From performance to presence : a heuristic inquiry into how a developing art therapist finds professional indentity and purpose through art-making
Tan, Shilin Claudia2026
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This thesis explores how art-making supports a developing art therapist in finding and understanding professional identity and purpose within her final year art therapy training. Using heuristic inquiry, data were generated through El Dueunde One-Canvas Process Paining, weekly reflective journaling, and Betensky’s phenomenological observation to examine the researcher’s lived experience over eleven weeks of training. Findings revealed four core themes that illustrate how art-making supported the researcher in making sense of her training, as well as her developing professional identity and purpose: aspiration and desire for protection, disillusionment and fragmentation, containment and struggle, and acceptance and integration. These themes reflect a development progress in how the researcher engaged in uncertainty, self-understanding and meaning. In conclusion, art-making can help support one’s meaning making of their professional identity and purpose by enabling emotional containment, safe space for exploration and reconnection with purpose. The findings reinforce the value of art-making as a sustainable and experiential approach that is already integrated within art therapy training and supervision, while underscoring the need to place greater focus on its role in supporting therapist development.
Main title:
Author:
Imprint:
Singapore : LASALLE College of the Arts, 2026
Dewey class:
S615.85156
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
7287
| Location | Collection | Call number | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| McNally CampusLibrary Office | Thesis - MA Music Therapy | S615.85156 TAN | In house reference (Set: 21 May 2026)Library counter (Set: 21 May 2026) |
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Total copies: 1