Validating Art Therapists’ Tacit Knowing: The Heuristic Experience
Joan Bloomgarden, PhD, ATR-BC, and Dorit Netzer, MA, Huntington, NY
Introduction
This article describes the heuristic model of research, one unfamiliar to many. Although heuristics belongs to the qualitative group of art therapy researchers models, it apparently has not caught the attention of art therapy researchers. A Guide to Conducting Art Therapy Research (Wadeson, (Ed.), 1992), a text published by the American Art Therapy Association, does not include heuristics among the other qualitative models offered to art therapists. Junge and Linesch, who wrote in the Guide about eight cultures of inquiry, subsequently added heuristics as a ninth model to their article "Our Own Voices: New Paradigms for Art Therapy Research" (1993). In a search of the PsychLIT Journal Articles datavase, no published art therapy research using the heuristic model could be located. One can only speculate as to why heuristics has received so little exposure and has not gained more recognition in the art therapy community.
The heuristic model deserves more consideration by art therapists. Besides adding to the body of knowledge, it promotes self-knowledge and encourages trust in tacit knowing. These elements provide an important contribution to the art therapist’s competence and skill. Through first person accounts of experience and a careful synthesis of the researcher’s discoveries, the heuristic model provides tangible data which can be readily integrated into one’s existing body of knowledge and personal experience.
Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 15, pp. 51-54.