This study was researched to develop a group art therapy program to decrease the
perfectionism of middle-school students and to test its effectiveness. Also this study was
intended to examine whether the developed program can be applied at schools.
The targets of the main research were 40 second-grade middle-school students who were
willing to participate in this test. They were selected from the high 30 percentile of
perfectionism among second-graders. The 40 students were divided into two groups, 20
students each. The 20 student group was divided again into two groups, the test group and
the control group, 10 students a group. The group art therapy program was carried out
after school for 7 months 2 to 3 times per week over 20 sessions, each session lasting 90
to 120 minutes.
In order to verify the effectiveness of the program, MPS(Multidimensional Perfectionism
Scale), was chosen as a quantitative analytical tool and pre-post repeated dispersion
measure was made to compare the average differences of each group. For qualitative
analysis, the observation of behavioral and emotional change of the participants and the
group process evaluation were carried out each session.
The study result could be summarized as below.
First, the group art therapy program was effective in decreasing the perfectionism of the
middle- school students with high perfectionism.
Second, the middle-school students with high perfectionism showed a positive change in
their emotion and behavior during each session.
Third, the evaluation and the response of the middle-school students with high perfectionism to the group art therapy was very positive.
Therefore, this program which was developed as an alternative to lower the perfectionism
of the middle-school students is expected to be effectively applied at middle-schools.
Key Words : Maladaptive perfectionism, Group art therapy program, Middle school students