Patricia Quinn

I attribute my success to adversity. It really is true. I really struggled with the MFA program at Ohio University, and shortly after, coincidentally came to learn about art therapy, and immediately responded to it. My tolerance, my energy level for working so hard on the very small staff on the evening shift of an inpatient addiction unit caused me to take an early retirement and go into private practice, and it was wonderful, and it really freed up my energy then to get more involved in governmental affairs and getting down to writing about some of the things that I was experiencing and seeing. The last piece of adversity that comes to mind is that I actually, right before I did retire, I had a set of cancers, just unrelated, one after another, and I realized I really had to retire in order to live, and that was like 20 years ago. So it was a good move, but it was really through the adversity. I would have continued working there because I loved the work, but the demands were really rigorous.

The best career advice I ever received was from my painting teacher, and he gave this advice by example. That was, find the thing that you love to do, and do it really well. I tell art therapists all the time, and people who are interested in the field, that there are a lot of people who don't know anything about art therapy, and there are a lot of people who just out and out reject the viability of art therapy. But pay no mind, because it really works, and it provides an alternate path for people to communicate, not only to the therapist, but to themselves.

I always encourage people that even if you don't see the job, the ideal job that you want, look into some of the places that are around you, and some of the things you've experienced, and just put yourself out there. Make inquiries, talk to people about what you've learned and how it can be helpful. I think the personal connection is important and sort of in danger of losing that with online applications. Just go for it, and also to not necessarily turn down jobs that don't appeal to you, because I really did not want to work in the addiction field. I just wanted to just work with children. But it was such a rich learning experience, and something I've really developed a lot of respect for. You just never know where you grow where you're planted, and it can really pan out to be, in my case, to feel like it's exactly where I was supposed to be. My other advice would be love what you're doing, have fun, and write and publish.

The biggest challenge really is lobbyists. My sense is that even though the New York art therapists had to hire a lobbyist, it's because of the lobbying of other professions. Since the institution of insurance companies trying to limit the amount of what they call managed care, it really restricted so much treatment, and it affected fields. Now we have a new challenge where we've got the government saying that they're going to limit how much money that they can loan people, and they also limited a great degree of what they consider a professional license, which is really shocking. With insurance being one lobby, and other professions all coming from that place of scarcity that kind of shocked the healthcare system in the 1980s, it actually diverted a lot of health and money in a whole other direction away from patients. Blue Shield used to be a non-for-profit, and now they're for-profit, and all of the insurers are for-profit. The healthcare field is in trouble. The addiction treatment field, the fields of psychology, they all move very slowly. But the people on the lines are the ones making the difference.

I find honesty, especially in working with addictions, or so many different kinds of addictions, not just substance addictions, to really help people and help myself to face things that are difficult. Being honest if I need more help with something, or I need more information, or I need to change something. I think honesty is something that you just can never underrate. It can't be overrated, I guess, is the way to say it.