Redressing Social Injustice : Transcending and Transforming the Borders of Art Therapy Training in South Africa

Abstract

This chapter examines the children’s responses as a form of positive protest, an unconscious activism in investing in spaces that build social cohesion, ego strength, and empathic relating. This philosophy mirrors all of Lefika La Phodiso’s services and training, which build upon existing resources, strengths, and passions. In South Africa, the hardcore psychosocial reality is that there is a deficit of parental figures in a parentless nation with minimal mental health resources and limitless mental health needs. The Health Professions Council of South Africa provisionally accepted Lefika’s Art Therapy curriculum in 2005; however, only within the context of a tertiary educational structure. The inclusion of social entrepreneurial and social action training modules ensures the promotion of an active citizenship, empowering students with proposal writing skills and research methods so that they may develop visions and missions that move away from personal gain to “constructing a future through innovation and action”.