New Issue of Art Therapy Today Highlights Art Therapy as a Way to Promote Communication for Individuals with Dementia
Art Therapy Today provides readers with the most up-to-date information about The American Art Therapy Association's (AATA) activities, current news related to the art therapy profession, and announcements pertaining to events or opportunities provided by the AATA.
The AATA serves its members and the general public by providing standards of professional competence, and developing and promoting knowledge in, and of, the field of art therapy.
This issue includes:
Communication and Dementia: Painting a New Path through Art Therapy. William Utermohlen, a professional artist, recorded his cognitive decline through self-portraiture (Grady, 2006). Incredibly brave and astute, his visual representation of the journey into Alzheimer's Disease reveals an increasingly fragmented ability to organize the world outside, the darkening of life around him – an increasingly frightening picture. For Utermohlen, expressing his sadness through his art was a way of staying connected with the outside world. Like Utermohlen, individuals who have dementia still have a great need to communicate with others (Stephenson, 2015). Communication and expression, like eating and sleeping, are basic human needs. When a person loses the ability to process language and words become an impossible tool for communication, that person is at greater risk for becoming socially isolated or lonely. READ MORE
Support a New Professional on Giving Tuesday: Your Donation Will be Matched. On Giving Tuesday, December 1, 2015, join the AATA's Network For Good Campaign in raising funds to send up to 10 New Professional art therapists to next year's annual conference in Baltimore, MD. READ MORE
AATA Featured Member. Sara Windrem, a Creative Arts Therapist with the West Palm Beach Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center and a Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern, outlines how the AATA has kept her connected to the art therapy community. She recalls how a workshop with Bob Ault inspired her to pursue a career in art therapy and identifies that a creative, person-centered approach has helped to empower the people she works with. READ MORE
