Art Therapy for Gender-Variant Individuals: A Compassion-Oriented Approach

Abstract

:This article addresses the issue of how to create a supportive therapeutic environment for gender-variant clients. Individuals who experience their true gender identity as incongruent with their birth sex experience the social ramifications of nonconformity which often result in psychological distress characterized by self-criticism and shame. Best practice approaches advocate for therapists’ developing attitudes of unconditional acceptance towards their gender-variant clients. Further to that argument, here, it is argued that gender-variant individuals may benefit from a specific form of artsbased psychotherapy, called Compassion-Oriented Art Therapy (Beaumont, 2012), which builds self-compassion through imagery and art-making in order to create greater resilience.

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