Arts Therapists in Multidisciplinary Settings: Working Together for Better Outcomes

In a multidisciplinary setting or team, competing perspectives and principles can be challenging to negotiate, but supportive working relationships and effective collaboration can ultimately lead to an enriched experience and innovative outcomes for both professionals and clients. Drawing on their diverse experiences, art, music, drama, play and dance therapists emphasise the valuable results that their respective disciplines can produce when applied in settings ranging from schools to hospices, in collaboration with behaviour therapists, teachers, occupational therapists, speech therapists and other practitioners. The book provides a unique perspective on the common issues faced by arts therapists when working with other professionals and will assist arts therapists in promoting their profession to co-workers and clients.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. Caroline Miller, Dramatherapist, Psychologist. 1. Overview: Strengthening the Arts Therapist Identity in Multidisciplinary Settings. Caroline Miller. 2. The Wounded Healer: Professional Identity and the Role of Self-care in Clinical Practice. Mariana Torkington, Art Therapy, Play Therapy, Drama Therapy. 3. Finding My Place within a Multi/Inter-Professional Team. Abigail Raymond, Art Therapy, Dramatherapy. 4. Dances of Paradox and Role Diffusion. Marion Gordon-Flower, Art Therapy, Multi-modal Arts Therapies. 5. Music Therapy within a Multidisciplinary Special Education Team. Megan Spragg, Music Therapy. 6. Working Collaboratively in a Multi-Professional Team. Robin Barnaby, Dramatherapy, Art Therapy, and Neetu Sharma, Psychology, ABA. 7. Group Music Therapy in a Mental Health Service with Older Adults: 'It sure beats watching television.' Shari Storie, Music Therapy. 8. Considerations of Change in Play Therapy with Young People. Steve Harvey, Judy Donovan, and Tosca Lammerts Van Bueren, Play Therapy, Sandtray. 9. Shifting Lines: Palliative Art Therapy in the Home. Jennie Halliday, Art Therapy. 10. Working Together, Playing Together: Co-creating a Music Therapy Space for Young Children with Special Needs. Alison Talmage, Music Therapy. 11. Establishing the Web of Relationships: Dance Movement Therapist as Teacher Aide. Anaia Treefoot, Dance Movement Therapy, and Lucy-Mary Mulholland, Arts Therapy. 12. The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts: Music Therapy and Collaboration in an Infant Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Heather Fletcher, Music Therapy. 13. Dramatherapy in a Multicultural Secondary School. Adrian Lania, Dramatherapy, Psychology, School Counselling. 14. Cloak of Care: Music Therapy in Multidisciplinary Hospice Care. Keryn Squires, Music Therapy. 15. Woven Strands: Creating a Community Support Network in Private Practice. Agnès Desombiaux-Sigley, Art Therapy, DMT, Sandtray. Conclusion. Caroline Miller. Contributors. Bibliography.

About the Author :
Caroline Miller is a dramatherapist and psychologist working in private practice. She completed her training as a dramatherapist at the University of Leeds in 1991. Since her training she has relocated to New Zealand where she has had experience of providing arts therapies in a number of interdisciplinary settings, including mental health services and both mainstream and special needs schools. In 2001 she became the inaugural co-director of the only training programme for arts therapists in New Zealand.

Review :
From a practitioner's perspective the roles, responsibilities, and overall creative contributions of the professional arts therapist(s), within collaborative work, are asserted in this pivotal publication. Each chapter provides a purposeful and sensitive self-reflexive investigation that results in a strategic and perhaps renewed conceptualization of one's role that ultimately leads to an informed and enriched practice. This book is a welcomed addition to our collection of contemporary mental health and arts therapy resources; a definite recommended read for our graduates. This rich collection of essays, edited by a respected colleague in the arts therapies, provides ample evidence of the many benefits to be gained from collaborative working in a broad range of settings. It offers exciting examples of innovative work, practical advice and theoretical principles, which link theory and practice in ways that will enrich the arts therapies professions.