In the Oscar award winning film Parasite, the character Kim Ki-jeong, an artistic young woman in need of money, masquerades as an art therapist so that she can charge more for the art tutoring she is providing to the difficult young son of a wealthy family.
And the scam works. When Ki-jeong offers outlandish interpretations of the troubled child’s “work,” the child’s mother eats up every word. She even buys into the notion that the bottom right portion of a painting is where “psychotic symptoms often reveal themselves.”
It might soon be impossible for a similar con to occur in the state of Virginia. Or that’s what regulators there probably want to you think. Apparently motivated by a study that casts the “toxic chemicals” in glue and the “sharp edges” of scissors as potential perils in the hands of the untrained, the state’s senate has passed legislation that would require art therapists there to be licensed.
The bill must still get through Virginia’s state Assembly to become law, but even if it does, it will be unlikely to deter the Ki-jeongs of the world — tricksters who are content to skillfully forge any required documents to land a job.
Still, Virginia had to do something. A scourge of unqualified art therapists there were … actually, it’s not clear there was any problem with unqualified art therapists in Virginia. No tales have been reported of unsuspecting clients being poisoned by toxic glue chemicals or maimed by sharp scissors — or even swindled Parasite-style into questionable psychological conclusions about the mental state of their offspring.
In Virginia, as in Canada and the over 40 American states that don’t require licensure of art therapists, the field of art therapy has until recently been an informal practice with few if any ill effects to the public. Nonetheless, those who would like to hire only art therapists with graduate-level training in art therapy can always look to the profession’s self-regulatory bodies.
Setting her forgery skills aside (which are already covered by laws against fraud), Ki-jeong wouldn’t qualify for membership in either of the profession’s North American membership bodies, the American Art Therapy Association or the Canadian Art Therapy Association.
So why is Virginia’s government attempting to get involved in a field that isn’t causing the public problems? The same reason governments get involved in so many occupations that are not dangerous, from hair-braiding to flower-arranging: protectionism.
Andrew Wimer, assistant communications director for Washington-D.C.-based non-profit law firm the Institute for Justice, explains.
“Art therapists may be quite loud in asking for the state to regulate them because that small group will benefit by having the government protect them from competition,” Wimer writes in Forbes.
However, the aforementioned “Virginia study considering the need for a license cites no instances of fraudulent art therapy or individuals harmed by inexpertly performed art therapy.”
(The study does note that “objects such as clay, if thrown, could be considered potentially dangers (sic).”)
Usually, the introduction of licensing requirements for service occupations drives up the costs of the services being offered. Given how difficult it can be for people in both the United States and Canada to afford psychologists and other therapists, it would be a shame to price potential patients out of the market for an alternative or supplemental therapy that could do them real good.
We don’t want people with problems to end up being treated by someone like Ki-jeong (though her prices would likely be too high for the majority anyway).
But we also don’t want people with problems to have their options further limited.
In his Forbes piece, Andrew Wimer raises legitimate questions about the potential scope of an art therapy licensing regime:
“[C]ould sharing your thoughts about the mental health benefits of your pottery class lead to prosecution? Or, could recommending that your therapy client take up painting get you summoned in front of a state board?”
It is worth noting that the licensing requirement would also set the practice of art therapy — or anything that falls within the state’s definition of art therapy — out of the range of many would-be helping professionals’ budgets.
The Virginia legislation would leave the licensing requirements up to a body of art therapists who would likely follow the self-regulatory bodies’ lead in requiring a minimum of a masters’ degree in art therapy. Obtaining a graduate degree is an expensive proposition and a significant barrier to entry into the field.
On film, fake art therapist Ki-jeong pulled a fast one on her employers. But in real life, there is precious little evidence that unlicensed art therapists are causing much harm to anyone except the established professionals in the business who would like to justify inflated rates and secure their own positions.
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