Ethical Issues in Art Therapy

This new edition has been revised to incorporate the significant changes that were made to the AATA Ethics Document in 2013. Several chapters refer to the Ethical Principles for Art Therapists and Code of Professional Practice of the Art Therapy Credentials Board. These ethics documents are extremely helpful resources for practitioners dealing with ethical dilemmas, but they are ultimately inadequate to address every circumstance. Each art therapist must decide how the principles in the ethics documents apply to the particular problem he or she is facing. Throughout the text there are examples of ethical dilemmas that will provide opportunities for discussion and debate in the classroom or supervisory group and which will stimulate thought for individual reflection. There are four primary goals of this book: (1) to raise questions and provide information related to the many ethical dilemmas art therapists face; (2) to present models of how to think through and resolve the difficult ethical problems art therapists encounter during their professional lives; (3) to be a useful, creative tool for course instructors and art therapy supervisors as a basis for engagement with students and supervisees exploring ethical problems; and (4) to offer suggestions for artistic activities that will serve as a creative means to confront ethical dilemmas. Compelling illustrations throughout the text are provided as examples of creative responses to the artistic tasks. For the sake of comparison, the appendices contain the ethics documents of the British Association of Art Therapists and the Australian and New Zealand Arts Therapy Association. Written for art therapy students, art therapists, and expressive arts therapy professionals, readers will find it very useful as a textbook for art therapy courses dealing with professional ethics and art therapy supervision. It will also be useful as a supplemental text in art therapy theory and practice courses.