The Invisible Veil: Changing Paradigms in the Art Therapy Profession

Abstract

According to Sue and Sue (1999), the invisible veil is a worldview which affects all individuals as products of cultural conditioning and which operates outside the level of conscious awareness. Further, they state that the “values, assumptions, beliefs, and practices of our society are structured in a manner as to serve only one narrow segment of the population” (p. 31). Given this sense of haze or dysconsciousness (Ponterotto, Casas, Suzuki, & Alexander, 2001) and ethnocentrism, it becomes imperative for art therapy to revisit its cultural and social identities to become more inclusive. The incidents of racist attacks on individuals of visible racial ethnic groups and the changing demographics of the United States are forcing art therapy to address issues of diversity. These include culture, race or ethnicity, gender, religion, historical experiences within the dominant culture, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, education, political views, lifestyle, and geographic regions within the profession. Furthermore, while the fields of social work and counseling have greatly improved their recruitment of minority students and staff, minority numbers have not changed in art therapy (Boston, DobyCopeland, & Short, 2001). Our goal in this article is to examine how our collective biases, beliefs, and values have been masked and how they continue to impact our educational programs.

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