What is the difference between Expressive Therapy and Art Therapy?
While some art therapists may incorporate other modalities into
their work, they are trained in the visual arts ~ drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, etc. The art
therapy profession in the United States is overseen by the American Art
Therapy Association. Expressive therapists must have training in other
art forms as well as visual art, including performance art, music,
theater, videotaping and poetry and creative writing. Their governing
body is the International Expressive Art Therapies Association.
How can a therapist be an expert in so many art forms? Expressive therapy is a "low skill, high sensitivity" discipline. This means that expressive therapists are trained to be acutely sensitive to the properties of and relationships between various media and art forms, and this skill is valued above a singular mastery of one art form. As artists, expressive therapists may be considered analagous to movie or theater directors in terms of their primary skills. Expertise in integrated and intermodal work marks their creative edge, although they may also be gifted in particular art forms as well.
What do expressive therapists do? Expressive therapists are generally trained at the masters level, and in most states they are able to become licensed in professional counseling or marriage and family therapy and to work as primary therapists. Like other masters level clinicians, they may perform diagnostic assessments and mental status exams; conduct individual, group and family therapy sessions; prepare treatment plans, progress notes and discharge summaries; consult with members of interdisciplinary treatment teams; and supervise and train other clinicians. Some expressive therapists also work as counselors or coaches, but most have a psychodynamic orientation.
What distinguishes Dr. Fox in her work? Haley Fox trained with Paolo Knill and Shaun McNiff (author of Art as Medicine and many other important books in the field). Dr. Knill and Dr. McNiff and their colleagues founded the expressive therapies program at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the intermodal approach to the expressive therapies was born. Under her previous name, Dr. Fox co-authored the text Minstrels of Soul: Intermodal Expressive Therapies with Paolo Knill, and this has become a primary text for expressive therapists. It emphasizes the intermodal nature of images, similarities among all the arts, and how "staying with the image" and deepening its richness through various artistic renderings can allow for cathartic experiences, containment of psychic material, and the crystallization of meaning in ways that are healing. Dr. Fox has further advanced this work by diligently promoting a theoretical orientation firmly grounded in art itself. For more information on Dr. Fox's philosophical orientation, read her philosophical statement on the "About Haley Fox" page of this website.
