Intercultural Arts Therapies Research

Issues and methodologies

Ditty Dokter, Margaret Hills De Zárate, Ditty Dokter, Margaret Hills De Zárate

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317536932
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Intercultural Arts Therapies Research: Issues and methodologies is the first overarching study on intercultural practice and research models in the arts therapies. It provides a new departure from traditional arts therapies education and research in that it focuses on research studies only. Written by international experts in the field, the book offers a selection of diverse research undertaken within four arts therapies modalities: art, dance, drama and music.

Drawing on methodologies such as ethnography, phenomenology and case study research, chapters focus on cultural identity, the transposition of cultural practices to a different context, and the implications of different languages for arts therapies and disability culture. With reference to primary research, it aims to help practitioners and students to develop further research, by making the mechanics of the research process explicit and transparent.

Intercultural Arts Therapies Research will appeal to arts therapists, psychological therapy practitioners, postgraduate students and other health and social care professionals. It will also be of interest to students, artists, teachers, social workers and those working for international aid agencies.

Chapter 1Introduction

Ditty Dokter and Margaret Hills de Zárate

DOI: 10.4324/9781315726441-1

Context

The European Consortium for Arts Therapies Education (ECArTE 2015; Kossolapow et al. 2001) has been developing arts-therapy education and research since 1991. This volume provides a new departure, in that it focuses on research studies only. The volume consists of nine papers, representing the diversity of research undertaken within four arts-therapy modalities (art, dance, drama and music). They focus on cultural identity: the transposition of cultural practices to a different context, and the implications of different languages for arts therapies and disability culture. The studies draw on such research methodologies as ethnography, phenomenology and case-study research.

The aim is to present a range of a research methodologies and research questions as an initial overview of the types of research in process or completed. They are based around European perspectives, even though – given the diversity represented within the broad term ‘European’ – this will expand beyond its borders, such as the research into Italian transgenerational migration in South America by Hills de Zárate; or studying the interaction between majority visual and minority tactual culture by Herrmann. These two art-therapy papers are contrasted with the dramatherapy perspectives on dramatherapist cultural identity provided through language (Carr), general therapist cultural background in interaction with that of the client's (Dokter) and teacher/supervisor interaction with an Irish migrant identity (Mullen-Williams). The music therapy perspectives look at importing an ‘Eastern’ instrumentarium into a ‘Western’ context (Loth), while conversely exporting the Western model of music therapy outside its borders (Quin and Rowland). The latter's emphasis on training is echoed in the study of trainee diversity in dance therapy (Panhofer et al.) and the involvement of a dance therapist in the development of a creative play intervention in isolated Serbia during and post the former-Yugoslavian war in the 1990s. In choosing these papers we aim to present the breadth of intercultural arts-therapy research undertaken, in the hope that further volumes will expand on this beyond European borders as well as within them. In the current (2015) ‘migrant/refugee crisis’ in Europe, intercultural understanding and interventions are part of a growing need for intercultural connection and communication. Some chapters were selected to study diversity within states, sub-cultures within cultures, others to look at the international phenomenon of student migration, as distinct from war- and poverty-driven migration.

This is the first overarching book on arts-therapy intercultural practice research. Since their inception, arts-therapy pioneers have incorporated intercultural contexts in relation to practice and training in the therapies (Waller 1998, 2009; Jennings 1995, 1997). Arts-therapy volumes have highlighted intercultural practice through case studies, in edited volumes such as Tapestry of Cultural Issues in Art Therapy (Hiscox and Calisch 1998), Arts Therapists, Refugees and Migrants (Dokter 1998) and Art Therapy, Race and Culture (Campbell et al. 1999). More recent volumes incorporate both research and practice (Howie et al. 2013; Myers & Brooke 2015). Hogan's work, both research- and practice-based (2015, 2012), is broadly in the area of arts-therapy and cultural studies. Bobby Lloyd and Debra Kalmanovitz (2005) wrote about their practice with refugees and war-displaced people, and also about practice development in particular continents, such as Asia (Kalmanovitz 2012). Several useful art-therapy research articles were published by Hocoy (2006, 2005, 2002). In South America several volumes have been published about drama- and arts-therapy practice but do not address research; some are only available in Spanish (Marxen 2011; Martinez 2009; Klein 2006; Fernandez Cao 2006), others in English (Figusch 2006). Several chapters are published in general-practice volumes (e.g. Dokter and Khasnavis 2008; Carr & Andersen 2012; Chang 2009; Hogan 2015), some journal articles (e.g. Hervey and Stuart 2012; Mereni 1996, 1997; Hocoy 2006) or special editions devoted to intercultural issues (The Arts in Psychotherapy 1997; Dramatherapy 2010). Other important texts, which address intercultural work undertaken with refugee populations in situations of political conflict, are those by Lloyd and Kalmanovitz (1997) and Lloyd and Kalmanowitz, D (eds.) (2005). There are unfortunately too many to mention all of them here, though few are research-based. Those that are relevant are identified in relation to the individual modalities in the chapters.

This introductory chapter defines the arts therapies as used by the chapter authors. We aim to place them in the context of some of those currently used by professional associations. We then define how we use the concepts of culture – intercultural, multicultural, cross-cultural – and how we understand the cultural contexts of arts-therapy practice.

We conclude this introduction by outlining the content of the chapters in this volume. The focus is on the research methodologies used to study intercultural arts-therapy practice.

The arts therapies: definitions

Jones (2005) highlights the need for different definitions to meet different demands: ‘There is no single overarching definition that is widely used, but instead there is a lively, rigorous diversity meeting different situations and needs’ (Jones 2005: 15). Some definitions are needed for national and global contexts to establish services or define a broad spectrum covering music, drama, dance and art. The more focused definitions tend to relate to working with specific client groups. This approach is particularly useful in an intercultural context, as it both paints a broad picture and shows how different arts therapists and their clients understand their practice in different countries.

The National Coalition of Creative Arts Therapies Associations, founded in 1979, is an alliance of professional associations dedicated to the advancement of the arts as therapeutic modalities.

Creative arts therapists are human service professionals who use arts modalities and creative processes for the purpose of ameliorating disability and illness and optimizing health and wellness. Treatment outcomes include, for example, improving communication and expression, and increasing physical, emotional, cognitive and/or social functioning.

(NCCATA 2015)

The NCCATA notes commonalities and differences in its focus on the individual arts modalities, while an organization like the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA 2015) brings the arts together under one denominator, namely ‘expressive’. In the Netherlands the individual arts therapies have united under one professional association (FVB 2015), while in the UK different individual associations have become established in working together on common areas via their registration under the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC 2015).

The authors in this volume use the following definitions for their individual practice.

The music therapy definition used by Quin and Rowland in Chapter 8 is from Bruscia almost 20 years ago. Music therapy is seen as a systematic process of intervention whereby the therapist helps the client achieve health using musical experiences, and the relationships that develop through them, as dynamic forces of change (Bruscia 1998). Loth in Chapter 5 emphasizes the UK context when she highlights that music therapy practice in the UK is grounded in improvisation and live music-making, while also making use of pre-composed and recorded music (British Association for Music Therapy 2012).

Williams in Chapter 5 refers to the British Association of Dramatherapists definition (BADth 2015), but summarizes her perspective on dramatherapy as one of the HCPC-registered arts therapies that utilizes the medium of the arts to explore a client's material. It is the application of art forms within a relationship between therapist and client for therapeutic benefit. This is a more British emphasis (BADth 2015); the North American Dramatherapy American Association definition (NADTA 2015) stresses the dramatic means more when dramatherapy is defined as an active, experiential approach to facilitating change. Through storytelling, projective play, purposeful improvisation and performance, participants are invited to rehearse desired behaviours, practise being in a relationship, expand and find flexibility between life roles, and perform the change they wish to achieve and see in the world. The emphasis on the (psycho)therapeutic relationship is also echoed in art therapy and dance movement therapy.

The British Association of Art Therapy website (BAAT 2015) defines art therapy as a form of psychotherapy, which uses art media as its primary mode of expression and communication. Within this context, art is not used as diagnostic tool but as a medium to address emotional issues that may be confusing and distressing. The American Art Therapy Association (www.arttherapy.org) defines art therapy as a mental health profession in which clients, facilitated by the art therapist, use art media, the creative process and the resulting artwork to explore their feelings, reconcile emotional conflicts, foster self-awareness, manage behaviour and addictions, develop social skills, improve reality orientation, reduce anxiety and increase self-esteem. A goal in art therapy is to improve or restore a client's functioning and sense of personal wellbeing.

The Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy in the UK (ADMPUK) emphasizes body movement as an implicit and expressive instrument of communication and expression. Dance movement psychotherapy (ADMPUK 2015) is a relational process in which client/s and therapist engage creatively using body movement and dance to assist integration of emotional, cognitive, physical, social and spiritual aspects of self. The philosophical orientation of Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP) is based on the intrinsic belief in the inter-relationship between psyche, soma and spirit, as evidenced in the potential held in creative processes. The European Association (EADMT 2015) stresses that the intervention aims to offer individuals of all ages and abilities a space to explore what drives them, assisting people to develop self-awareness and sensitivity to others and also to find a pathway to feeling more comfortable in their own skin.

Definitions of arts therapy can emphasize the arts form or relationship, be it generalizing or focusing. However, there is a need to understand the dominant Western values that have influenced arts-therapy practice (Kalmanovitz et al. 2012; Hocoy 2002, 2005, 2006; Hogan 2015; Hogan & Pink 2010). This volume aims to situate research related to identity and difference within larger historical and social contexts (Talwar 2010) and to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of research methodologies used to study these issues.

Concepts of culture, intercultural, cross-cultura...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Part 1 Communication and culture
• Part 2 Intercultural practice guidelines and skills sharing
• Part 3 Ethnographic voices
• Index