Art therapy and children: A review of past and current practice

The aim of art therapy is to facilitate positive change through engagement with the therapist and the art materials in a safe environment. This paper will explore how art therapy has been and is used to help children with emotional, developmental and behavioural problems. It will also reflect the changes in the theoretical base of the discipline over the past 60 years. The ‘child-centred’ art education movement stemming from the work of Franz Cizek in Austria and brought to the UK by Wilhelm Viola was influential on early art therapists, as was the work of child psychoanalysts such as D.W. Winnicott. The bringing together of insights from art education and psychoanalysis in the 1950s and 60s resulted in a powerful intervention that has been refined as a result of postgraduate training in Art Therapy, and which is now used with children and families in a range of public and private sector settings.