Who She Is
Girija Kaimal is an art therapist and researcher at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She earned a design degree from the National Institute of Design in India, a master’s degree in art therapy from Drexel, and a doctorate from Harvard University. Her research lab studies how making art affects people’s bodies, brains, and feelings, from measuring stress hormones before and after art-making, to tracking blood flow in the brain during coloring and doodling, to testing virtual reality as an art therapy tool. She has also studied masks made by 370 service members in an art therapy program at Walter Reed. She served as president of the American Art Therapy Association and wrote a book, The Expressive Instinct, about why people create.
Why She Matters
Art therapy has long relied on the judgment of trained therapists, and Kaimal’s research adds measurements to that picture. Evidence of this kind can influence whether hospitals, schools, and insurers choose to support art therapy. Her findings also suggest that the benefits of making art do not depend on artistic skill, which opens the practice to people who do not think of themselves as artists. Her career points toward an art therapy that can explain how and why it helps.
