Staying power

When it comes to the arts, they seem to continuously go through “periods” and trends – modernism, postmodernism, deconstruction, focusing on complexity or simplicity, using arts to make political statements or simply performing and creating for the beauty and joy the arts can bring. Are arts therapies simply one of these “trends”?

It’s important to realize that the arts therapies are indeed relatively new disciplines. According to each of the Web site of each of the arts therapies' professional organizations, (all available at the National Coalition of Creative Arts Therapies Associations) most arts therapies began evolving around the 1940s. However, professional organizations – what most people consider a way to “validate” such disciplines – were not established until the 1960s and 1970s. As comments on previous Living Arts blog posts demonstrate, most arts therapies are still relatively obscure today.

Arts therapies are growing in popularity and familiarity. For example, according to the American Music Therapy Association, the U.S. government decided music therapy is a “reimbursable service under benefits for Partial Hospitalization Programs (PHP)” in 1994. In nongovernmental jabber, this basically means that under certain circumstances, music therapy treatments can be covered by Medicare. This kind of recognition and validation from the government is a sure sign that arts therapies are steadily being accepted as a more traditional part of American society.