JOAN KELLOGG AND THE MARI®

The story of how the MARI developed begins with Joan Kellogg (Registered Art Therapist, 1974; Master of Arts in Psychology in Counseling, 1978), the creator and director of the MARI (Mandala Assessment Research Institute).

Joan began her professional career in the arts by studying painting with Liz Quizard. She originally thought of herself as a ‘colorist and specialized in abstract paintings.

After painting and entering juried shows for several years, Joan states, “I began to think of teaching, and I read a lot of Carl Jung’s work…And I began to paint in the form of mandalas.”  Drawing a daily Mandala, Jung believed that the unconscious could be revealed.  Influenced by his work, Joan’s conversion of using mandalas as a therapeutic tool began to emerge. Guided by her belief Joan began her journey into the clinical world.

In 1969, Joan was invited to attend psychosynthesis meetings and lectures where she found the new research to be fascinating. In addition, she began to explore the concepts of the newly emerging field of Art Therapy. She went, with portfolio in hand, to a nearby institution, Christian Sanatorium in

Wyckoff

,

NJ

, to learn how to explore training in this field. The Director invited her to "learn through doing."As a volunteer within the Occupational Therapy Department, she began her own educational process in familiarizing herself with how various disorders were mirrored in art.  Joan states, "It was here that art therapy with the mandala began for me".

Between the years of 1969-1977, Joan, with a singular focus, worked on the relation between art therapy and the mandala. At the invitation of Stanislav Grof, MD, Chief of Psychiatric Research, she was a consultant to the Art Therapy Research Project at the

Maryland

Psychiatric

Center

. Research subjects included alcoholic, cancer, neurotic, and professional training candidates.  In addition, Joan initiated a research project at

Johns

Hopkins

Hospital

using the mandala as an indicator of physiological and/or psychological change in the treatment of disorders.  Through the years Joan had a private practice in which she served as a consultant to clinicians in projective testing with the mandala.

Through Joan’s intuitive and creative process of interpreting mandalas, patterns of symbols began to emerge.  Her genius made the wonderful leap of placing those patterns into a system of assessment known as The Great Round.

In 1977, Joan developed a projective test titled, "Joan Kellogg Mandala Card Test," based on experiences with Mandala art products.  Research was conducted in various clinical settings with this test.  She endeavored to measure changes, pre- and post-treatment, along with conventional psychological tests.

In 1980, Joan published her Master's thesis, with modifications, Mandala: Path of Beauty.

Since 1987, courses in Mandala Assessment using the MARI® technique have been taught by certified MARI instructors.

On

January 25, 2004

, Joan Kellogg passed away. On

March 1, 2005

, all rights to the MARI®, as created and directed by Joan Kellogg, have been transferred by the Joan Kellogg Estate to MARI Resources, LLC, based in

Raleigh

,

NC

. Michele (Shelley) Takei is the president of MARI Resources. She oversees and has further developed the three MARI® levels of instruction which cover interpreting mandalas, stages of the Great Round, and the meaning of symbols and color at each stage.