Demystifying Art Therapy: Using Response Art to Enhance Reflexivity, Professional Knowledge, and Collegiality in a Grounded Theory Methodology Design

This paper is part of a professional doctorate research in Health and Social Care aiming to advance practice-based knowledge of Art Therapy. The literature review highlighted the need for more qualitative research with children addressing the question ‘how Art Therapy works’. The study was conducted within a children’s mental health charity in the UK exploring conceptualisation of change through the Art Therapists’ perspectives. The overarching methodology used was Constructivist Grounded Theory including the methods of Intensive Interviewing and Response Art. Five Art Therapists were interviewed twice to allow for deeper exploration of case studies. Researcher and participants created response art images between the interviews to visually reflect and capture symbolic nuances of change in the children’s journey. Presented in the findings are the author’s response art images, accompanied by selected excerpts of shared reflections with and from the participants illustrating the process of visual exploration. The discussion lays out the author’s insight into the benefits of the researcher sharing their own Response Art with the participants for bringing about collegial vulnerability and collaboration. The conclusion is focused on how visual reflexivity methods, such as response art, can create conditions of time, space and hope in stimulating research and advancing professional knowledge.