Inquiring into the Challenges Faced When Conducting Research in Art Therapy as a Graduate Student

After numerous obstacles and the inability to establish a placement in which to conduct my thesis, I decided to reframe my topic in order to explore the challenges of conducting art therapy research as a graduate student. Previous research has also addressed some of the potential complications when conducting research, however, little has discussed the obstacles faced from a graduate student perspective. Reviewing the history and guidelines that Institutional Review Boards implement, this thesis describes how I followed this process with various ethical review boards, as well as illustrates the difficulties I faced. I particularly use a narrative inquiry to help expand and learn further from the challenges I experienced. Through analyzing each interaction, I found that while I encountered common research struggles documented in previous studies, I also had unique obstacles stemming from being an art therapy graduate student. In the final part of this thesis I illustrate the frustration I experienced towards this process in an intersubjective response art piece. This reflection alongside the previous research led me to conclude that art therapists encounter numerous undocumented struggles while attempting to conduct research, but by conducting more studies like this we can better understand how to overcome these for the future.