A CASE STUDY ON THE USE OF ART THERAPY BASED INTERVENTION FOR OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER

Art therapy is a creative therapy technique that uses art as the primary form of therapeutic expression and treatment. Both the process of therapy as well as reections on outcomes are therapeutic in nature. The paper presents the effect of art as a therapeutic intervention in a longitudinal case study conducted for a period of 8 months. A seven year old child, diagnosed as a case of Oppositional Deant Disorder (ODD) was brought for psychotherapeutic treatment by his parents. During the course of therapy, an effort was made to enhance the symbolic, imaginative and metalizing capacities by gradually increasing the range, depth and emotional richness of the art forms created by him. He was administered the Child Behavior Checklist thrice during the therapy; rstly as a pre-assessment before the beginning of the therapy, secondly after a period of 4 months and then after 8 months of therapy. The child showed signicant improvement in his scores on ODD items as testied by his parents. The follow up assessment showed a good maintenance of achieved improvements during the therapy. The study concludes in proposing the implementation of art based counseling and therapy as a treatment alternative for children with Oppositional Deant Disorders.

Factors affecting mothers' satisfaction with expressive and creative therapy provided to adolescents with learning disabilities: self-efficacy, stress and duration of therapy

In view of the paucity of evidence on satisfaction with expressive and creative therapy among mothers to adolescents with learning disability in the context of special education schools, the present study examined the relationship between mothers' satisfaction with therapy and two psychological measures – self-efficacy and stress. Satisfaction was also examined in relation to duration of therapy. The sample comprised 54 mothers to adolescents with LD who were in therapy for at least one year. Data was collected via five structured questionnaires. The findings reveal that satisfaction with therapy in general was positively related to mothers' self-efficacy and negatively related to level of stress, whereas perceived effectiveness of therapy was not related to the two psychological measures. Duration of therapy, on the other hand, was positively related to perceived effectiveness of therapy but not related to satisfaction with therapy in general. The theoretical implications of the results and their practical implications for expressive and creative therapy within schools are discussed.

Mothers’ perception of their involvement in expressive and creative therapy provided to their children at a special education school

In light of the paucity of evidence on mothers’ involvement in expressive and creative therapy for adolescents with learning disabilities (LD) studying at special education schools, the current study examined mothers’ perceptions of their involvement in the therapy and of the relationship with the therapist. The sample comprised 18 mothers to adolescents with LD who were in therapy for at least one year. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated several therapeutic issues as well as the special encounter that occurs between the therapeutic and educational domain. The discussion presents three main styles of maternal involvement. The theoretical implications of the results and their practical implications for expressive and creative therapy within schools are discussed.

A Bigger Picture: Community Music Therapy Groups in Residential Settings for People with Learning Disabilities

This article introduces our development of the concepts of Community Music Therapy and systemic thinking within our music therapy service. The work, which was in a supported living setting for adults with learning disabilities (intellectual disabilities), was set up in response to the challenges of providing a more conventional music therapy service within the London Borough of Sutton Clinical Health Team for people with learning disabilities (Intellectual disabilities). We discovered that collectively our clients, their support workers, and ourselves were being reduced in our human value by not being seen or heard. The Clinical Health Team for people with Learning Disabilities is made up of a variety of health professionals and is part of the London Borough of Sutton's Disability Services. The creative therapy part of the service is music and dramatherapy. Creative therapies look at a wide range of emotional and mental health needs for people with learning disabilities such as depression, anxiety, challenging behaviour, transition, and change.