59-05-032 Proceeding

261 Proceedings of the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Congress FROM ART THERAPY TO SILAPAKAM BAMBAT Asnee Chooarun Fellow in Fine Arts, The Royal Society of Thailand Most foreign technical terms. especially those of Western countries in which many new terms have been regularly coined to keep up with academic progress, have been given Thai terminologies to be used inThai educational and academic circles. The agency responsible for the task of coining Thai terms for foreign technical terms is the Royal Society of Thailand. The Royal Society of Thailand is composed of three Academies, the Academy of Political Sciences, the Academy of Science, and the Academy of Arts. Each academy is responsible for investigating, doing research, and performing academic work, which includes the coining of terminologies pertaining to the fields in that academy. For example, the duties of the Academy of Arts are investigating, doing research, and performing academic work pertaining to arts, including the coining of art terms. When still under the Royal Institute of Thailand, the Academy of Arts launched the first edition of an English-Thai Dictionary of Art Terms in 1987. The revised edition appeared in 1998. but the word ‘art therapy’ was not included in both editions. The word ‘art therapy’ first became known to the art education circle inThailand from the National Conference entitled An Introductory Course on Art Therapy in 1994. The conference was jointly organized by the Faculty of Painting, Sculpture andGraphic Arts, SilpakornUniversity and the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Burapha University. At that time twoThai words silapa bambat and silapakam bambat were used for ‘art therapy’. The word ‘art therapy’ was discussed by the current Committee for Coining English-Thai Art Terms about 1 - 2 years ago. Most committee members are art experts but they are not familiar with therapy which involves experts in. Therefore, more research has to be made. Studying the definition of ‘art therapy’ from various sources including the American Art Therapy Association, it has been found that it means the use of art to treat certain ailment, that is, allowing patients with physical, mental, or emotional disorder to work with art. The patients are able to make contact with art materials such as watercolor, pastel poster color, so that they have fun expressing themselves in the creation of artwork and achieving a finished work of art. Art therapists believe that the process in making a work of the art, creativity expressed in the work, and the finished product would help the patients to be more aware of their identity. The therapists would also have a clearer understanding about the patients’ symptoms, enabling them to better help the patients deal with their mental stress and trauma and be happy in life. Thus, therapy does not aim at artistic excellence but rather at the created work of art as most important.