CONTINUING EDUCATION

This year's conference theme invites attendees to reflect on how acts of hospitality, both visual and subtle, shape the conditions for vulnerability and open the possibility for healing within therapeutic and professional relationships. By framing the art therapy space as a site of welcome, attunement, and shared humanity, this theme encourages a deep reflection on how our professional presence, boundaries, and creative processes become vessels for connection and transformation. It calls the field to consider how we might remain open to what emerges in moments of uncertainty, complexity, and change—and in doing so, both clinical and communal foundations of art therapy are strengthened for healing.

Welcome, Stranger: A Relational Ethic of Hospitality in the Practice of Art Therapy

Lynn Kapitan, PhD, ATR-BC, HLM

The art of hospitality has been practiced since ancient times as a core virtue and profoundly ethical act that transcends religious, ethnic, and political boundaries. More than simple courtesy, to be hospitable is to proffer a welcoming openness to the stranger – whether fellow human being, an unfamiliar sensation or arresting image, or an estranged part of oneself seeking connection. In a time of rising intolerance, fear, and systemic hate, understanding and applying the construct of hospitality can foster resistance while grounding art therapists morally in their offerings of care and assistance.

About the Presenter

Lynn Kapitan, PhD, ATR-BC, HLM, is Professor Emerit and founding director of doctoral and masters graduate art therapy at Mount Mary University. Past President of the American Art Therapy Association and former Executive Editor of Art Therapy, she is a prolific international presenter, strategic leader, and author, including Introduction to Art Therapy Research (3rd ed) and coeditor of International Advances in Art Therapy Research and Practice. Dr. Kapitan has practiced with children, adolescents, and adults in diverse alternative educational settings, cross-cultural community projects, and as a pro bono research consultant for non-governmental agencies in Latin America.

From the Threshold, An Invitation: Studio Practices for Cultivating the Hospitable Imagination

As a space of freedom that is protected yet constrained, the art therapy studio offers a liminal or threshold space of psychic welcome and invitation where diverse ideas, perspectives, and possibilities intersect. Drawing from years of crafting artist books, the presenter will offer participants practices for welcoming the images that arrive as guests to be invited in and given reciprocal, hospitable care, and explore how these ideas may apply to their cultural and therapeutic relationships.

Workshop Objectives:

1. Attendees will be able to describe the construct of hospitality as a deeply ethical, reciprocal relationship between host and guest, therapist and client, self and other, and art maker and their imagery.
2. Attendees will be able to recognize the art studio as a liminal space of welcome for the imagery that emerges, and draw parallels to ethical therapeutic practice.
3. Attendees will be able to identify the dual nature of hospitality that makes possible for some clients to feel belonging and care, while impossible for others to do so.