Association of Child Art Psychotherapists (ACAP)

The Association of Child Art Psychotherapists (ACAP) is the professional organisation and accrediting body for Child Art Psychotherapists and a member organisation of the Psychoanalytic Section of the Irish Council for Psychotherapy.

ACAP maintains a directory of qualified Child Art Psychotherapists, who have completed comprehensive training and supervision in Child Art Psychotherapy with the School of Medicine, University College Dublin. Our practitioners work with children and adolescents within Child Welfare, Educational, Family Resource and Clinical Mental Health settings, as well as in private practice. Accreditation is aligned with both the ICP and EAP (European Association for Psychotherapy) standards.

Methodology

Child Art Psychotherapy, (CAP), is a specific method of art psychotherapy, developed in the 1980’s by the Hungarian Art Therapist Vera Vasarhelyi, while working within Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Guy’s Hospital, London. Post Graduate training began in the 1990’s in the UK and Hungary and found a home in the School of Medicine, University College Dublin, in Ireland, in 2001.

The CAP methodology was developed in order to bring a child-centred and relational approach into a predominantly medically focused CAMH service. The method is based on the principle that visual thinking and expression have a distinctive and direct relationship with the unconscious. Words and verbal communication are viewed as an abstraction of feeling, simplifying often complex processes.

‘the symbolic content of images can facilitate a unique insight into the dynamics of the unconscious, and allow the privilege of seeing hidden processes, which would otherwise remain largely inaccessible to exploration’, (Vasarhelyi 1990)

The use of pictorial language adds an additional dimension to the young person’s experience. Rather than interpreting the images, as in some other forms of art psychotherapy, the psychotherapist encourages the young person to source their own meaning. This allows for an enhanced exploration of connections between past, present and future and the child’s inner and outer worlds.

“No external interpretation should be superimposed onto the patient’s own iconography, the patient is the expert, not the therapist.” (Vasarhelyi 1990)

The technique of ‘Free Association’ as described by Sigmund Freud circa 1892 and the Jungian concept of ‘Active Imagination’ as developed by C.G. Jung between 1913-1916, provide inspiration on how to articulate feeling and thinking about images. No set protocol, iconography or language is used, as each psychotherapeutic encounter and young person are viewed as unique. CAP practitioners view both art and the practice of psychotherapy as transitional spaces which exist between individuals, as well as their internal and external worlds (Winnicott 1951).

Training

The Child Art Psychotherapy Masters Programme consists of four years consecutive training at postgraduate level. Students are expected to engage in a high ratio of personal psychotherapy, clinical and method specific supervision, group process, and an eighteen month placement within Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (years 1 and 2). In years 3 and 4, students complete a second placement within TUSLA or another similar child welfare service.

Students are taught the Vasarhelyi method of Child Art Psychotherapy alongside the founding theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl G Jung, Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, Alfred Bion and Anna Freud among others. Lectures in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, Child Development and Welfare and the Visual Arts provide additional perspectives.

Professional Masters Child Art Psychotherapy