Seniors Housing & Healthcare Trends

NEW YORK: Despite the growing advocacy for arts therapists, their battle for recognition is still not won.

Arts therapists in Aotearoa want authorities to properly recognise and regulate their workforce to help get rid of unqualified practitioners, and so the sector can be better resourced amid growing demand for services.

Those who work in arts therapy also want clients to be able to access a wider range of services via Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). For example, generally music therapists aren’t funded, despite most registered professionals holding a master’s degree.

Arts therapies are forms of psychotherapy using things like visual art, drama, music, or dance/movement, within a therapeutic relationship to improve wellbeing. The emphasis is on the process, versus the end product.

“With government agencies, [music therapists] are not recognised. We’re still fighting hard for that. It’s a struggle–we’re not in their list of recognised health professionals. It’s being negotiated, but not anywhere yet,” said Sophie Sabri, a Wellington-based registered music therapist.

Multilingual Sabri holds a Bachelor of Clinical Psychology with Honours and Master of Music Therapy. With the latter qualification, she worked at a teen mental health facility and a school for children with high needs. She earlier trained in southern France and a psychiatric hospital in West Africa, and also has seven years’ experience in mental health community support work.

Sabri might use songwriting, sounds, music or physical instruments within her practice depending on a client’s needs.

She used the example of someone struggling with their confidence. With a song, Sabri could help them target pronunciation and voice projection.

Or, if someone loudly banged drums, or chose to listen to a song which made them cry, Sabri may be able to help them process their feelings. “Music can reach emotions. It’s poetic and metaphorical. You don’t need to say the words–we can feel.”

She worries people who could benefit from her services may be falling through the cracks.

An ACC spokeswoman said it didn’t receive many requests for art therapy, but it did look at each request on a case-by-case basis. Therapists could provide services to ACC clients if they met the required qualifications and experience as outlined in relevant service schedules or application process, she said.

Specific arts-related degrees are not required to become an arts therapist, but the peak professional organisation ANZACATA, which represents creative arts therapists across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia/Pacific region, acts as an industry-led regulator to accredit qualified workers and outlines professional and ethical standards.

ANZACATA executive officer Kate Dempsey said it was a shame all arts therapists were not properly regulated. More worryingly, people could say they were an arts therapist without any recognised qualification and cause harm. “To be a great artist but not to be qualified in mental health interventions is quite dangerous.”

Arts therapy is not new, but it is growing. In 2021, there were 168 members registered with ANZACATA in Aotearoa. This was up from 128 in 2019. And there is reason to believe the figure will grow further, with the Covid-19 pandemic causing a spike in demand for mental health services. Traditional psychologists are struggling to keep up with those workloads. “The demand is there,” Dempsey said.

While ANZACATA primarily covered creative arts, it also took in drama therapists, who “don’t have a home of their own”, Dempsey said. There was debate in the sector over whether dance and movement therapists belonged with ANZACATA, or with the Dance Movement Therapy Association of Australasia, which represents them professionally. Music therapists also had their own separate regulatory body Music Therapy New Zealand.

If governments recognised arts therapists, it would mean workers could access more resources and funding to improve and expand their services. “This is a problem for … our range of mental health professionals who are not recognised.” The situation was the same in Aotearoa as Australia, where there were about 800 arts therapists versus about 35,000 psychologists.

ANZACATA allows practitioners to become members with specific qualifications from approved institutes (usually ones with compulsory clinical placements), and ongoing membership requires personal development.

There is an abundance of research proving the effectiveness of arts therapy.

Dempsey said arts therapy could benefit anybody who talk therapy was not a good fit for–such as, for example, non-verbal people and those with speech issues, people who are on the autism spectrum, people who have had a brain injury or stroke, children, or those with a disability. “Whether it’s music or art, it can help you express difficulties without having just to use words.”

What arts therapy looked like in practice varied. Sandra Schmidt, a registered art therapist with ANZACATA, said art could help people explore new aspects of themselves.

And she said art was a different way for people to understand the world. Positive wellbeing impacts of art included giving people a sense of control, closure, calming and hope.

Dempsey said a young person with trauma could understand relationships in their family with plastic figures in a sandbox “much easier” than trying to describe issues verbally. Arts therapy did not discriminate, she said.

“It’s not about creating master works. It’s about just letting it go and seeing what comes out. Going, ‘look what I drew–that’s an interesting pattern’. Or, ‘I used dark colours, maybe I’m not in a good state’ … if they’ve chosen to fill the page with red, that then gives them the power to say, ‘I think what’s happening is this’.”