Since I have spend all of my adult life working within clinical settings, I am eager to try my hand at something new to me. The study of art therapy has offered me diverse opportunities to explore my person and professional ethics. Currently, I find myself routinely pondering how one might engage with art therapy as an avenue for social justice and whether there is an ethical imperative to do so. I seek an approach to therapy that embraces moral obligation as well as the overarching tenets of postmodernism (tricky, I know). I am also interested in the rights of artwork and the ethical standards pertaining to this issue. I definitely draw on the work of Bruce Moon (2006) and Pat Allan (2005, 2007), Kathy Moon.

In the book, We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse, Hillman and Ventura (1993) state that the world is an unhealthy place that irritates the human psyche. The authors note that sensitive, caring people see the injustices of the world but rarely turn their frustrations into positive political action. Hillman and Ventura posited that our disintegrating world is made manifest in our institutions and citizens.     I am aware that the shadow side of “human progress” is present in the endeavors of art therapy and the psyches of art therapists. Like Hocoy, I am concerned that without examining how the “worldview and social order of the dominant culture are embedded in its practices and philosophy, art therapy can unknowingly reinforce structures of domination and contribute to continuing injustices” (2007, p. 29). Art therapists have an ethical responsibility to ensure that their healing modalities are not merely serving the interests of the dominant culture and propagating social control.  Art is not a tool for social compliance and it is absolutely unethical to use art, even unwittingly, to this end. Before I can really choose a path as an art therapist, I must sincerely contemplate the question -  how does an art therapist ensure that he or she is joining with the art work as opposed to using art as a means to an end?