What I've learned

I'm not sure if I included this in the sections of assessments, but here are some things I have learned throughout the course of this class.
I definitely learned about many kinds of assessments, but through these I learned which ones coulde be appropriate for certain types of populations. You may not want to use an assessment that was mainly created for children on an adult, as they could possibly find this offensive and not take the assessment seriously. This could then greatly skew the results of the assessment, and it might not work the way that you had intended. I also learned from this class some assessment that I may want to use in the future with clients, and some that I already have. One I have that I have found very useful is the bridge drawing. This is a wonderful assessment for being able to tell where people are and where they want to go with their goals and such in therapy. Quite useful. Through this process, I have also found assessments that I do not like, such as the Ulman. Maybe it was the day we did this assessment on, but it just seemed very tedious, and I could see this going in a bad way if you wanted to give this to children.
Overall I think I have learned a great deal about a great many assessments, some I liked, some I did not, however I believe all of the information that we have gone over in class is valuable and useful toward the future, which is not quite what I had envisioned at the beginning of this class. I am glad to find out that I enjoyed this class and learning all of the assessments and accompanying information, even if it was a lot to take in so late at night. I do plan to keep looking up and looking into varying assessments that may pique my curiosity, as there is always something new to learn.

March 24 Favorite Kind of Day, Bridge Drawing Technique

Today in class we discussed the FKD and the Bridge drawing technique. As the bridge drawing technique is one that we have gone over in other classes, and have used on clients before, I found the FKD much more interesting.

The FKD is the Favorite Kind of Day drawing. It was a very relaxing assessment to do, bringing back memories of sitting poolside in Italy in the summer watching the swallows dive into the water. I think that I will almost certainly use this assessment in the future, of course with the right client. I think this could be used well in older (geriatric) patients going through the end of life phase, because they can re-live in a way good memories and times that they’ve had

As for the bridge drawing, I definitely will and have used this as a rapport builder. I’ve put this to use, but I have given some restrictions on material (as the directive in class did not). This is mainly limited to the materials I have access to. I also had the individual put themselves on the bridge, other than having them draw an arrow what direction they were going on it. This assessment, for me, ended up being very telling of how my day had been.

I enjoyed doing the FKOD after the Bridge drawing, as it put me in a better mood, and I did not have to think about the day I had, and I could think about happier times. As in my bridge drawing, there is the problem of it making the client think about something (such as my bad day) more than they would like, thus bringing up difficult things to deal with, which could be a good thing or a bad thing for the therapist and the client.

March 17 Birds Nest Drawing

This assessment (which was a lot of fun!) was created by Donna Kaiser in 1996 is used to assess attachment. It can be used with both children and adults. It is very interesting in that it has no time limit, and that you create a story to go with the picture. I think this makes it particularly different than other assessments. This is also an interesting directive because it has been used on various populations, and to me seems like you could get a pretty consistent result from all. This assessment is also very specific, dealing with attachment theory explicitly. This directive can also seem less threatening than using a family drawing, as you are not mentioning anyone specifically, but one can infer the same things from this type of directive.

Oops, I left this out the last one! for the 3rd of March

When the UPAP was done in class, I found it to be fun and relaxing, as the day had been fairly stressful. However, being in art therapy, as well as an artist, and having had a stressful day, I felt the need for more direction with the drawings, as they are fairly undirected. Of course, this is not without reason, as it is to achieve those underlying principles. I can see how this would be fairly difficult to use on children, as it is time consuming and you need a good deal of attention to complete it.

Also discussed in class was the LECATA, or the THE LEVICK EMOTIONAL AND COGNITIVE ART THERAPY ASSESSMENT, created by Myra Levick in 1986. This assessment is a cognitive art therapy assessment.

March 3 Lecata; Ulman Personality test

This article (The Conference Article) is basically about a panel of three art therapists who presented three of the most frequently used art therapy assessments for adults at the American art therapy association conference in 1998. The assessment were: UPAP (Ulman1992/1968), DDS (Cohen1988), and the PPAT (Gantt, 1990). The basics of these assessments are:

UPAP-Ulman Personality Assessment Procedure (Add Hamilton doc), Diagnostic Drawing Series, and Person Picking an Apple from a Tree. Four questions were asked of each assessment.

The Upap is a four-drawing series (the examples of mine done in class are given) with the underlying principles of a novel experience, a directed experience, a playful experience, and making a decision.

The DDS is a three-series drawing art interview, meant to help attain a diagnosis in a clinical setting using things such as graphic indicators.

The PPAT is just a one picture assessment, focusing on how people draw to assess personality.

The objectives of this presentation (and this article) at the AATA conference was to appreciate “similarities, differences, and unique qualities” in these three assessments (Cox, Agell, Cohen, Gantt, 2009).