The Art Therapy Large Group (ATLG) as a Teaching Method for the Institutional and Political aspects of Professional Training.

This paper discusses a unique experiential teaching method on the MA Art psychotherapy at Goldsmiths and which raises issues relevant to teaching for all workers in health and social care. The ATLG of all the students and all the staff (80+), which is held 6 times a year on the 2-year full T time/3-year part-time programme, is identified with three educational components: learning about art therapy processes; learning about the educational process of becoming a professional; learning about institutional and political issues relevant for the workplace. This educational method engages the unconscious dynamics of both students and staff and brings this together, through creative activity, with a critical engagement with social and political issues. The group has implications for all health workers in its attention to non verbal communication, activity as a means to learning and agency in institutional issues in the workplace. The paper brings together a case example in which students were able to process the impact of a nationwide union strike in the university, with relevant literature from large group theory, small art therapy group theory and performance art. Discussion is given to the process by which the ATLG reaches its learning objectives