What is Art Therapy?
Art therapy is a neuroscience-backed therapeutic modality that uses engagement with the creative process, as well as reactions to artwork and imagery, for the purposes of healing and growth. Art therapy is led by an art therapist, which, in the US, means that they go through a master’s program with art therapy and hold a national credential with the Art Therapy Credentials Board.
Who is Art Therapy for?
You do not need to be an artist, possess any artistic skill, or have any background in art to benefit from art therapy. A person who will benefit from art therapy is anyone who is curious and open-minded about utilizing art for the purpose of healing. This can mean either engaging in artmaking or responding to art, imagery, or metaphor. This person may want to explore their unconscious patterns, uncover feelings that are hard to reach with words, or learn to express themselves and process experiences in a new way.
What is Art Therapy good for?
- Gaining clarity on a specific area of your life
- Help working through complex emotions
- Healing from traumatic experiences such as grief and loss
- Creating a life aligned with your values
- Unlearning protective habits that no longer serve you
- Learning strategies for emotional regulation and challenging negative thought patterns
- Addressing challenges with self-worth, confidence, and self-advocacy
- Reducing stress
Why does Art Therapy work?
Art has the ability to hold conflicting ideas and anchor that uniqueness in a physical form we can see and manipulate. It offers a place for complexity to rest.
Artmaking gives clients a tangible way to view life challenges in an object outside themselves. The resulting psychological distance can provide new perspectives and make challenges less scary and easier to confront. This distance can help people uncover, communicate, and express new ideas and discoveries about themselves, their lives, and their relationships with the world around them.
There is healing inherent through being active in the creative process. Artmaking often includes body movement, sensory experiences, and offers opportunities for repetitive movements that help induce deep focus and mindfulness.
Art offers containment and expansion of emotion through the physical qualities of the art materials utilized.
Artmaking allows clients to choose a pace for themselves that feels safe and that allows for healing through remaining in a state of regulation that allows them to move forward.
The artistic process readily engages both hemispheres of the brain. Activating both hemispheres simultaneously can help get people “unstuck” and aid in the integration of memories and emotions (Tripp, 2016).
Artmaking invites high levels of bodily and sensory engagement (Hinz, 2009). Paying attention to our bodies and senses is crucial in the development of self-awareness and emotional regulation (National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, 2021).
Experiences of trauma can shut off the part of the brain that puts words to experiences (van der Kolk, 2014). Art therapy provides therapeutic access for clients who may not have access to verbal means of expression, or who simply prefer non-verbal avenues.
What does Art Therapy look like?
Art therapy can take many different forms, depending on each client’s wants and needs. Here are some examples of art therapy work:
- Creation of art in session for purposes of developing self-awareness, mindfulness, or emotional regulation skills
- Using symbol and metaphor to make sense of and process life challenges
- Noticing the artwork, imagery, stories, and music a client reacts to as a way to uncover layers of emotional experience
- Using images as a springboard for therapeutic conversation
- Discussion of client artwork from between sessions
- Creation of narrative, poetry, or other writing
- You may engage with your art therapist in a conversation using images rather than words
- Use of creative body posturing and movement for somatic release and expression
References
Hinz, L.D. (2009). Expressive therapies continuum: A framework for using art in therapy. Routledge.
National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine. (2021, August 20). How to work with the limbic system to reverse the physiological imprint of trauma [Webinar]. Treating Trauma Master Series.
Tripp, T. (2016). A body-based bilateral art protocol for reprocessing trauma. In J.L. King (Ed.), Art therapy, trauma, and neuroscience: Theoretical and practical perspectives (pp. 173 194). Routledge.
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.