Computer-Supported Distance Art Therapy: A Focus on Traumatic Illness

This paper contains a description of the preliminary stages of the development by the two authors of a computer system and basic procedures for computer-supported distance art therapy. We discuss this innovative form of telehealth within the context of psychosocial care for people with traumatic illnesses, particularly cancer. The paper includes a rationale for developing distance art therapy services for people who have traumatic illnesses, a general description of computer-supported distance art therapy, and a technical description of the computer system we have created. In this paper, the term art therapy is used inclusively to mean therapeutic art, art as therapy, or any kind of therapeutic intervention during which the client makes art images. We use the term traumatic illness to refer to illness that either is life-threatening or is chronic in that it cannot be cured, significantly influences everyday life, and necessitates assistance or treatment by others (Reid, 1984). The first author, Kate Collie, is an artist and a counselor with a special interest in therapeutic art groups for adults with traumatic illnesses. The second author, Davor Čubranić, is a computer scientist with a specialty in human-computer interaction and background experience in the area of computer technologies for people with disabilities. By working together, we were able to create an art-based form of telehealth that is relatively inexpensive and is congruent with current trends in health care. Computer-supported distance art therapy makes it possible for group art therapy sessions to take place when the clients and the therapist are all in different places. The computer system we created for this supports communication by speech and shareable hand-drawn images. Although the system has both audio and visual dimensions and therefore has more scope than telephone or e-mail services, it can be handled by the current generation of home computers with modem access to the Internet. The rationale for developing a computer-supported distance art therapy service