59-05-032 Proceeding

323 Proceedings of the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Congress The Evolution of ANZATA The evolution of ANZATA today had humble beginnings. In 1984, according to American art therapist, Bobbi Stoll, there were only two qualified art therapists in Australia (2005, p. 176). The AustralianNational ArtTherapy Association (ANATA) was formed in 1987. Most of the small membership had trained overseas, mostly in the United Kingdom, the United States or Canada, with diversity in their training and approaches (Westwood, 2012).The firstmasters level art therapy training courses inAustralia began in the early 1990s.There were originally four Australianmasters level art therapy courses whose graduates became eligible to join the association as professional members, based on training standards equivalent to the highest international standard. In 2005, graduates of the onlymasters level training program inNewZealandwere accepted as professional members, and thus, the name of the organisationwas changed toThe Australian andNewZealand Art Therapy Association (ANZATA). The inclusion of New Zealand in ANZATA was significant for several reasons. As in Australia, the early arts therapy educators in New Zealand were also overseas trained and brought with them different theoretical models and approaches. However, perhaps due to the higher awareness of indigenous culture, there was a growing consciousness among art therapists that it was important to develop a model of arts therapy that was responsive to the local context rather than to blindly apply methods and models that were not linked to geographical and cultural location (see for example,Woodcock, 2007). Practitioners advocated for developing close ties with the Pacific region as well as with Australia. The need to develop culturally sensitive practices that were responsive to both the Maori worldview and that of migrants, has consequently, affected the development of arts therapy training and practice within this region (Woodcock, 2011). Maori models of health and their view of the arts as integrated and inseparable from other social and cultural forms have influenced the relationship between all the arts modalities (visual art, dance/ movement, drama) within the arts therapy program in New Zealand (Westwood, 2012, p. 23). This, in turn, has influenced the development of ANZATA both in terms of cultural sensitivity and the inclusion of other arts therapy modalities. Subsequently, in 2007, professional membership of the Association was extended to appropriately qualified arts therapists working in creative modalities other than visual art, such as dance/movement therapy and dramatherapy. Australia and New Zealand already had well- established music therapy associations and this discipline has remained quite separate from the other creative therapies. Graduates of an Australian masters level dramatherapy training and multimodal courses in New Zealand and Australia or equivalent overseas trained practitioners are eligible to become professional members. To reflect this, the title of the Association is now the ‘Australian and New Zealand Arts Therapy Association’, with the ‘s’ added to the word ‘arts’ to indicate that the association represents therapists working in many creative modalities. ANZATA’s involvement in Singapore is more recent still. In the spirit of arts therapy, with the belief that the arts are vital to one’s well-being and to healthy communities, in Singapore,