59-05-032 Proceeding

324 Proceedings of the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Congress Brother JosephMcNally founded LASALLE College of the Arts in 1984. As the College developed, it introduced the first postgraduate masters training in art therapy in 2006. By 2008, graduates of the program, along with other local art therapist established the Art Therapists’ Association Singapore (ATAS) which was the first local professional art therapy association. Until August 2012, the Open University (OU) in the UK validated the masters program in Singapore. Since 2012, it has continued to be validated by Goldsmiths College, University of London in the UK. In 2009, graduates of the art therapy program in Singapore were approved for professional membership by ANZATA. The Association currently has a thriving and increasing professional membership in Singapore and is actively considering how to reflect Singapore in the name of the Association. Additionally, there are also other organisations and countries in our region that have expressed interest in aligning with us, with memoranda of understanding being signed by two other organisations. There have been two significant factors that have presented both challenges and advantages for ANZATA: first that the arts therapies in our region have developed later as compared to other Western countries; and second, that our relatively small populations over an immense geographical area. As stated previously, those art and arts therapists who first practiced in Australia and New Zealand and those who set up the first training programs needed to integrate different theoretical, ethical and clinical approaches from the various countries in which they themselves trained and practiced (Coulter, 2006). Acknowledging, embracing and creatively overcoming those challenges have given the training programs in our region integrative and eclectic approaches based upon psychodynamic, humanistic and postmodern principles. This ensures that our trainees become aware of a multitude of approaches, traditions and paradigms. As locally trained graduates are nowbecoming experienced enough to return to teach on training courses, according toWestwood (2012), each program has developed its own distinct culture and this region has an arts therapy community that is diverse and dynamic. Westwood’s PhD research based on arts therapy training in Australia noted that UK- trained educators favoured an experiential psychodynamic approach, whereas someUS approaches “prioritised the development of research and amore didactic viewrelated to themedical sciences and directive approaches” (2012, p. 18). Other educators brought differing psychological frameworks such as humanism and, more recently, postmodern models and frameworks. In the mental health systems of bothNewZealand andAustralia, theWesternmedical model has favoured psychological approaches, which are cognitive, behavioural and psycho-educational (Westwood and Linnell, 2011). Westwood explains that it has been challenging to establish arts therapy as a legitimate psychological intervention in its own right as the traditionally psychodynamic approaches of the arts therapies have often been marginalised, and more often than not, have operated outside of the mainstream health systems. As in many other countries, in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, there has been the parallel development ofmany differing organisations aiming to represent thoseworking in this area.