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Art Therapy Practice Research Network

Art Therapy is in the vanguard of pioneering psychotherapy for patients who are often unable to use verbally based approaches. The ATPRN is about both developing this practice for our patients through research and developing the evidence to safeguard their access to it in the commissioning environment.

The ATPRN is a UK wide group of practising art therapists who collaborate on practice-led research and evaluation ventures. It involves meeting and working with other ATs who are grappling with similar issues. The ATPRN is aimed at helping practitioners evaluate services and produce publishable research evidence for Art Therapy.

The ATPRN is open to Art Therapists regardless of their research or clinical experience. It is a means of clinicians being involved in research without doing specialist training in that discipline. The ATPRN has at the core an executive committee comprising of two senior art therapy practitioners (Val Huet and Neil Springham) and Dr Chris Evans, who brings his extensive psychotherapy research experience. As the ATPRN grows, we are looking to develop a steering group comprising of ATPRN members and experienced researchers from other professions. The direction of the research is led by the practitioner membership. The ATPRN is involved in both quantitative and qualitative means of research.

Why choose a PRN for Art Therapy

Research can be daunting for Art Therapists because we are primarily trained as clinicians. Research is a skilled enterprise and needs to be of a high quality to be valid in terms of evidence. In Art Therapy some good research has begun by collaborating with skilled researchers and this is producing valuable results. The ATPRN is in no way aiming to replace this activity. However the reality is that it is unlikely that many Art Therapists at this point can integrate this kind of project into their ordinary work. A significant proportion of Art Therapists work in isolation, are not familiar with research and have a slow turnover and/or small case loads of high need complex patient case loads. The world of psychotherapy generally has a practice – research divide in that:

  • Research in psychotherapy is often done by specialist researchers who are sceptical about claims made solely on the basis of clinical practice.
  • Practitioners on the other hand find that research is not always relevant to the realities of the clinical practice. As most research is written for other researchers, many clinicians find it hard to understand.
  • Experience has shown that research done on practitioners as opposed to with them has not been very representative of that practice. (Mcleod 2001)

The ATPRN aims to bridge the practice/research divide.

How a PRN works

PRNs have good precedents in the field of clinical research. They were first used by British GPs in the 1950s; the US currently has a mental health PRN which has a 6,000 plus membership.; and the 'Core System' was launched in 1998 in this country as a PRN. As far as we know, Art Therapy is the first profession to launch a PRN on an uni-professional basis.

  • The membership are State Registered Art Therapists (not necessarily employed) who decide the focus and direction of research and collect practice based research data.
  • The Executive Committee provides specialist research skills, draws up research instruments, gives the appropriate training in their use, processes research data and publishes findings.
  • The Executive Officer facilitates networking by maintaining a membership database; producing a network newsletter as a forum for debate and progress reports; provides facilities for special interest group meetings; and hosts symposiums. It is at the symposiums that the direction of the research is decided by membership, training is provided, general networking occurs and where special interest groups can work on practice- based research issues. Symposiums usually involve outside speakers who update the membership on relevant issues of research.

Practice- based evidence must stand up to evidence based practice criteria. There is a direct relationship between numbers of PRN members submitting data and the validity of that data in research terms. It is therefore important that as many practitioners become a part of the PRN as possible.

Benefits to the practitioner of joining the ATPRN

It is by networking that we feel theory and research can be pushed forward. Theory should be led by practice and, as a practitioner this is your chance to influence the way the ATPRN develops. We think the most important part of being in the ATPRN is meeting up with other art therapists who work in similar fields. This cannot be underestimated for such a small profession as ours. Research is a process like painting: it goes in and out of chaos and at times you don't know what you are doing. The ATPRN is a place to share this experience and in so doing continue more effectively to develop new and embryonic research projects.

The ATPRN is a good place to start if you are not confident about writing for publication or about research. Joining the PRN cannot make you an independent researcher. However, operational training is given in aspects of research that can be applied to other areas of work such as local audit. Being a part of the research also has the benefit of helping you understand the research field. Furthermore, Art Therapists who are at present involved in Agenda for Change have found that membership of the ATPRN helped them fulfil some of the research requirements for higher bandings.  

Understanding the nature of art therapy evidence is one example of commonly needed research knowledge. We suggest that being part of the ATPRN is an excellent way of fulfilling the requirements of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Clinical Governance.

To join ATPRN please contact Val Huet  on val@baat.org