Collaboration Between the Arts Therapies in Switzerland

DR: What comes to mind first when you hear “arts therapy”?

CV: When I think of arts therapies, I primarily associate them with creative and embodied pathways to inner experience. Contemporary research in embodied cognition increasingly demonstrates that thinking, feeling, and acting are inseparably connected to bodily processes, and that human experience is not primarily organized in verbal or cognitive form but through sensory, motoric, and affective dynamics. Arts therapies work directly with this embodied dimension of human experience. Through artistic action (making, moving, sounding, shaping) clients do not merely express inner states; they regulate, reorganize, and transform them on a bodily level. This is why creative processes are not an adjunct to therapy but a central mechanism of change.

Arts therapies draw on creative intelligence as a therapeutic resource. By this I mean the human capacity to generate meaning through symbolic and aesthetic processes, to transform experience, and to open new possibilities for action. Creative intelligence is inherently relational and embodied: it emerges in interaction with materials, movement, space, and other people. It allows experiences that are difficult to verbalize, such as trauma, conflict, or existential distress, to become perceivable, workable, and integrable.

At the same time, I understand arts therapies as fully professional therapeutic disciplines grounded in theory, ethics, and an expanding body of scientific evidence. They do not stand in opposition to evidence-oriented work. Rather, they broaden the concept of evidence by integrating experiential, relational, and embodied dimensions that are increasingly recognized as decisive therapeutic factors.

DR: What drives your passion for the collaborative efforts within the arts therapies? Why is collaboration important for the future of arts therapies?

CV: My motivation for collaboration within the arts therapies is rooted in long-standing experience in practice, teaching, and research. Across all these fields, it becomes clear that although the disciplines differ in artistic language and methodology, they share core therapeutic aims: supporting self-regulation, strengthening agency, stabilizing emotional and bodily experience, and accompanying people in situations of crisis, stress, and trauma. In everyday practice, many of the major challenges are not discipline-specific but structural: questions of quality, ethical responsibility, working conditions, funding, and professional recognition affect all arts therapists alike.

This is particularly evident in the Swiss context. While arts therapies are now widely recognized at the level of policy, statements, and formal qualification frameworks, the material conditions of practice are increasingly under pressure. Positions in clinics are being reduced, therapeutic time is shortened, and financial constraints shape what is practically possible. These developments are less the result of a lack of recognition than of growing cost-pressure within the healthcare system, which increasingly prioritizes efficiency, standardization, and short-term measurability.

Collaboration therefore has a clear political and professional function. It allows the arts therapies to address these shared challenges collectively rather than individually, and to advocate not only for symbolic recognition but also for sustainable working conditions, adequate time for therapeutic processes, and the preservation of embodied, relational care.

DR: How has the organization developed since its founding and what impact has it had on the arts therapies field in Switzerland?

CV: Since its founding, the organization has made decisive steps toward professionalization and public recognition, most notably through the Higher Professional Examination (HFP) and the associated political work. These achievements have given the arts therapies a strong formal position within the Swiss system. From my current perspective, the next phase is about consolidating and deepening this position.

Formal recognition alone does not guarantee stable structures in practice. What is needed now is a stronger integration of research, education, and professional-political advocacy, so that the specific value of arts therapies, especially their embodied, process-oriented nature, becomes visible and defensible within increasingly economized healthcare frameworks.

Within my research and development portfolio, this means expanding international and academic networks, fostering common research languages across the disciplines, and translating practice-based, embodied knowledge into scientifically communicable forms without reducing its complexity.

DR: What are the main challenges in fostering collaboration? What unites the arts therapies under one umbrella?

A central challenge in interdisciplinary collaboration is the productive handling of diversity. Arts therapy disciplines are shaped by different historical and institutional backgrounds—some more psychotherapeutic, others more pedagogical, artistic, or medical. These differences do not usually reflect conflicting therapeutic values, but they do influence how competence, effectiveness, and evidence are defined. Transparent governance structures, participatory decision-making, and open professional dialogue are therefore essential. At the same time, diversity must not be flattened. The arts therapies are united not by methodological uniformity, but by a shared commitment to embodied, creative, and relational change processes. This shared core provides coherence without suppressing disciplinary richness.

DR:  How does the organization engage in policy and advocacy? What political challenges or successes have you experienced?

One of the greatest challenges today lies in positioning arts therapies within a healthcare system dominated by medical-economic logics. Although openness toward arts therapies is increasing, this openness often comes with expectations of adaptation to standardized, time-compressed, and outcome-driven formats.

The danger is not lack of recognition, but reduction: that arts therapies are valued only insofar as they can be translated into narrowly defined technical indicators. Yet embodied, relational, and creative processes require time, continuity, and protected spaces. They cannot be fully captured by linear models of efficiency.

The task, therefore, is not resistance to dialogue with medicine, but a constructive positioning that protects the epistemological and ethical core of the arts therapies while engaging meaningfully with healthcare structures.

DR: What is your opinion about the value of EU collaborations?

CV: European networking is crucial for learning how different countries navigate these tensions between recognition, cost pressure, and professional identity. Exchange between associations allows us to develop shared standards and stronger collective voices.

DR: What is your vision for the organization’s future? What priorities or developments do you hope to see?

For the future, I envision an association that integrates research, practice, and professional-political advocacy in a coherent way. Planned initiatives such as an online Research Café, networking formats, and centralized communication of research and conferences are important steps toward creating a living research culture.

Supporting early-career researchers, strengthening embodied and practice-based research, and securing sustainable working conditions are not separate goals. They are all part of ensuring that the arts therapies remain what they already are: a vital, embodied, and indispensable component of contemporary health and social care.

DR: Thank you for this multi-perspective exchange. We will continue these discussions toward future fruitful collaborations.