The Arts Therapies are a respected subcategory of the Arts in Health field and include services provided by professionals specifically trained to facilitate Art Therapy, Dance/Movement Therapy, Music Therapy, and/or Drama Therapy.
What are Arts Therapists trained to do?
Clinicians in these disciplines are knowledgeable about:
- Human development
- Psychological theories
- Clinical practice
- Research methodologies
- Multicultural, spiritual, and artistic traditions
- The healing potential of the creative process
Clinicians are trained to assess the strengths and needs of patients through arts-based psychological assessments. According to their assessment findings, clinicians develop treatment plans and interventions that utilize a participatory, creative process to address therapeutic goals.
What is the difference between an Arts Therapist and an Arts in Medicine Practitioner?
The Distinction: Scope of Practice
Creative arts therapies are treatment-based disciplines that use the arts to assess and address therapeutic goals.
Alternatively, Arts in Medicine Practitioners facilitate creative engagements shaped collaboratively with the patient to support their wellbeing.
Key Differences
While practicing arts therapists may enter a patient or client’s room with a guiding therapeutic goal in mind, Arts in Medicine practitioners (like those at UF Health Shands) have no therapeutic or behavioral goals leading the engagement.
Our practitioners are guided by different motivators that include:
- Offering a moment of personal agency (patients can say “yes” or “no” to an Arts in Medicine visit)
- Providing arts-based tutorials in visual arts, songwriting, and more
- Guiding patients, their loved ones, or staff members through artist-led activities like mindful stretching, dance, or group singing
- Delivering visual art supplies
- Facilitating arts-based activities simply for the joy of making art
Eligibility
Eligibility requirements also differ between arts therapies and Arts in Medicine-led engagements.
For Arts in Medicine practitioners to safely and collaboratively lead an engagement, the participants must be able to consistently demonstrate clear understanding of what is being offered. They must also be able to communicate preferences and feedback (verbally, in writing, or through gestures like nodding), and they must be able to complete activities with minimal assistance.