The new edition of the highly successful 1987 book brings together the varied theoretical approaches to art therapy, and provides a variety of solutions to the challenge of translating theory to technique.
This book was required reading for a class I took in graduate school in art therapy in 2006. I have kept it and reread it many times and I highly recommend it for anyone in the field of art therapy—student and therapist alike. I love the way it is divided up into presenting the details of cases using art therapy in different schools of thought, or approaches as Rubin calls them, in psychology. I honestly do not think I understood the integrative approach to art therapy until I picked this book up and started reading it (and it was not my first semester of art therapy classes). This book is packed with data on theory and practice with case material and art exercises.
I am exploring this book further than the last time I read it. It is very informative as far as the different areas that one could explore in this field.
Among the main required readings I had to digest in graduate school, this book is one that I come back to not only as an academic reference but also as a reminder of the transformative power of the creative process. I recommend this for creative souls of any discipline and as a resource for anyone working with visual art and adolescents in teaching or clinical settings.