Art Therapy for Social Justice

Radical Intersections

Savneet K. Talwar, Savneet K. Talwar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317438816
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Geschichte & Theorie in der Psychologie

Art Therapy for Social Justice seeks to open a conversation about the cultural turn in art therapy to explore the critical intersection of social change and social justice. By moving the practice of art therapy beyond standard individualized treatment models, the authors promote scholarship and dialogue that opens boundaries; they envision cross disciplinary approaches with a focus on intersectionality through the lens of black feminism, womanism, antiracism, queer theory, disability studies, and cultural theory. In particular, specific programs are highlighted that re-conceptualize art therapy practice away from a focus on pathology towards "models of caring" based on concepts of self-care, radical caring, hospitality, and restorative practice methodologies. Each chapter takes a unique perspective on the concept of "care" that is invested in wellbeing. The authors push the boundaries of what constitutes art in art therapy, re-conceptualizing notions of care and wellbeing as an ongoing process, emphasizing the importance of self-reflexivity, and reconsidering the power of language and art in trauma narratives.

PART I

Theoretical Framework

1

BEYOND MULTICULTURALISM AND CULTURAL COMPETENCE

A Social Justice Vision in Art Therapy

Savneet K. Talwar

For 30 years, I have led a hyphenated life in the United States: Indian-American, Sikh, middle class, brown skinned, and able-bodied. I am all too familiar with the challenges of negotiating my identity and privilege as a U.S. citizen and a university professor. On an everyday basis, I am hyperaware of my representation as a woman of color working in a predominantly white institution. My education and experiences have taught me to examine my interactions in a systemic context and to question the subtle power arrangements that surround me. Most often, the expressions of disparities in perceived cultural capital are not overt; rather, they are subtle combinations of what is said and what is not said, who is included and who is not.

My position as an educator has offered me the opportunity not only to teach diversity and difference, but also to be an advocate in my institution. That said, my experiences have not always been comfortable ones, especially since I mostly work with a white faculty, teaching mostly white students, in an overwhelmingly white institution. Although the struggle to increase diversity can have gratifying rewards, it is emotionally exhausting. Like many art therapy programs, mine requires a course in multiculturalism, yet understanding the complexity of identity and difference cannot be achieved in one 15-week class. In order to truly embrace a framework that addresses diversity and inclusion, issues of identity and difference must be addressed across the curriculum. This means addressing trauma and violence from an intersectional perspective that takes into account poverty, racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and other forms of social oppression. Art therapists must understand how deep-seated inequalities—social, economic, and political—have shaped the psychological make-up of the people they serve, and examine the role of the arts and social action in the delivery of mental health services. Art therapists tend not to take into account factors such as economic development, engaged citizenship, and colonialism that have shaped health care and the delivery of mental health services. The justice work needed to address stigma and prejudice must include advocacy and action to counteract racism, sexism, ableism, classism, and heterosexism, and thus to make multiculturalism and human rights central to mental health services (Chung & Bemak, 2012; Goodman & Gorski, 2015; Talwar, 2015a).

Understanding diversity and inclusion has become even more urgent in the face of the 2016 election. In all my years of living in the U.S., I have never felt more unsafe and acutely aware of my existence and representation as a brown-skinned person. The tolerance and even celebration displayed by a cross-section of Americans, from political elites to blue-collar workers, in the face of the xenophobia and racism perpetuated by the 45th president is deeply disturbing. That Donald Trump has called Muslims “radical Islamist terrorists,” Mexicans “criminals” and “rapists,” and can make denigrating remarks about women and their bodies demonstrates clearly that racist and sexist language is acceptable, even appealing, to a large segment of the electorate. Trump’s popularity requires us to question what diversity and multiculturalism mean in the twenty-first century. His vehement attacks on racial, ethnic, gendered, and sexual minorities evoked anger and anxiety in my colleagues, students, and friends. The success of his candidacy calls to mind questions of the power, limits, and creditability of hate speech and, particularly, Ahmed’s (2012) inquiry into how some bodies become those of strangers. Why do hatred and fear stick to some bodies? And which bodies have the right to citizenship?

Trump’s insistence that he does not believe in being “politically correct” points to how the politics of difference and diversity have been obfuscated and exploited (Grzanka, 2014). His hate speech and arrogance reveal the extent to which white privilege and power continue to operate in shaping, through affect and emotions, a collective narrative around non-white bodies. Trump uses othering to drive his narrative of us vs. them. The brown, Muslim, Sikh, immigrant, undocumented, and more are “not us,” and in this way he redefines who we are and what is ours. Narratives of “us versus them,” Ahmed (2004) argues,

threaten to take away from what “you” have, as the legitimate subject of the nation, as the one who is the true recipient of national benefits. The narrative invites the reader to adopt the “you” through working on emotions: becoming this “you” means developing a certain rage against the illegitimate others (immigrants, refugees), who are represented as “swarms” in the nation.

(p. 1)

The effectiveness of hate and fear, in Trump’s case, alerts us to the ways in which the work of diversity has served to identify difference, but has not uprooted the social, economic, and political conditions that continue to contribute to inequality and oppression in the U.S.

For art therapists, the understanding of diversity and its application in practice need to move beyond mere recognition of difference. When multiculturalism and diversity rely on political correctness it only reinforces race, class, gender, and sexuality as biological attributes associated with pathology or deviancy; a context is created that runs the risk of replicating the power arrangements that need dismantling (Gorski & Goodman, 2015; Talwar, 2015a). Thus, to have a more effective understanding of diversity and multiculturalism there needs to be an examination of how history, institutions, and public policies have reinforced the systems of white power and privilege that continue to colonize our everyday lives, research, and our art therapy practice. Gorski and Goodman (2015) argue that the danger lies in the well-meaning counselors and therapists who, without understanding the context of culture, history, and oppression, may do harm to the people they serve. In this chapter, I explore diversity and inclusion and what it means to “do multiculturalism.” I argue that to decolonize the practice of art therapy one has to include a social justice framework informed by critical inquiry and praxis for developing “critical consciousness.”

What Do We Mean by Diversity and Inclusion?

Why are multiculturalism and diversity important? What do they do? Why should art therapists understand their effect on practice? What do “equality,” “social justice,” and “equal opportunity” (Ahmed, 2012; Anderson & Collins, 2007) mean for art therapy practice? The U.S. is founded on the principle of equality, but historically it has been denied to many. Now, however, there is a legal framework that “guarantees protection from discrimination and equality of treatment for all citizens before the law” (Anderson & Collins, 2007, p. 1). Several social movements—civil rights, feminism, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) rights movement, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)—have reshaped how the normative is conceived in mental health services. In the fight for equality, several of these movements have overlapped to reveal the ways in which social, economic, and public policy contributed to unequal conditions in the U.S. (Anderson & Collins, 2007; Talwar, 2015a). In Chapter 2, I examine the historical discourses that have shaped the representation of racial, ethnic, gendered, disabled, and sexual bodies, and in particular how nineteenth- and twentieth-century scientific movements have molded public perception.

Multiculturalism and diversity require that we examine the systems of power and stratification that have produced language to define categories of difference: race, class, gender, and other socially constructed differences. Categories of difference are reinforced when they are seen as natural and unchangeable biological or physiological aspects of life. Such conceptions are inherently essentialist, since they refer to supposedly innate human conditions (Ore, 2009). Against immutability, the social constructionist argues that we learn difference as a result of our social interactions. Creating meaning and value around difference is a cultural process, and depends on one’s social positioning. As Burger and Luckman (1966) point out, the creation of a “social order” is not a natural process, but one that is produced and constructed by individuals. A social constructionist’s approach, therefore, asks that the “reality” of things be questioned: what power relationships exist, who is included and who is left out, and how have power arrangements been normalized. As such, it is important that art therapists examine the essentializing language that has promoted reductive conceptions of human nature.

Identity and difference have generally been ignored in favor of universalizing psychological theories that lean on medical models (Gorski & Goodman, 2015). When assessing treatment and prognosis, the models have located psychic distress in the individual, in the belief that individuals have control over their lives and their environment. A social constructionist’s perspective encourages deeper inquiry, recognizing that in order to ameliorate the psychological effects of oppressive cultural practices on a client’s life, art therapists need to understand how childhood abuse, trauma, and psychological disorders are systemic issues (Talwar, 2010). Questioning the predominant concepts and frameworks for practice also means questioning how certain epistemological frameworks have shaped the profession of art therapy.

Over the course of the last two decades, a number of art therapy scholars have made efforts to centralize multiculturalism (Awais & Yali, 2013; Dufrene, 1994; Doby-Copeland, 2006; Hiscox & Calisch, 1998; George, Greene, & Blackwell, 2005; Gipson, 2015; Robb, 2014; Talwar, Iyer, & Doby-Copeland, 2004; Talwar, 2015a; ter Maat, 2011). Despite their work, approaches to the practice of art therapy still fail to take into account the importance of difference. Trauma and neuroscience have emerged as the new frontiers of research (Hass-Cohen & Carr, 2008; King, 2016; Talwar, 2007) but they, too, impose the kinds of essentializing principles that theories of identity and difference caution against. Current publications in art therapy and neuroscience, for example, offer techniques and protocols for treating trauma, but rarely is there a case study that takes into account the client’s social context or intersectional identities. Acknowledging that not everyone starts on an equal playing field is the beginning of properly contextualizing views of trauma, or considering attachment and affect regulation from the intersection of culture, identity, and emotions that have been shaped by inequality: the economic resources denied to urban schools, the scarcity of jobs and reliable shelter, unsafe neighborhoods and food deserts, little access to affordable childcare, and shortage of health care and mental health support.

Well-meaning art therapists have worked in poor neighborhoods or in developing and war-torn countries, offering art materials for self-expression and therapy. There is a misleading idea that passing out art materials is an act of social justice. Although these motives are laudable, concepts of “art as healing” can only go so far when poverty is rampant and people do not have enough food to eat, clothes to wear, or predictable shelter. To expand the investigation of normalization and intersectionality, art therapists have to consider how identity is complicated when politics, emotions, language, and embodiment intersect with race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, disability, and other markers of difference. It is important that one questions the assumptions that underscore art therapy practice. What critical discourses does art therapy ignore at its peril?

There is a neoliberal idea of art therapy as a means of problem solving through “self-expression” and “art as healing.” When the psychological construct of “healing” remains a personal responsibility, insight, and reforming behavior, therapists run the risk of ignoring how emotions like sorrow, loss, and anger are agents in the formation of identity, especially in communities that have long histories of oppression. A social model of art therapy, one that is rooted in social justice praxis, examines trauma not as a psychological condition alone, but as one that is linked to a person’s position in society and culture (Lupton, 1997). Art therapists, therefore, need to reexamine how art therapy has privileged concepts of “art for healing,” “wholeness,” “sublimation,” and “the self,” in the service of individualized and privatized models of practice. A social model of art therapy locates concepts of diversity at the center of its practice. “Doing multiculturalism” means helping our clients understand and challenge oppression on a social-cultural level. In order to do so, art therapists need to question the assumptions upon which art therapy continues to be practiced. When art therapists move from modernist art therapy concepts invested in a single “truth” to be uncovered as part of becoming “whole,” to incorporating postmodernist concepts—ones that draw from feminism, antiracism, intersectionality, and queer theory, all of which advocate for multiple truths and realties—they have begun to embrace a practice invested in principles of social justice. In this context, healing and wholeness become what Alarcón (1996) calls “subjectivity-in-process” (p. 138). This means that “identity,” “wholeness,” and “the self” are abstractions of process, personal processes that are constantly changing because becoming never ceases (Alarcón, 1996).

When art therapy is considered from a social and wellness model, art therapists have to reflect on the ethics of empathy, language, and storytelling (Shuman, 2005). The ethics of empathy and telling other people’s stories demand that art therapists ask whose stories have been told and how. Often, medical and clinical ...