Revisiting art therapy: a counseling intervention for pupils

The purpose of this qualitative research was to (a) investigate how counseling intervention through art therapy influenced the psycho-emotional, social, physical, and spiritual self-development of school children who have conflicts and problems with their families and other institutions; and (b) to consider the practical implications of the findings for the future use of art therapy in school settings. A phenomenological research design was implemented, because the researcher was concerned with collecting qualitative data to describe the lived experiences of the people who participated in the research. Forty (40) participants were sampled from Grade IV pupils of Pedro H. Escueta Memorial School for the Academic Year 2015-2016 based on their attendance during the researcher’s visits and their willingness to participate in the study. An Art therapy counseling intervention was implemented using the House- Tree- Person HTP) Test and the Draw- a- Person (DAP) Test. Before and after this intervention, a pre-evaluation and a post-evalution of the psychological needs of the pupils were conducted using the Psychological Needs Assessment Tool. After a series of six (6) sessions of art therapy counseling interventions, there were improvements in the different dimensions of the pupils’ psycho-emotional, social and physical, spiritual and self –development needs. The findings were consistent with previous research concluding that art therapy counseling can be used in a school for pupils with special needs. The main recommendation based on this conclusion is that the teachers of Grade IV pupils at Pedro H. Escueta Memorial School along with other school officials are encouraged to implement art therapy as a counseling intervention. More research needs to be conducted at other schools, at other times, to generalize the results of this study.