Example psychotherapy dissertation topic 5:

Cultural constraints in expressive arts therapy: A case study undertaken in the Hatay Province refugee camp (Turkey) for refugees of the Syrian civil war.

As Dr Nien-Hwa Lai (2011, p. 306), there are cultural constraints that impede the progress possible through expressive arts therapy, primarily as a consequence of ‘indirect and hierarchical communication customs’. In this dissertation, expressive arts therapy programmes are conducted for five refugees current residing in the Hatay Province refugee camp. The refugees are often traumatised by displacement and violence, and art therapy assists in exploring their issues of oppression prior to the war breaking out, fleeing home, the destruction of their home, exile, life in the camps, and that which has occurred between. This paper provides an overview of the limitations wrought by a cultural divide between the subjects and the interviewer, and offers recommendations to minimise this in future encounters.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Fitzpatrick, F. (2002). ‘A search for home: The role of art therapy in understanding the experiences of Bosnian refugees in Western Australia’. Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, vol. 19(4), pp. 151-158.
• Kalmanowitz, D. (2005). Art therapy and political violence. London: Routledge.
• Rousseau, C. and Heusch, N. (2000). ‘The trip: A creative expression project for refugee and immigrant children’. Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, vol. 17(1), pp. 31-40.