For years, art therapy has been used for treatment, both in the mental health and criminal justice arenas. Now Tallahassee could soon become a major player in the art therapy universe.
There's a new institute at Florida State University. But the guy in charge, David Gussack, said you'd be hard-pressed to find it on a map of the campus.
"I've become the director for this newly-instituted FSU institute for the Arts and Art Therapy with the Imprisoned. And there isn't actually a facility. When we started developing this, I was asked, 'What space do you need for this?' And I said, 'I don't need space. We're going to be in all the prisons. They've already built the spaces.'"
David Gussack has literally written the book - actually several of them - about the effectiveness of art therapy when it comes to mental health and criminal rehab. Gussack sees the new institute as a way to combine and extend that capability.
"A colleague of mine when I was talking to her about calling it 'with the imprisoned,' she said, 'I love this idea! This just opens it up to everybody and anybody who at one time or another felt imprisoned in some way. And so we can explore how the arts help (to) open that up and create a sense of freedom.'"
Another aspect, Gussack said, is providing more therapeutic services to places that haven't had it. He says he’s been in talks with Jay Reeve, the director of the Apalachee Center. It provides regional mental health resources in North Florida.
"He and I met about this possibility of bringing art therapies into the forensic systems that he's built through the Apalachee Center, reaching to those more rural areas that otherwise don't have the funding for those sources."
As to art therapy in the prison system, Gussack said the Florida Department of Corrections actually approached him about it several years ago. Since then, the Madison Correctional Facility has become a model for the program. Some inmates there have become instructors and many show their work at prison art shows.
"We're going to be doing another show at Madison Correctional at the visitors' center. We just did one at 621 (Gallery in Railroad Square) and we'll have some shows coming up in the next year or two from Madison. But the Art Therapy in Prisons program continues to expand."
Especially now with the full backing of Florida State University and many other partners. Gussack said marshalling all of those into a well-connected resource is his top priority.
"Instead of me talking to each person - you need to talk to this person, you need to talk to that person - let's bring them all together and create this network of everybody working together to bring the arts inside to help make these changes. And ultimately what I'm hoping happens is that I put myself out of a job."
At least for the time being, that's David Gussack. The director of the new FSU Institute for the Arts and Art Therapy with the Imprisoned.
