History

HISTORY of NIGAT and Art Therapy in Northern Ireland

Rita Simon was one of the founders of the art therapy profession in the UK in the 1940s from 1941 onwards. Rita introduced art therapy into Northern Ireland in 1952, developing this through the 1960s and the 1970s. She first established art therapy groupwork in what was then called Purdysburn Hospital in 1952 (Simon, 1971).

Rita Simon, writing in:
STATUS OF ART THERAPY
IN NATIONS AROUND THE WORLD
Northern Ireland
American Journal of Art Therapy, Vol.15,
April 1976.

As a direct result of Rita Simon’s 1975 and early 1976 introductory classes and residential courses for Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), several participants began to meet informally, thus NIGAT was established in May 1976 at her home in Holywood, co-founded by Rita Simon, Alice Graham, Brenda Blaney and Dorothy McCourt. A steering committee of three was elected, Rita as Chair, with four co-opted members and supported by the five others attending. The Group would provide three day meetings a year in order to present papers, use art materials, have literature available, disseminate information and promote art therapy, which Rita also referred to in those days as art as therapy and art as a therapy. Open membership was and always has been advocated: for example from therapists and counsellors, nurses, doctors, artists, teachers, psychiatrists, probation and prison staff, and people from voluntary agencies – and for all who were interested. Membership originally was the princely sum of £1 per annum! Rita’s courses for QUB continued, assisted by NIGAT and visiting lecturers, thus ensuring a supply of enthusiastic members. Rita used the terms art therapy, art as therapy and art as a therapy interchangeably until 1997 when the profession was registered (1997) and regulated (2001) as art therapy / art psychotherapy. In contemporary practice, the terms art therapy and art psychotherapy are the names of the profession and the practice.

From these early days NIGAT became a dynamic collective contributing much voluntarily at Group meetings and as outreach, helping to establish art therapy groups, posts and training. Newsletters and an annual report were distributed; members contributed to textbooks and to journals in UK and abroad. Courses progressed with evening classes and residential weekends through the Metropolitan College Belfast, University of Ulster and Queen’s University Belfast. A weekend at Oxford Island, Lurgan, was £15!

NIGAT members attended conferences, short courses, career conventions and gave lectures and workshops in Ireland, UK and Europe; established exhibitions in N. Ireland; compiled a survey on ‘Arts and the Handicapped’; hosted therapists from the Republic of Ireland and when their separate association was formed, continued to share meetings and trainings. Before Rita Simon moved to London in 1984 (returning frequently over the years to conduct trainings, e.g. for QUB/NIGAT at Murlough, Co Down) she wrote three important documents: an extensive report on the Group’s work, a research proposal to bring qualified art therapists to N Ireland, and a detailed proposal for a postgraduate art therapy training here, to be led by NIGAT. This last proposal was realised in 2002 when, inspired by Rita’s vision, Caryl Sibbett established the first HCPC approved MSc level training in Northern Ireland, and NIGAT collaborated in this.

The year 1988 saw a continued professional relationship with music, drama and dance therapists in organising a successful Shared Creativity Conference at UU.

A formal committee, constitution and AGM were formed in 1989, enabling an application for charitable status. In 1992 the Group had a record membership of 119. Rita, Honorary President, published her long awaited first book on art therapy, The Symbolism of Style, in 1991 and the first of many NIGAT Art Exhibitions was arranged.

Another milestone was reached by 1993 when the first week-long Art Therapy Summer School, was organised in collaboration with the Short Courses department un UU and held in Belfast. This has become an exciting annual core event, building on its early success, and hosted in diverse venues. The late 90’s saw an expansion of art therapy exhibitions, by patient and client agreement. Before state registration formalised the term ‘art therapy’, in 1997, Rita published her second book on art therapy, Symbolic Images in Art as Therapy.

In 2000, a very well received art therapy conference: ‘Costing Creativity’, in Ballyearl Arts Centre, Newtownabbey, showcased the practice of art therapy as a profession to possible future employers and commissioners of art therapy. This was the first art therapy conference in Northern Ireland.

2001 saw the Group’s 25th Anniversary exhibition and celebration in Linenhall Library, Belfast, and Rita’s last year as the Art Therapy Summer School keynote speaker.

In 2001, art therapy became regulated by the Health Professions Council (HPC), now called the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). Prior to that, from 1997 the profession of art therapy / art psychotherapy had been State Registered and had come under the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine (CPSM), Arts Therapists Board. Thus from 1997-2001, art therapists were known as ‘State Registered Art Therapists’. Subsequently, The Health Professions Order was made under section 60 of the Health Act 1999 and came into force on 12 February 2002; see Consolidated Health Professions Order 2001. This gave art therapy / art psychotherapy statutory regulation and the HCPC is the UK regulatory body. HCPC registration brought legal protection of two interchangeable titles: ‘Art Therapist’ and ‘Art Psychotherapist’. Any art therapy training in the UK must be approved by the HCPC.

This was followed in 2002 by another momentous event after years of intense work and negotiation by the Group, through the mid and late 1990’s. The first Master’s level training in Art Therapy in Northern Ireland was founded and led by Caryl Sibbett at Queen’s University Belfast in 2002, in partnership with NIGAT and supported by Threshold NI, and approved by the Health Professions Council (HPC). In 2005 the initial MSc Art Therapy cohort graduated; this news delighted Rita when a small number of the Group’s founder members celebrated the publication of her final book in London. Caryl was the first art psychotherapist to achieve an art therapy doctorate in Northern Ireland, researching art therapy and liminality and cancer care. Congratulations to graduates of ’05, ’ 07, ’11 and beyond and to several other NIGAT members who have since obtained doctorates, thus raising the profile of Art Psychotherapy even higher.

The training relocated in 2008 to the Centre for Psychotherapy, Belfast, validated by the University of East London and continued to be led by Caryl Sibbett and also taught by art therapists / NIGAT members.

In 2015 Caryl further evolved into trauma-informed pluralistic art psychotherapy, a leading edge form of therapy practice, and the first pluralistic art psychotherapy training in the UK. From its inception in 2002 and throughout until 2019, the MSc training was integrative, relational and trauma-informed, encompassing a wide spectrum of practice and media, and it promoted a collaborative co-production approach with service users. From 2002-2016, the MSc course collaborated with a range of organisations including art galleries, museums, the community sector, Stranmillis College and the Play Resource Centre. It also promoted environmental art therapy. Placements were in diverse statutory, third sector, health and education settings.

Later, Caryl collaborated with Ulster University in 2017 and established an MSc training in UU in 2018, leading the programme until her retirement from the programme leader role in late 2019.
(Since then the UU MSc course has been led by others and taken in another direction and is not a trauma informed pluralistic art psychotherapy course.)

In 2004 a major fundraising art exhibition, Signatures Withheld, took place at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast. In 2008, NIGAT members belonging to BAAT established the new Regional Group (20) NI, of the association and Caryl Sibbett was nominated as the first Co-ordinator. That year the Art Therapy Summer School moved to Stranmillis College, Belfast, later to Lisburn College, and in 2009 moved to NI Council for Voluntary Action, Belfast. In recent years, the Art Therapy Summer School has been run at Corrymeela, Ballycastle, and various sites in Belfast. Through the years, it went from strength to strength, offering an eclectic selection of speakers and workshop leaders, national and international.

After Rita Simon’s death in 2008, the Group was honoured to receive her extensive collection of art therapy books and a very generous donation towards the development of a library. Therefore in 2012, NIGAT was delighted to establish a reading and study room in Holywood, which was near her home where the Group began! In 2016, the Reading Room relocated to Peace House on the Lisburn Road in Belfast.

Membership still continues to benefit from being an eclectic and enthusiastic group of therapists and non-therapists, led by another inspirational Honorary President Eileen McCourt. The past and present voluntary post holders and committees have done sterling and remarkable work promoting art therapy, and evolving NIGAT into a strong force with all the original ‘vision, energy and commitment’ of 1976.

Rita Mary Simon

A Brief Professional History

Rita Mary Simon pioneered art therapy in psychiatric after-care in Britain in 1942 and introduced it into a number of hospitals in London and the Home Counties. Formative influences include six years’ training in art, a Freudian analysis, and further experience in Adlerian and Jungian psychotherapies. Before the National Health Service (NHS) was set up in 1948, she was employed directly by the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, by medical consultants, and by psychiatrists and medical superintendents of psychiatric and similar institutions. After the introduction of the NHS she worked in a psychiatric hospital, a hospital for the severely physically handicapped, residential homes for old people and for children in care, sanatoria, and a diagnostic school for autistic children, in England and in Northern Ireland. From 1952, she lived in Northern Ireland and practised art therapy there in a psychiatric hospital. On return to Great Britain, in the 1960s she introduced art therapy at the Cheadle Royal Astell Day Hospital, Cheshire. In 1964, Rita was a founder member of the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT). After 1970, she introduced art therapy to the Health and Social Services in Northern Ireland and the Belfast Education Board. Rita corresponded with Adrian Hill, a pioneer of art therapy in the UK. From 1975 to 1983 she provided regular short residential courses in art therapy through the Queen’s University of Belfast and through evening classes in a College of Further Education.

The considerable variety of work in these contracts and in the Social Services Domiciliary Service provided valuable experiences of social aspects of mental and physical disability in the community, as did small groups such as a mother/child ‘play at home’ group and a child art group in a disturbed and violent suburb of Belfast. Between 1975 and 1995 Simon published two books and 18 papers.

As an art therapist, Rita Simon authored books about art therapy and, before the profession’s statutory regulation, Rita also used the terms ‘art as therapy’, ‘art as a therapy’, and ‘art therapy’ to refer to art therapy. After the profession achieved initially state registration in 1997 and then statutory regulation in 2001/2002, she referred to the profession and practice as ‘art therapy’. She advocated that a client, art, and an art therapist were all key components of art therapy / art as therapy. In the UK, the profession for art as therapy is Art Therapy / Art Psychotherapy. This profession is statutorily regulated by the HCPC and it is one of the Allied Health Professions (Department of Health NI). See also Allied Health Professions (NI Direct). To practise art therapy in the UK, a person must be HCPC Registered as an “art therapist” / “art psychotherapist” – see Check the Register (HCPC). These two legally protected titles are protected under criminal law.

NIGAT welcomes everyone, art therapists and non-art therapists, to its events.

References:
Simon, R.M. (1971) A Brief Introduction to Art Therapy in Britain. Reprinted from Beacon House News, Autumn 1971.
Simon, R.M. (1976) STATUS OF ART THERAPY IN NATIONS AROUND THE WORLD. Northern Ireland. American Journal of Art Therapy, Vol.15, April 1976.
Simon, R.M. (1991) The Symbolism of Style. London: Routledge.
Simon, R.M. (1997) Symbolic Images in Art as Therapy, London: Routledge.
Simon, R.M. (2005) Self-Healing through visual and verbal art therapy. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

The Rita Simon Collection

What is in the Rita Simon Collection?

About 500 paintings (mostly in gouache or watercolour on paper) and clay pieces by adults and children suffering mental and physical illness. The collection derives from R M Simon’s 55 years of work as an art therapist in private practice, hospitals and day centres of the National Health Service and Social Services. The works in the collection were made between 1942 and 1984. The collection includes sequences of paintings showing spontaneous changes in style during art therapy.

How is the collection arranged?

In two sections: 1. Classified into eight groups, each group being marked by one of the eight distinct art styles identified by R M Simon.

2. Sequences of works by the same person. The artists include normal, untrained adults and children of various ages and backgrounds, such as preschool and mainstream primary school children, professionals and others without formal art training. The variations in style show the many ways in which habitual styles can be modified.

What were the areas of psychological need served by the works of art therapy?

Mental and physical illnesses and disabilities adults and children suffering exceptional stress through deafness, blindness, autistic states, clinical depression, schizophrenia, senile dementias and brain damage.

Why were the works preserved?

The works are preserved as evidence of the general validity of R M Simon’s concept of the symbolic meaning of art styles and as a tool for research. Some of them have been published in her two textbooks: The Symbolism of Style, London 1991, and Symbolic Images in Art as Therapy, London 1997, both published by Routledge, together with other published papers. Researchers are requested to consult these two books first. Although the works are available for study, for reasons of confidentiality personal details of patients cannot be included beyond those given in the case histories provided in works already published.