Unforeseen and precipitous violence is a reality of the times we live in, but it has always been a reality in the mental health profession. The main premise of this book is to make art therapists aware of the unpredictable violence that may occur in their day-to-day work with clients and the presence of potential danger. The author stresses the importance of preventive measures to ensure safety. The preface describes the horrific event the author witnessed and her realization that psychotherapy is a dangerous profession. The first chapter sets the stage for the exploration of mass murders, violence, creativity, and mental illness. Chapter 2 provides framework for the cultural context concerning the contemporary societal and cultural landscape within which mass murders exist. Major changes in mental health laws are discussed, including the individual versus community rights in mental health systems. Chapter 3 is a brief history of the treatment of violence in the United States mental health system. Gun violence, the stigma of mental illness, and the threat assessment in schools are explored. Chapter 4 examines art, violence, and mental illness, including historic artistic figures in which violence and/or mental illness was an issue. The artwork of serial killers such as Adolf Hitler, the psychiatrically institutionalized artist Martin Ramirez, and the Outsider artist Henry Darger are discussed. The author also describes her own experience as an expert witness for the trial of serial killer Eric Leonard. Chapter 5 displays the author's mass murderers’ artwork with a brief description of each event. Chapter 6 depicts the mass murders that occurred in the United States, October 2017 through September 2018. Chapter 7 portrays a reaction to the Marjorie Stone Douglas school shooting and the essay evoked by this tragedy. Chapter 8 offers practical suggestions to help art therapists find assistance and support in a dangerous practice. Safety orientation in art therapy education programs and job orientation are provided. Chapter 9 discusses additional practical suggestions for art therapists with help and support in a dangerous practice and culture. The last chapter encompasses final comments including the danger and calling of art therapy. This unique book will be of special interest to mental health practitioners, art therapists, social workers, educational therapists, and consultants.

Doctor Ellen G. Horovitz shares over 40 years of experience as she transliterates evidence-based art therapy into medical terminology. This revised and updated Third Edition spells out the how-to's behind producing art therapy assessments, process notes, significant sessions, objectives and modalities, termination summaries and internet-based assessments into translatable documentation, designed to dovetail within an interdisciplinary medical model. In addition, this third edition emphasizes information on how to use psychological applications and art therapy based assessments to ensure best practices and efficacy of patient care. This step-by-step methodology fashions these reports, placing art therapy on equal footing with all mental health clinicians and generates records, which serve as points of departure for practitioners. This text is designed as a teaching tool that lays the foundation to enhance pertinent skills that are important to patient practice, including the armament to write up clinically-based reports that serve as a model for the field. Additionally, the practitioner is offered sample formats, legends and abbreviations of clinical and psychiatric terms, guidelines for recordable events, instructions of writing up objectives, modalities, and treatment goals as well as training on composing progress versus process notes. The Appendices provides a wealth of information and forms to use in one's clinical practice. This must-have reference manual amasses information that will serve as a companion guide for every art therapist to formulate clinical reports, and it will aid patients toward their trajectory of wellness, recovery and, above all, health.

This third edition of Current Approaches in Drama Therapy offers a revised and updated comprehensive compilation of the primary drama therapy methods and models that are being utilized and taught in the United States and Canada. Two new approaches have been added, Insight Improvisation by Joel Gluck, and the Miss Kendra Program by David Read Johnson, Nisha Sajnani, Christine Mayor, and Cat Davis, as well as an established but not previously recognized approach in the field, Autobiographical Therapeutic Performance, by Susana Pendzik. The book begins with an updated chapter on the development of the profession of drama therapy in North America, followed by a chapter on the current state of the field written by the editors and Jason Butler. Section II includes the 13 drama therapy approaches, and Section III includes the three related disciplines of Psychodrama and Sociodrama, Playback Theatre, and Theatre of the Oppressed that have been particularly influential to drama therapists. This highly informative and indispensable volume is structured for drama therapy training programs. It will continue to be useful as a basic text of drama therapy for both students and seasoned practitioners, including mental health professionals (such as counselors, clinical social workers, psychologists, creative arts therapists, occupational therapists), theater and drama teachers, school counselors, and organizational development consultants.

Angelic demons : the capricious creators -- Continuing the dance : how art therapy both reveals and mitigates violence and aggression.

Perhaps never before has an objective, evidence-based review of the intersection between gun violence and mental illness been more sorely needed or more timely. Gun Violence and Mental Illness, written by a multidisciplinary roster of authors who are leaders in the fields of mental health, public health, and public policy, is a practical guide to the issues surrounding the relation between firearms deaths and mental illness. Tragic mass shootings that capture headlines reinforce the mistaken beliefs that people with mental illness are violent and responsible for much of the gun violence in the United States. This misconception stigmatizes individuals with mental illness and distracts us from the awareness that approximately 65% of all firearm deaths each year are suicides. This book is an apolitical exploration of the misperceptions and realities that attend gun violence and mental illness. The authors frame both pressing social issues as public health problems subject to a variety of interventions on individual and collective levels, including utilization of a novel perspective: evidence-based interventions focusing on assessments and indicators of dangerousness, with or without indications of mental illness. Reader-friendly, well-structured, and accessible to professional and lay audiences, the book: * Reviews the epidemiology of gun violence and its relationship to mental illness, exploring what we know about those who perpetrate mass shootings and school shootings. * Examines the current legal provisions for prohibiting access to firearms for those with mental illness and whether these provisions and new mandated reporting interventions are effective or whether they reinforce negative stereotypes associated with mental illness. * Discusses the issues raised in accessing mental health treatment in regard to diminished treatment resources, barriers to access, and involuntary commitment.* Explores novel interventions for addressing these issues from a multilevel and multidisciplinary public health perspective that does not stigmatize people with mental illness. This includes reviews of suicide risk assessment; increasing treatment engagement; legal, social, and psychiatric means of restricting access to firearms when people are in crisis; and, when appropriate, restoration of firearm rights. Mental health clinicians and trainees will especially appreciate the risk assessment strategies presented here, and mental health, public health, and public policy researchers will find Gun Violence and Mental Illness a thoughtful and thought-provoking volume that eschews sensationalism and embraces serious scholarship.

With contributions from a range of expert voices within the field, this book explores the use of art therapy as a response to traumatic events. Offering rare insight into ways in which art therapists have responded to recent crises, this is a unique resource for art therapists looking to coordinate interventions for large-scale disaster and resulting trauma. Chapters address a range of environmental and manmade disasters around the world, including hurricanes, typhoons, wildfires, mass shootings and forced migration, highlighting the impact of an art therapy approach in dealing with widespread trauma. Covering both community and individual cases, it provides an in-depth view into the challenges of working in these settings, including the effects on the therapist themselves, and offers practical information on how to coordinate, fund and maintain responses in these environments. The first book to focus on disaster response in art therapy, this will be an invaluable contribution to the field in an increasingly vital area.

This searing graphic memoir portrays the impact of gun violence through a fresh lens with urgency, humanity, and a very personal hope. Kindra Neely never expected it to happen to her. No one does. Sure, she’d sometimes been close to gun violence, like when the house down the street from her childhood home in Texas was targeted in a drive-by shooting. But now she lived in Oregon, where she spent her time swimming in rivers with friends or attending classes at the bucolic Umpqua Community College. And then, one day, it happend: a mass shooting shattered her college campus. Over the span of a few minutes, on October 1, 2015, eight students and a professor lost their lives. And suddenly, Kindra became a survivor. This empathetic and ultimately hopeful graphic memoir recounts Kindra’s journey forward from those few minutes that changed everything. It wasn’t easy. Every time Kindra took a step toward peace and wholeness, a new mass shooting devastated her again. Las Vegas. Parkland. She was hopeless at times, feeling as if no one was listening. Not even at the worldwide demonstration March for Our Lives. But finally, Kindra learned that—for her—the path toward hope wound through art, helping others, and sharing her story.