Written by Michele Rattigan, DHSc, associate clinical professor in Drexel University’s College of Nursing and Health Professions. Rattigan is a registered, board-certified art therapist and national certified/licensed professional.
“Hi, Art Therapist Barbie!”
“Hi, Ken! Are you ready for your appointment?”
Yup. It’s here. Mattel, Inc. ® chose art therapy to be the first mental health profession represented in its career doll series of Barbies. It’s exciting news, but it is also important to consider the juxtaposing views of Art Therapist Barbie, at this moment in Art Therapy’s history. Let me explain.
Representation matters.Being the first profession for Mattel’s mental health series is cool. In my three-decade career, I had many disturbing incidents of other professionals wrongly suggesting that art therapy is not “real” therapy and somehow less-than other master’s-level mental health careers. I get it: “therapy” may not be your first thought upon seeing a therapist with art supplies. So, having my profession embodied in one of the most popular toys in the world gives a certain degree of mainstream validation.
Governmental representation matters.Thanks for the recognition, Mattel. Unfortunately, art therapy professions don’t get the same love elsewhere. Not all 50 states offer art therapist licenses. Art therapy professionals actually need to partner with other mental health professions in some states — nixing art therapylicensure portability, and making third-party billing a nightmare.
I’ve witnessed ill-informed companies seeking to hire any licensed provider to “do art therapy” — even if they have zero art therapy education — putting reimbursement over ethics and safety. For this and other reasons, some of us hold multiple licenses. For the record, I have three professional licenses – going on four. I do not know of other professions that need to jump through so many hoops to be deemed viable. In New York, art therapists share a license with music, drama, and dance/movement therapists as licensed “creative arts therapists.” They are advocating to be included in state mental health bills that are being passed where art therapy professionals have been systematically left out and barred from diagnostic privileges. However, Art Therapist Barbie does come with cool art supplies.
Scope of practice representation matters.Art Therapist Barbie is accompanied by a young strawberry-blonde girl client whose shirt can change to show how she’s feeling that day and a little white cat; perhaps a fun shout-out to the “creative arts therapists” aka “CATs” out there excited about this momentous event. And therein lies some of the critical comments that have and will come from the wider crowd: We are not activities. We are not “arts and crafts time.” While we appreciate art education, we are not art teachers. Art therapy is not just for children. It is not “play time.” And, while there can be periods of creativity and flow, art therapy is not “fun time.” Like any other therapy session, art therapy can and will bring up difficult feelings, memories, and experiences that require the knowledge, skills, ethical boundaries, cultural humility, and trauma-informed responsiveness of educated, credentialed art therapists providing treatment within their scope of practice. Instead of using just words, art therapists work in relation to the art therapy participant, the art media and materials in selection/suggested use, in symbol, and in metaphor. Art is the agent of intrapsychic change. So, non-art therapists bringing markers to a session is not “doing art therapy.” That is an activity.
Identity representation matters. Art Therapist Barbie is a glasses-wearing, female-presenting, white-passing therapist. The art therapy field has rightfully been criticized as a white, female-identifying profession. Like other health care fields, more can be done to dismantle systems that create barriers to diversity. This is more than just considering another rollout of Art Therapist Barbie depicting other races and ethnicities. Can Mattel use profits to create student scholarships to offset the outrageous costs of graduate education for a degree that does not lead to salaries commensurate with living wages and student loan repayment? Can they put profits toward lobbying efforts for third-party and Medicaid reimbursement for art therapy services? It is unfathomable to me that there is a mental health crisis, post-Covid, and governmental representatives draw lines in the sand while there are more people who need assistance than there is easy access to a mental health provider they can afford.
Health inequities representation matters. I went online and added Art Therapist Barbie to my Target cart. The Barbie-doll-playing side of me felt a little giddy. I felt seen. I was a fine art painting major in college and ostracized from my small art community, professors included, after sharing I wanted to be an art therapist. I am an artist. I am a psychotherapist. I am both. Does Art Therapist Barbie define me as an art therapist? No, not at all. But maybe 10 year-old me would have loved to learn this was something I could dream of becoming one day. I was just lucky enough to have stumbled upon it in college. Now, collectively, our job is to ensure we do better to represent the profession and advocate for what we bring to the larger mental health sphere.
Media interested in speaking with Rattigan should contact Annie Korp, assistant director, News & Media Relations at amk522@drexel.edu or 215.571.4244.
