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Joan Philips

Joan Phillips has credentials as an art therapist,marriage and family therapist and as a counselor, and specializes in family art therapy, art therapy with sexual abuse issues and child and adolescent therapy. Joan is a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma and has served as visiting faculty at NYU, FSU, and other universities. She has presented professional trainings locally, nationally and internationally, and has been an invited guest of both the Korean and Taiwanese Art Therapy Associations as well as training child therapists in South Africa. She has published numerous articles and three book chapters. She is a collage and mixed media artist, and published poet. Joan has served on both the American Art Therapy Association and the Art Therapy Credentials Board .

Education Background

For her education, Joan Phillips received a master's degree in Psychology from Duquesne University and another master degree in Art Therapy from Emporia State University. She also received her Doctorate in Interdisciplinary Studies/Art Therapy from the Union Institute and University in 2004. She has been a practicing art therapist for 30 years, and maintains a private practice in Norman, Oklahoma .

Poetry

Her poems have been published in several journals and she thought that poem was a good therapeutic tool for treatment. However, when she sometimes shared some poetry with her clients and other therapists, she found that not everyone could understand the meaning of the poems. Therefore, she decided to share them in graduate classes when she was teaching counseling and art therapy skills. The poems tended to evoke a more affective response from the students, and that was what she wanted to access and help them learn to train as a therapist. She believed that if the student learned this sort of expression continually in words, they could deepen their own awareness and ability to respond to clients .

Copying With Stress

She found that art-making may also be a distraction or provide temporary relief from ongoing stress that cannot be eliminated such as that of a chronic illness or stressful job. An art therapist could choose media and processes that would be potentially beneficial to the client and help direct them toward things that would effect and reduce stress levels .

Group Art Therapy and Preschool Aged Victims of Child Sexual Abuse

Joan also focused her work on child sexual abuse. She thought that preschool age children were too small to tell and report clearly about sexual abuse. And these reprots often did not result in court action or legal consequences for the alleged perpetrator. So, art therapists have an very important role to play with this population. One exercise in particular has proved useful to many preschool participants is the use of a pre-drawn anatomically correct childlike human figure-cartoon and asking children to place bandaids on the part of the body where they don’t like to be touched or touch hurts, and put the stars on the parts where they enjoy touching. This can help children to realize which of the body parts are private and need protected, and also to help children verbalize or clarify their reports of abuse. This technique is a noninvasive way to teach prevention skills and ownership of the body . Joan also created a twelve week format of hourly group sessions for children with sexual abuse. For example, from weeks 1to 2, Joan set a goal to let the group establish a safe place. The Purpose of this activity was to develop trust within the group members, and reduced sense of isolation through group. Weeks 3 to 5, Joan used the human figure drawings to establish goal in addressing inappropriate sexual touching or contact, assessing level of trauma and allowing expression. From Joan’s study, art therapy just gives children with sexual abuse a chance to talk about their pain. And it also builds a confidence when children feel discouraged about their progress .