Art Therapy and Art Museums: Recommendations for Collaboration

Abstract

An integrative systematic literature review was used to determine recommendations for collaboration between art museums and art therapy practice. Concepts including history of the art museum, programming in art museums, benefits of looking at artwork in person, therapeutic factors of art therapy, and therapeutic factors of art museums were explored in the literature review. Factors present in the art museum include potential space, and physical aspects of the therapeutic museum space. Physical aspects of the museum allow individuals to relate to museum collections and physical boundaries of the museum similarly to how they relate to people in their lives. By connecting therapeutic factors present in art therapy and in art museums, areas in need of improvement were found relating to how art therapists were using the museum as a space in which to conduct art therapy. The art therapy articles found detailing art therapy programming in art museums were examined and as a result, recommendations in the areas of media dimension variables and the ETC, use of museum artwork, therapeutic factors of art therapy, therapeutic factors of art museums, and utilization of gallery space for artmaking were provided.