Art Therapy books and resources

Inner Journeying Through Art-Journaling

Learning to See and Record your Life as a Work of Art

Marianne Hieb

Inner Journeying Through Art-Journaling introduces a holistic journaling process that combines art, art therapy, design theory and spiritual direction in order to attain personal balance, awareness of one's own inner processes, resolution of internal conflicts and enhanced wellness.

Art as an Early Intervention Tool for Children with Autism

Nicole Martin

The early years are the most critical period of learning for a child with autism. Therapeutic art-making can be a useful tool to tap into their imaginations and help them to express their thoughts and feelings. Art as an Early Intervention Tool for Children with Autism includes practical advice on helping a child move beyond scribbling, organizing the child's environment for maximum comfort and relaxation, and providing physical and sensory support.

Art Therapy and Clinical Neuroscience

Edited by Noah Hass-Cohen and Richard Carr

Art Therapy and Clinical Neuroscience offers an authoritative introductory account of the latest developments in neuroscience and its impact on art therapy theory and practice.
Contributors explore the complex relationship between art and creativity and neurological functions such as stress response, immune functioning, child developmental phases, gender difference, the processing of imagery, attachment, and trauma. It deciphers neuroscientific language and theory and provides concrete applications for art therapy practice and interventions.

Art Therapy Exercises

Inspirational and Practical Ideas to Stimulate the Imagination

Liesl Silverstone

This accessible book comprises a collection of 80 tried-and-tested exercises, with guidelines for applying them and advice for devising new ones. Liesl Silverstone offers a variety of exercises for a diverse and multicultural client base, such as guided fantasies, one-to-one and group work focusing on the group dynamic, and some examples of working with adults with learning difficulties and children.

Focusing on the non-directive, non-interpretive person-centred approach to art therapy, this inspirational book is the perfect complement to Art Therapy - The Person-Centred Way, also by Liesl Silverstone and published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Art Therapy Exercises is an invaluable book for art therapists and art therapy students, counsellors, psychotherapists and all professionals working in the field of human development.

A Creative Guide to Exploring Your Life

Self-Reflection Using Photography, Art, and Writing

Graham Gordon Ramsay and Holly Barlow Sweet

An award-winning psychologist and professional photographer join forces in writing this unique creative guide to exploring and understanding your life: who you are, what you value, and what you wish to achieve.

A Creative Guide to Exploring Your Life brims with imaginative exercises and examples that use the power of photography, art, and writing as tools for self-discovery. It provides clear and accessible guidance on how to explore different parts of your identity: take a photograph of yourself in a role you don't typically play, draw a visual timeline of your life and consider its key turning points; explore your sense of place in history by writing about a major historical event that has changed your life. Exercises are accompanied by searching questions for self-reflection, and are complemented by examples of each exercise to provoke ideas and inspiration.

Featuring additional guidance for teachers, counselors, and other professionals running the exercises in group settings, this book offers a dynamic and enjoyable way for you to explore different aspects of your life.

Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy

Accessing the Body's Wisdom and Creative Intelligence

Laury Rappaport

"Dr. Rappaport's professional, accessible and enjoyable detailed approach...includes a user-friendly introduction to Gendlin's Focusing Method as well as a bridge to using Focusing with art therapy... Readers will find it both refreshing and practical and a much-used addition to their libraries."
-Dr. Doris Arrington, ATR-BC, Licensed Psychologist, Notre Dame de Namur University, Professor Emeritus

"Laury Rappaport is an articulate teacher and committed artist, who as a psychotherapist can look back on a long professional career, mastering Focusing and Expressive Arts Therapy alike. Based on this expertise, she eloquently presents a rich text written from a truly phenomenological perspective that guides like a red thread through this practical book. As a result it speaks to therapists of diverse traditions. What a helpful contribution for a wide range of practitioners interested in the Arts or Focusing."
-Paolo J. Knill, co-author of Principle and Practice of Expressive Arts Therapy and Minstels of Soul: Intermodal Expressive Therapy

"In a time the fields of neuroscience and somatic therapy increasingly inform therapeutic intervention, Laury Rappaport has written a book that is both timely and passionate in its message... Every therapist who uses creative methods in their work will benefit from the wisdom found throughout this volume."
- Cathy A. Malchiodi, PhD, ATR-BC, LPCC, National Institute for Trauma and Loss, Lesley University, MA, USA

"... A major contribution to art therapy literature and practice... This intellectually provocative, yet thoroughly practical text, establishes Rappaport as an emergent leader in the art therapy world and author of a book that every student and art therapist must read in order to appreciate the depth and breadth of our discipline."
- Shaun McNiff, author of The Arts in Psychotherapy, Art as Medicine, Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul, and Art-Based Research

"The reader can get a solid foundation in both Focusing and Art Therapy through Dr. Laury Rappaport's book. The book goes further to transform both of them, in showing how Focusing is always functioning in Art Therapy and how Art Therapy explicates the Focusing process. With lots of exercises, enriched with examples from therapy and workshops, Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy dives deeply into the life process and yet it succeeds in being a highly practical book."
- Akira Ikemi, PhD, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Kansai University, Japan

Focusing provides an effective way of listening to the innate wisdom of the body, while art therapy harnesses and activates creative intelligence. Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy: Accessing the Body's Wisdom and Creative Intelligence is a ground-breaking book integrating renowned psychologist Eugene Gendlin's Focusing with art therapy. This new, Focusing-based approach to art therapy helps clients to befriend their inner experience, access healing imagery from the body's felt sense to express in art, and carry forward implicit steps that lead toward change.

Written for readers to be able to learn the application of this innovative approach, the book provides in-depth examples and descriptions of how to adapt Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy to a wide variety of clinical populations including individuals and groups with severe psychiatric illness, trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression, and more, as well as applications to private practice, illness and wellness, spirituality and self-care.

Integrating theory, clinical practice, and numerous guided exercises, this accessible book will enhance clinical sensitivity and skill, while adding resources for bringing creativity into practice. It will be of interest to art therapists, Focusing therapists, psychologists, counselors and social workers, as well as trainers and students.

Art Therapy Techniques and Applications

Susan I. Buchalter

Art Therapy Techniques and Applications contains an original composite of therapeutic goals and evocative ideas that can be used with a wide variety of clients.
This book is filled with innovative suggestions and plans that are easily implemented: from brief warm-ups to stretch the...

Arts Therapies in Schools

Research and Practice

Edited by Vicky Karkou

As arts therapists are increasingly working in schools, there is growing interest in identifying applicable therapeutic approaches and expanding on relevant research evidence. This book outlines the potential uses of music, art, drama and dance movement therapies in educational settings, and...

Creative Coping Skills for Children

Emotional Support through Arts and Crafts Activities

Bonnie Thomas

Everyone has different needs when it comes to coping with life's stressors, and children are no different. Some need quiet and soothing activities to calm them down, whereas others require more physical activity or intense sensory input to relax their minds and bodies.

Exploring the Self through Photography

Activities for Use in Group Work

Claire Craig

Photography shows us how to look at things from different perspectives, to reflect, to communicate and to express ourselves in a way that goes beyond words. The creative and introspective qualities of this accessible arts medium make it an ideal tool for use in therapeutic contexts.