Recommendations for future studies

Recommendations

The study highlighted opportunities to raise the profile of art therapists by making it easier for art therapists to create their online identity. Whilst a best-practice guide to online identity creation and further studies into the state of art therapy representations online would be useful, practical tools such as templates and user-friendly directories could encourage visibility of registered art therapists.

Additionally, in the interest of empowerment, introspection and to prepare students for employment, academic institutions in partnership with technologists, could offer graduating students guidelines to self-promotion online, potentially increasing access to art therapists.

Conclusion

Whilst, for me, this autoethnographic study provided more questions than answers, they were questions I was previously too scared to ask. Questions I would have been too ashamed to ask my supervisors. Questions I feared had answers I didn’t want to hear. And whilst at the conclusion of this study, many of these questions remain unanswered, the exploration provided a safe space for these vulnerabilities to arise, and along with it, new understandings of the art therapy profession and my place in it.