"Portal," a view of Stonehenge
Art Therapy News
Bookmark this page and visit in the future for an eclectic collection of national and international news stories about the use of art therapy and visual arts for health, wellness, psychotherapy, community development, service to others, and social transformation.
For leading edge news and commentary on art therapy, expressive therapies, and arts in health, see the Psychology Today Blog home page or this direct link. Periodically you can read teasers and full-length blog entries on this page.
Artist with autism Stephen Wiltshire has an uncanny gift for capturing any scene on paper with photographic accuracy. But is it the result of a mental aberration, the mind of a savant, or the work of an outsider artist? Or perhaps it’s neurodiversity.
Stephen Wiltshire’s artistry has been explained as possibly that of a savant. But his work is not simply a photocopy of reality; it has a distinct personality, in addition to the eidetic memory involved. Oliver Sacks once referenced Wiltshire’s work as involving vastly complicated neural processes that go into making any visual image such as a drawing or painting. Wiltshire is one of a number of celebrated individuals whose artwork intrigues and inspires further exploration. Others include the famous Nadia, the English girl whose artwork was discovered in the 1970s by the psychologist Lorna Selfe. At 4 ½ years,Nadia Nadia had a vocabulary of 10 words, but she displayed a remarkable ability to portray in realistic detail animals and other elements of the world in a way that children of her age do not. Read more and view YouTube movie here...
therapist Megan Robb's work and a tile project that helps patients to communicate about their experiences of illness, have their voices heard, and create beauty in their drop-in clinic community. Called “The Art of Healing: The patient tile project,” 100 tiles filled with images and phrases captured the personal symbols of patient experiences at the CC. 