Welcome!
Thank you for volunteering to take this survey! We’re so excited that you’re here.
Black Art Therapists Speak Out! is a doctoral research study exploring Black Art Therapists’ experiences in the profession during the current sociopolitical climate, and their thoughts about the future of the art therapy field.
This survey includes 40 thoughtful questions grounded in Black-authored scholarship, and includes questions about you and your practice. We hope you find the survey engaging, enjoyable, and acknowledging of your experience. Please give yourself about 30–45 minutes to complete it. We deeply appreciate your time and participation.
This is a Participatory Action Research (PAR) study. That means that we know that Black Art Therapists, like you, are the knowledge holders, and what you share will help guide what the rest of this study explores. Responses from this survey will help shape the next parts of the study. You will be asked which questions you think should be carried into the interviews and art activity, or if there are other questions or ideas you think should be included.
Black Art Therapists Speak Out! is a doctoral research study exploring Black Art Therapists’ experiences in the profession during the current sociopolitical climate, and their thoughts about the future of the art therapy field.
This survey includes 40 thoughtful questions grounded in Black-authored scholarship, and includes questions about you and your practice. We hope you find the survey engaging, enjoyable, and acknowledging of your experience. Please give yourself about 30–45 minutes to complete it. We deeply appreciate your time and participation.
This is a Participatory Action Research (PAR) study. That means that we know that Black Art Therapists, like you, are the knowledge holders, and what you share will help guide what the rest of this study explores. Responses from this survey will help shape the next parts of the study. You will be asked which questions you think should be carried into the interviews and art activity, or if there are other questions or ideas you think should be included.
Working Terminology
In this study, for clarity, Black is used intentionally to represent the breadth of Black identities across the African diaspora, including African American, African, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latinx, multiracial Black, and other African-descended identities. We recognize that racial and cultural identities are described in many different ways; this terminology is used for the study and is not intended to assume how you identify yourself.
Black Art Therapist is used broadly to include Black art therapists, Black art therapy practitioners, and Black mental health or healing practitioners who responsibly and deliberately use visual, narrative, symbolic, or material forms of art within their work to support reflection, emotional processing, meaning-making, healing, and therapeutic change with clients and/or communities. For clarity and readability, this survey uses the term Black Art Therapist to refer to everyone who meets this broader definition, whether or not you hold the title or credential of art therapist.
Art therapy is used as defined by the American Art Therapy Association (AATA): a mental health profession that integrates active artmaking, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship (AATA, 2021). In this study, art therapy and the use visual, narrative, symbolic, or material forms of art as part of a guided therapeutic process to support reflection, emotional processing, meaning-making, healing, and therapeutic change with clients and/or communities will be used interchangeably.