Interview a professional task

As part of our course we were asked to interview someone in the arts profession, whether it be in person, over skype or email. We were told to email someone that would help us with our art practise and help us to develop as an artist. For a few years now i have been thinking of studying further to become an art therapist but recently I've been  a little bit hazy on what I really want to do. I decided to email some art therapists and it was really difficult because some of them couldn't email back due to being busy and a few weren't working at the time.
In the end I came across someone who was an art therapist in training which worked just as well as a fully trained because although they aren't fully trained, it was good to hear what it was like in training, again she was quite busy so she asked if we could do an over the email interview but despite having little time she answered the questions in a lot of detail.
I asked her 5 general questions about what it's like to be a training art therapist and how she got in the position she is in now ect.

1st question

What courses have you studied in the past to get you where you are now?

I studied a BA in Illustration at Loughborough University for my undergrad and am now studying at RoehamptonUniversity, the course is a masters in Art Psychotherapy. I am studying part-time (last 3 years) and this involves one day a week at University and one day a week on placement (a different placement each year) this year I am working in a charity that works with victims/survivors of sexual abuse. Before I undertook the Masters, I did a six month foundation course, one evening a week, also at Roehampton- which was experiential based with little theory.

2nd question

What are you studying right now and how do you find the idea of becoming a fully trained art therapist?

The idea of becoming a fully trained art therapist at this point in my study is exciting- in one sense, I feel eager to start as being a student is quite a life-consuming experience so the end of study and the beginning of work is attractive, particularly the chance to be earning. However I also feel like I still have a lot to learn so it's a bit daunting. 

3rd question

What led you in wanting to become an art therapist?

After studying Illustration, I did not have the confidence at that time to pursue Illustration so I got a job as a teaching assistant in a secondary school helping students with special educational needs (I'm still doing this part-time). For a while I have considered teaching as a career but realised that the side of my job I enjoy best is the one-on-one relationship building and although I really enjoy teaching, the aspect I really like is encouraging the students and building their self-esteem. I would be less keen on classroom control for example. I had always had it in the back of my mind that because if my personality maybe I would make a good counsellor- but I always wanted to pursue my interest in art- also as christian, I felt I should pursue the talent I believe God has given me. So a few years ago, after deciding I did not really want to go down the teaching route, Art therapy seemed like a great option in terms of providing chance to use my original degree and combine it with desire to be in a caring profession.

4th question

If you have any experience with patients yourself, do you engage in the art work as much as the patient does?

In terms of experience with patients, sometimes I have created alongside them. It seems to me that this needs to thoughtfully done - on my first placement, in a specialist CAMHS, I helped with an Art therapy group of teenagers and to encourage them to get involved as they were all very hesitant one session, the other woman facilitating and me decided to make art alongside them - it was quite difficult in that context to know what to create. More recently, one of my clients, an 8 year old girl is often asking me to help her if she's making something, e.g. to paint something for her - I am working out with her, how much to help, and often favouring stepping back a bit. I am learning that sometimes it can be important for clients to struggle with things that are difficult, and as a therapist you to be there being alongside them with what is hard but not jumping too quickly to their aid. This is a hard thing to do!

5th question 

Do you work a lot with fully trained therapists to help you gain experience?

In terms of working with fully-trained therapists, yes a little, I have supervision sessions at my placement - so I have chance to learn from my supervisor who is. We have group supervision sessions once a fortnight - this includes other volunteer counsellors (the charity I'm working at employs two lead therapists, one for the adult services and one for children and young people - but the rest of the counsellors are volunteers) who have varying degrees of experience, one is still studying like me, one has just finished a degree I think. My supervisor this year, is the lead child and young person counsellor, and is trained in Child psychotherapy and Play therapy; last year I was supervised by an Art psychotherapist so that was particularly helpful starting out.

Also at university, our tutors are practising Art therapists.

After reading back the answers I was really considering not to become an art therapist because personally I don't think I could cope with the pressure and how much training/work experience that needs to be done. I would still like to help people who are struggling but I don't think this way is the best route to go down. The fact that Laura had given up art altogether is the main reason I don't want to become an art therapist because I would hate to give up creating my own art and all I want to do is focus on creating work.

From this we were asked to create a poster or a way to visually pressent these interviews to hang up in our spaces for people to walk around and have a look but also for us to pressent in small groups. When we were put in these groups, we were told to focus on one person in the groups work, I focused on who Ellie had interviewed. Ellie done a face to face interview with a tutor at a university called Sam Westbury. While listening to Ellie talk about the interview some key points that were interesting about this particular person came up, he made instillation's and sculptors for artists such as Damien Hurst and Gavin Turk. So he is an artist that other artists go to when needing help. Ellie talked about how this shows that to become an artist it's mainly about the idea behind the work and not actually in the making of the work. As Ellie spoke more I got an idea that this Sam had got himself out there and made him self known because of this it has given Ellie an idea that she needs to move out of her comfort zone around her friends and start engaging more with the outside world. 

After this me and Annabel had a conversation about our artists because we both looked at training art therapists and actually found out they were both completely different. Annabel looked at someone called Ashlee Bennett who lives in Australia, Melbourne which is a really arty place so it encourages Ashlee to create a lot of artwork. Ashlee also creates a lot of art herself, still uses studios and she makes time to create her personal work as well as doing therapy. Ashlee's advice to Annabel was to keep making art and not to stop which unfortunately was what the artist I looked at did as she wasn't comfortable doing illustration. Ashlee had also suffered with mental illnesses herself so she chose to become an art therapist to help other people through art like it helped herself.