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Art is „the meeting ground of the world inside and the world outside” (Ulman, 1996), this is an expressive metaphor to identify the arguments of the liaison between the social work and art therapy. Both of them are spaces of confluences and interactions; through specific modalities, they fulfill the same basic functions: recovery, facilitating access to development resources, education, strengthening the protective factors and improvement of the social functioning of the individuals, families, groups and communities. Finally, each of the two types of activities are governed by values and ethical principles, the most common, whose operationalization is a condition for accomplishing their own missions, both for social work and the art therapy. The respect for the dignity and uniqueness of the individual, the pragmatism and confidentiality, self-determination, form the common axiological foundation for the social work and art therapy. Of the values and ethical principles characteristic for the art therapy, we will analyze the creativity, because in the common ground, both social work and art therapy draw upon the creativity mediation potential. We will try to illustrate the versatility of the creativity that makes of itself a resource and a tool for the artistic expression, and on another hand, allows it to act as a facilitator, as discreet as it is productive for the operationalization of other ethical values, such as dignity and autonomy.
Keywords: social work, art therapy, creativity, ethical principles, empowerment
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