requests for “unusual” work arrangements, such as class observations and regroupings, that are not always compatible with the class-organization. These teachers and principals do not view child observation as part of the therapeutic workload. My twenty years of working as a movement therapist, clinical supervisor, and educational counselor in educational institutions have led me to believe that both therapists and schools could only benefit from a reconceptualization regarding the integration of one with the other. This needs to be done on two levels: conceptually–arriving at a general understanding of the partnership between the therapists and educators; and practically–focusing on the strategies and tactics involved in a successful partnership of this kind. In this article I approach the issue by defining the aforementioned partnership as an intercultural encounter, with education and therapy seen as distinct cultures who share certain perspectives about human beings and the world, but which differ from one another. The principles of these two cultures are presented, and proposals are made for bridging the gaps between them. I also bring forth studies supporting therapeutic work in schools and suggest strategies and tactics useful to both educators and therapists.

This article endeavored to describe the work of arts therapists in schools as an encounter between two cultures, the culture of school-education and the culture of therapy. The term culture was employed using an encompassing meaning, which includes different levels: (a) ideas describing the nature of the human subject and the world; (b) values, norms, goals, and restrictions; (c) modes of behavior and problem solving procedures; and (d) expectations, utopias, and ideals of a society. The entrance of an arts therapist into a school is understood in terms of an intercultural encounter–the coming of a foreigner to a community. Therefore potential conflicts that may arise in such an encounter are mentioned, and some steps suggested that may help in dealing with them. Since both cultures discussed here are focused on the welfare and development of the child/pupil, it seems important that their representatives–teachers and therapists–work together to forge a dialogue that will promote their joint objectives.