July 14, 2014

The Myra Levick Award for Excellence in Art Therapy was recently established in honor of Myra Levick, a cherished member of the Drexel College of Nursing and Health Professions community. A psychologist and psychotherapist, Levick was instrumental in the development of the first graduate training program in the creative arts therapies at Drexel, then Hahnemann University. She continued as a professor and Director of the Creative Arts Therapies Program until she moved to Florida in the mid-1980s.

The new Myra Levick Award was created to celebrate the innovative contributions that Levick made to the field of art therapy for more than 50 years. In addition to her critical work at Drexel, she was a founder and the first president of the American Art Therapy Association and is Editor-in-Chief-Emeritus of the international journal Arts in Psychotherapy. She serves on the advisory board of the American Art Therapy Association and is a qualified expert witness in five states.

The Myra Levick Award for Excellence in Art Therapy is given to three pioneering art therapists, as determined by senior art therapists and the art therapy community. Don Jones, Mickie McGraw, and Edith Kramer were named the 2014 recipients of the award.

Don Jones brought art therapy to the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, and revolutionized their approach to the treatment of mental illness in the process. Jones is a founding member of the American Art Therapy Association.

Mickie McGraw was also named a recipient of the Myra Levick Award for her pioneering work in developing art therapy for the disabled.

Finally, Edith Kramer was given the award posthumously. Her award description reads, “for her role as an artist and art therapist whose ability to communicate with troubled children through art is a treasured legacy of a pioneer in our field. Her idea of art as therapy with her emphasis on the creative process itself as healing is a major contribution to art therapy theory.”

Please send inquiries and comments regarding the Myra Levick Award for Excellence in Art Therapy to MyraLevickAward@gmail.com