Dr. Unnur Óttarsdóttir founded Art Therapy Ottarsdottir in 1991 where she has served as director, art therapist, teacher and supervisor. Óttarsdóttir has, among other things, specialized in art therapy for individuals who have experienced trauma. She has also worked with art therapy for a variety of institutions and organizations.
Unnur Óttarsdóttir received a doctoral degree from the University of Hertfordshire in 2006, finished a master’s degree in art therapy from the Pratt Institute in 1991, and a B.Ed. degree from Iceland College of Education in 1986. In addition, Óttarsdóttir has a BA and master’s in visual art from the Iceland University of the Arts.
Unnur Óttarsdóttir is a pioneer of the art educational therapy method, globally. She has developed and researched the therapeutic methods where artistic expression is used for both psychotherapy and education.
In 2000, Unnur Óttarsdóttir conducted a research that involved 134 children where the impact of drawing on memory was studied. The findings showed that the children generally remember words that they had drawn better than words they had written. Three weeks after the original they could in general recall two and a half times more words that were drawn in contrast to words written the traditional way. When the study was carried out it was the first systematic study of its kind that compared the impact of drawings and words on memory. Nine weeks after the original memorization, some of the children were asked to recall the words, without any recall in that time period, and the results showed that the children recalled a median of five times more words they had drawn than the ones they had written. To the best of knowledge, the study remains still today the only one that has investigated such longitudinal impact of drawing on long-term memory.
Unnur Óttarsdóttir has worked in a preschool, secondary schools and a high school as a teacher, special education teacher and art therapist. She is a part-time lecturer at the Iceland University of the Arts and teaches art therapy in the continuing education programme at the University of Akureyri. She has organized numerous courses for specialists and professionals from a variety of institutions, e.g. the Reykjavík City Department of Sports of Leisure, Iceland College of Preschool Teachers, the Continuing Education Centre, University of Hertfordshire, and the Art Therapy Association Romania. Óttarsdóttir has also held a number of talks and lectures on art therapy and art educational therapy at conferences in various universities and institutions, both in Iceland as well as abroad. Óttarsdóttir will teach art therapy in in Art Therapy Italiana.
Unnur Óttarsdóttir sat on the board of the Icelandic Art Therapy Association, serving as chairman and cashier, in the years 2004-2013. She acted as representative of the Icelandic Art Therapy Association in a University of Akureyri committee which focused on art therapy education. She is also member of the American Art Therapy Association, registered as an art therapist (ATR).
Óttarsdóttir is an active researcher and academic within the Reykjavík Academy. She has authored peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on art educational therapy and memory drawings. Óttarsdóttir’s research subjects are art educational therapy and art therapy for individuals who have experienced trauma, drawings and memory, as well as the relationship between contemporary art and art therapy.
Óttarsdóttir has received funding for a host of projects, research and development projects. She is member of a steering committee for an international project funded by the European Union and led by the Iceland University of the Arts, which seeks to develop a curriculum that will apply art and interdisciplinary cooperation to facilitate well-being and strengthen social inclusion. Óttarsdóttir has also sat on the board of an evaluation committee that selects lecturers for an international research forum. She has been part of a committee that revolves around the allocation of research funding. She has participated in preparatory teams for conferences and university courses. Óttarsdóttir has moderated a forum that focused on the future of research and theory. She is a peer reviewer at ATOL: Art Therapy OnLine journal. Óttarsdóttir has both supervised master’s students in art education and been a master’s thesis examiner.
