Art Therapy in Oz: Report from Australia

We are American art therapists currently teaching in the first art therapy master’s program to be established in Australia. The aim of this report is to describe, from our perspective, the development and present status of art therapy in Australia, introducing the reader to information about its history, its national association and its current trends in training and practice. Also included is a comparison between Australian and American art therapy that highlights the unique features of Australian art therapy and its potential to offer a distinctive contribution to the art therapy field as a whole. In order to bring to life the adventurous quality of working in this part of the world and to give the reader a sense of “being there,” we have interwoven persona1 impressions in our separate voices throughout the factual information of the text.