The Implications of Gender on the use of Fiber Media in Art Therapy Settings

Abstract

This thesis explores how gender, cultural perceptions, and historical context impact the use of fiber arts in art therapy settings. Fiber arts have a rich, cross-cultural, and gendered history with women-identifying people. This relationship continues into the art therapy space, and has the power to be empowering for women. The visual component of this thesis, which could be used as an art therapy task and is adapted from the Common Threads art therapy model, acts as a tool to help the researcher empathize with the therapeutic environment patients experience, to connect the researcher’s gendered experience to fiber arts, and to synthesize the research findings.