GUEST EDITORIAL: Memories of Helen

Helen Landgarten, founder of the Immaculate Heart Col-lege and Loyola Marymount art therapy program and the creator of Clinical Art Therapy, died in late February a few days before her 90th birthday which she was very much looking forward to. I think she believed she would live to be at least 110. Helen and I were colleagues and loving friends for almost 40 years. I first met her in 1972 at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in the Child and Family Department (later, Thalians Community Mental Health Center) where I was doing my social work internship. I always said Helen saved the world from me because, with other staff, she watched me work—using art horribly—with a child psychotherapy group through the two-way mirror and soon after offered me an apprenticeship with her where I would first learn “real ” art therapy. I had been a painter since childhood, but had not heard the words “art therapy ” until Helen spoke them to me