Centenary of International Women's Day on 8th March

A 'Mater heart' biscuit

Its was a huge week last week. It started on Saturday (over a week ago) with a journalling workshop, and continued on headlong into the start of semester. I had a one day orientation for new students workshop on Monday, and on Wednesday started teaching 'Art Therapy in Clinical Practice' with the second year group. I also have a student in my workplace, and her placement started this week as well. This Saturday it ended with a half day training with the Pyjama Foundation to be a 'pyjama angel' - reading stories to foster children to improve literacy amongst other things. Now I just have to be assigned a child to read to...

'three fruits'

I made this drawing at the journalling workshop. It shows how the 'seed' of my art therapy training almost 27 years ago yielded (at least) three fruits: being a clinical art therapist (seeing clients), becoming an artist (and seeing myself as one) and becoming a teacher of art therapy. All three roles have brought me much pleasure - and a fair amount of anxiety at times!. I realised again this week that in teaching, the issue of assessment does affect the relationship with students quite drastically. There is always going to be this power differential because I give grades to students and make judgments about their skills in a way that is almost at odds with being a therapist. This seems somehow unavoidable, but it seems important to acknowledge.

International Women's Day - why it still matters

A male colleague said to our (apart from him, all female) clinical team last week: 'Its a great time to be a woman!' I am not sure where this thought came from. I had a sudden fit of uncontrolled coughing. However, although things are better than they used to be, there is clearly still room for improvement, as Lucy Mangan argues here. 

Having a female Prime Minister, for example, seems like a reasonable signpost of positive change. But Margaret Thatcher proved, in the eighties in the UK, that being a woman was no guarantee of being a feminist, socially progressive, or at all different from male politicians. Most of us thought she was worse. I am intrigued at the thought of Meryl Streep playing Thatcher - that will be something worth seeing. Likewise with Julia Gillard. Her rise to power was so ethically dodgy that her Prime Ministership is always going to be associated with the fact that she did over a colleague, and then failed to get an absolute majority, in the process. Once goals are achieved, they quickly become tainted by the dirty reality. 

IWD is also Shrove Tuesday, traditionally the day before fasting for Lent, which in my unreligious household means Pancake Day. Hopefully the man of the house will be making the crepes...and a nice cup of tea to go with them. doing what matters, in other words...

still life?

I heard the other day that the United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has now listed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as an empirically supported method as part of its National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP).

It is now available on the NREPP Web site. This means that ACT now has joined the ranks of other EBP therapies (ie Cognitive Behavioural Therapy  or CBT). It took over three years and a great deal of hard work for ACT to be approved. The studies submitted as evidence were in the clinical areas of depression, psychosis and general mental health.

I wonder if Art Therapy will ever gain this status?

more later.