
Background
Michal Bat Or, PhD is a certified art therapist, an Associate Professor, and a researcher at the School of Creative Arts Therapies, University of Haifa, Israel. Dr. Bat Or supervises M.A. and Ph.D. students.
Michal’s research areas include art therapy, working alliance in art-therapy, the open studio art-therapy approach, parental representations through clay sculptures, art therapy for trauma and loss, community-based art therapy, and art-based assessments: Person Picking an Apple from a Tree, and the Bridge drawing.
Research methods: qualitative, quantitative, mix-methods, and participatory action research. Bat Or developed few research tools: AT-WAI, SC-PPAT & NA-PPAT.
Bat Or is a researcher at The Emili Sagol Creative Arts Therapies Research Center and serves on the editorial board of Art Therapy Journal
Publications
Google Scholar profile:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=oUNPo9YAAAAJ&hl=iw
Frontiers loop profile: https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/555432/overview
ORCID ID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1859-1112
Research
The study of art-based assessments tools, as unique methods for art-therapists in evaluating the client’s strengths and difficulties, mostly during the first stage of therapy. I had developed a quantitative rating system for scoring PPAT (Person Picking an Apple , Gantt, 1990), the Symbolic Content of PPAT, and validated it within two research projects in Israel [n=126 (D5, D6), N=215 (D7, D9)], and within two research projects in Crete [N=800, N=120]). My collaboration with professionals from the University of Crete is an active and fruitful. Our rating system captures quantitatively the visual narrative, and thus contributes to the study of projective drawings. I also analyses PPAT drawings of clinical samples with qualitative methods as well (K4). Currently we collect PPAT drawings of high-risk adolescents in Israel, and search after content and narrative validation, through self-reported tools.
Together with prof. Zilcha-Mano we developed a self reported questionnaire measuring the art therapy working alliance. This year we have been conducting a research for measuring the main factors in this innovating concept
The study of professional development of art therapist in Israel: A pioneer study was conducted about the professional development of Israeli art therapists, and in specific, their personal therapy, and preference of a theoretical model (K5). For this project we have developed specific self-questionnaires.
For the contribution to the parental representations and mentalization, the study of clay parent-child method included also fathers (K3) and mothers to Autistic children. In these projects our efforts are to deepen the theory and art therapy practice in this domain.
Finally, due to my former experience in working in group-therapy of bereaved parents, and group-therapy for widows and orphans, in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, I have started to explore the therapeutic qualities of art for people who experienced the loss of a loved one by qualitative methods. By interviewing art therapists that work with the bereaved, we hope to gain insights about the dynamics of art therapy with this population.
More
Community work and activism
Michal is an active art therapist in a private practice, and the head of two open-studios in the community for at-risk children and youth: In a boarding school Kfar Hayeladim Karmiel, . Michal is the author and illustrator of three children’s books, two of them deals with peace among Arabs-Palestinians and Israelis
Publications
1. Mayseless, O., Scharf, M., & Sholt, M. (2003). From authoritative parenting practices to an authoritarian context: exploring the person- environment fit, Journal of Research on Adolescence, 13(4), 427-456.
ההרשמה לשנת הלימודים תשפ”ז סגורה.
ההרשמה לשנת הלימודים תשפ”ח תחל בפברואר 2027 ותימשך עד תחילת מאי 2027.
תאריכים מדויקים יפורטו בהמשך.
הצוות המנהלי בביה”ס לטיפול באמצעות אמנויות