David Gussak

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• PhD, ATR-BC HLM
• Professor (Full) at Florida State University

This article revisits an ongoing dialogue between the co-authors, examining their divergent perspectives on whether the art of serial killers was used to perpetuate their psychopathic cycles after their murderous sprees were interrupted, or whether the art—particularly a piece done by one serial killer, Glen Rogers–reflects remorse and redemption....

In 2021 an article was published that presented an art therapy in prisons program that emerged through a contractual partnership between a major state university and that state’s Department of Corrections, funded by Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The program was charged to provide art therapy with youthful offenders to alleviat...

This article proposes collage as a cyclical epistemology for art therapy and arts-based research practice. Characteristics of collage and a cycle of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction are presented and intertwined with post-structuralism. Construction, as a stable state of being, focuses on collage's ability to re-purpose materials an...

A cross-cultural mentoring dyad that emerges from a more internally motivated, non-obligatory relationship has the potential to co-evolve into a collaborative awareness of diverse educational experiences, cultural perspectives, and critical examinations. We present our rationale and benefits for a successful mentoring foundation built on trust that...

To examine the complex layers of those who are multi-racial/ethnic/cultured, the mixed-identity of the first author – an art therapy doctoral student – is first deconstructed, followed by the delineation of systemic and historical contexts. This viewpoint further examines how the therapists’ multiple identity[ies] informs and intersects with those...

This practice paper demonstrates an art therapy session that revealed the internalized monstrous and demonic identities amongst those who have sexually offended. Several of the participants represented their shadow-self as: (1) nebulous demonic self-representations, (2) internalized monstrous selves as hurtful or uncontrolled, or (3) a dichotomy of...

“Particularly sordid personalities often lurk behind captivating works of beauty.” Six artists from different historical epochs with different aesthetic styles all had one thing in common: each demonstrated particularly aggressive and violent behaviors. Three of them, Caravaggio, Cellini, and Dali, represented artists whose violence arose out of th...

Unexpectedly, many violent serial killers had a propensity to draw and paint; what is more, there exists a remarkable and pervasive societal fascination for such artifacts. To explore the work of such violent perpetrators, this chapter begins by classifying distinct types of multiple murderers, particularly mass, serial, and spree killers, followed...

This chapter emerged from the premise that making art has been used to react to, respond to, and regain a sense of power and resilience within a hostile environment that foments powerlessness. While it does not always deter violence, art may provide an oasis. The psychobiographies of six artists—Goya, Beckmann, Nussbaum, Vann Nath, Traylor, and Roc...

To best understand the following two chapters addressing the work of multiple murderers, an interlogue is included here to provide a working understanding of psychopathy and sociopathy. While at times the terms have been used interchangeably, various psychological, sociological, and criminology theoretical perspectives provide some illumination on...

Picasso’s Guernica captured his fury in response to the innocent Basque village of Guernica being destroyed by the German Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War. This painting became the template for the Guernica Children’s Peace Mural Project, developed by art educators to facilitate change by guiding children who are experiencing strife to redire...

Artists like Caravaggio, Cellini, Pollock and Dali, demonstrated volatile, violent—sometimes murderous—behavior. Some, like Goya, Beckmann, Picasso, and Vann Nath, created amazing works despite—or because of—the global destruction and overwhelming societal conflict that surrounded them. Great Britain’s notoriously violent inmate channeled his impul...

Chapter 3 juxtaposes the art of Adolf Hitler, an unsuccessful artist before he became a politician/dictator, and the art of those he persecuted, whose work provided both evidence and resistance. The first part of this chapter provides a brief narrative of Hitler’s trajectory from uninspiring artist to murderous dictator. It posits that he relied on...

Charles Bronson was considered England’s most notoriously violent inmate. This chapter relies on published accounts of Bronson’s crimes and subsequent imprisonment, his autobiographical memoirs, direct communications, and reproductions of his drawings to reveal the power art had in redirecting his aggression and relabelling a violent identity. Orig...

The Introduction provides the theoretical scaffolding on which this book is built. The first section, “The Art of Violence,” provides an essential summary of how the terms “violence” and “aggression” are defined, followed by various psychological and sociological perspectives on the etiology of violence. This includes neurological/neurobiological,...

Two well-known multiple murderers were conspicuously excluded from the previous chapter: Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy, arguably two of the most infamous multiple murderers of the twentieth century in the United States. They were also quite prolific in their artistic output. They represented the extremes along the continuum of multiple murdere...

Drawing from the author’s professional experiences as an art therapist working with aggressive people, this chapter provides a brief introduction to art therapy, case examples with violent clients, and a summation of why and how art therapy is effective in slowing and at times halting the cycle of violence. In particular, the author stresses how ar...

This Prologue introduces the genesis and evolution of the questions that guide this book, particularly what is this interrelationship between art and violence. Drawing from some of the author’s personal experiences, it presents a summary of the overall project and describes the several parts that make up the manuscript—“The Dance Between Creation a...

In bringing this book to a close, this Epilogue revisits each chapter in the book and relies on them to explore several dawning realizations. The original visual of the two-partner dance presented in the Prologue and Introduction did not persist during the 7 years it took to research and write this book; what emerged was something much more complic...

In January 2020, a new state-wide art therapy in prisons program was established to bring art therapy to youth offenders in four prisons to help mitigate obstacles to their education, such as emotional dysregulation, behavioral issues, and cognitive difficulties. Shortly thereafter COVID-19 halted regular programming. In a system where sequestratio...

Education is regarded as an avenue for success while the under-educated are disproportionately more likely to be incarcerated and remain within the correctional system. Current prison reforms have focused on increasing access to educational programming. However, these programs are not designed to address the lack of control, poor self-regulation, l...

Non-confrontative interventions for those with sexual offenses are grounded in reflexivity, rooted in empathy, and established in a secure therapeutic alliance to address complex treatment needs. This case study describes The Journey, a strength-based art therapy approach. Upon reflection, four concepts emerged: seeking change, being in limbo/“not...

The development of doctoral education in art therapy is essential due to the increasing demand for research and evidence-based practice. This demand warrants the allocation of resources to prepare art therapy researchers or stewards of the profession charged with generating a strong evidence-base to sustain and advance the field. The American Art T...

My ideas of the benefits of art and art therapy in prison has evolved over the years, culminating in the publication Art and Art Therapy with the Imprisoned: Re-Creating Identity. The chapter reproduced here, stipulates that one obstacle correctional institutions need to address is the unending rise of mental illness due to the escalating arrest an...

While it is clear that prison populations require mental health attention, there are some fundamental difficulties with providing care to those that cannot or should not admit to weaknesses and vulnerabilities or may even lie for their own benefits and gains. However, research has revealed that art therapy may be an effective approach for addressin...

This edited book is a comprehensive overview of the profession of art therapy. The book has nine sections, each featuring an important aspect of the field to provide breadth. To provide depth, each section has 7-12 chapters, each written by an expert in his or her particular area.The book includes 84 chapters, which the work of 90 authors.

Although there are many psychological beliefs about the manifestation of aggression in people, the social interactionist perspective offers a means to clarify aggressive actions and informs therapists on how such tendencies can be alleviated. Through interaction, aggression is defined and maintained. Equally, it is through interaction that aggressi...

The Wiley Handbook of Art Therapy is a collection of original, internationally diverse essays, that provides unsurpassed breadth and depth of coverage of the subject. The most comprehensive art therapy book in the field, exploring a wide range of themes. A unique collection of the current and innovative clinical, theoretical and research approaches...

Art therapy can overcome many limitations so as to provide an avenue for therapeutic change within the prison milieu. This chapter examines how and why art therapy can be effective in a correctional system, and demonstrates how an art therapist can use the inmates' creativity and libidinal drives to provide services while still maintaining safety a...

A case study can appear to some people as a comparatively easy approach, such as telling a story. However, if done correctly, case studies can be sufficient on their own or can contribute to a variety of other methodological approaches. This chapter explores the ambiguities that the term "case study" may imply, provides robust examples, and examine...

This chapter describes David Gussak's testimony during Kevin Ward's sentencing hearing in 2009. The sentencing hearing consisted of several distinct components: establishing expertise, explaining the assessment procedures, presenting the images with explanation, cross-examination, and redirect examination. The first part of the testimony aimed to c...

This chapter discusses the use of art therapy in the capital murder case of Kevin Ward in 2009. Ward murdered his eldest child and attempted to murder his younger one. Through Ward's choice of materials, style, and composition, art therapist David Gussak concluded that while his art pieces demonstrate talent, they also reveal the presence of a ment...

This book details how forensic art therapy was used in a capital murder case in which a man was tried for kidnapping his two children, murdering one, and attempting to kill the other. In this case, the prosecution sought the death penalty, while the defense employed an unusual strategy to avoid the sentence. The defendant's attorneys turned to more...

David, E. G. (2013). Art on trial: Art therapy in capital murder cases. New York, NY: Columbia University Press,116 pp. ISBN 978-0-231-16250-0 cloth $37.89; ISBN 978-0-231-53427-7 e-book $23.15 The author name mentioned in the above book review published in Vol. 59(13) should be David E. Gussak (2013).

A training partnership was established with the Florida Department of Corrections in 2003, and over the ensuing years, art therapy graduate student interns from Florida State University's Graduate Art Therapy Program have been placed in local prisons at different times. Recently, the art therapy interns worked closely with the supervising psycholog...

This report addresses several educators' attempts to prepare their students for entering the "real" art therapy world. Two important components necessary to prepare students for entering the professional arenas are introduced: the need to translate theory into practice and the ability to communicate and negotiate with other helping professionals. A...

Ongoing studies have revealed the positive effects of art therapy with prison inmates. The most recent publication presented the effectiveness of art therapy with male and female prisoners [Author. (in press). The effects of art therapy on male and female inmates: Advancing the research base. The Arts in Psychotherapy]; specifically, the results de...

Since the summer of 2003, several studies have been conducted to quantify the benefits of art therapy with prison inmates. These studies demonstrated a marked improvement in mood, behavior, and problem-solving [Gussak, D. (2007). The effectiveness of art therapy in reducing depression in prison populations. International Journal of Offender Therapy...

This paper applies social interactionism to gender identity issues as addressed in the art therapy literature and within interview data collected from art therapists working in the field. The findings revealed that perceptions from practicing art therapists differed from ideas put forth in the art therapy literature about gender traits that influen...

Major obstacles block the effectiveness of therapy in prison. Many inmates have an inherent mistrust for verbal disclosure. Rigid defenses exist for basic survival. Despite these defenses, there has been support for art therapy as a valuable tool. Unfortunately, there has been little research to measure the effectiveness of art therapy in prison. T...

A prison setting, with its numerous clinical issues, is a valuable learning experience for the graduate art therapy student. Oftentimes, they see the correctional facility as a dangerous challenge and an intriguing unknown. However, confusion and ambiguity often emerge while providing art therapy services. A graduate art therapy program in a major...

A pilot study conducted to measure the effects of art therapy with prison inmates (Gussak, 2004) demonstrated marked improvement in mood. The results of this study encouraged a quantitative follow-up study the following year. This study used the Formal Elements Art Therapy Scale (FEATS) and the Beck Depression Inventory-Short Form (BDI-II) as pre a...

The purpose of art therapy supervision in an educational setting has traditionally been seen as an opportunity to help interns adjust to and learn from their placement sites, understand their clients, develop an understanding of themselves in relation to their work, and translate theory into practice (Dye & Borders, 1990; Hawkins & Shoret, 1989; Ma...

This poster session will present a unique collaboration of art therapy with instructional technology through the use of animated agents as a computer-based medium in art therapy. By constructing agents as an extension of themselves, clients can progress toward self-learning, and the therapist can use the agents as a projective tool to better unders...

Investigation and intervention in forensic art therapy are distinct and separate entities that are predicated upon specified goals and objectives. The predilection to integrate these two entities can serve to foster misunderstanding, fusion of ideology, and a lack of role division. Descriptions for and explanations of Forensic Art Therapy (FAT), an...

Typescript (photocopy). Thesis (Ph. D.)--Emporia State University, 2001. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-142).

This essay explores a view of professions, invisible colleges, disciplines, and the diffusion of ideas. This discussion leads to the author's opinion that art therapy is a discipline around ideas, while art therapists are professionals. (Author/MKA)

This brief report outlines what the authors see as fundamental issues: How computers provide a transactional space in the art therapy process, and how they can be used to support the interpersonal work that characterizes art therapy. However, there are some cautions. Because computers are a set of predetermined programs, they tend to standardize pr...

The purpose of clinical outcomes assessment is well recognized by allied health professionals, but several obstacles have impeded the conduct of such research in the allied health professions. Many professionals have difficulty in determining how to begin. To explore the research possibilities already available within the health care environment, a...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Emporia State University, 2001. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-142). Microfiche.