The Art Therapy
Art therapy involves the use of creative techniques such as drawing, painting, collage, coloring, or sculpting to help people express themselves artistically and examine the psychological and emotional undertones in their art.
The field, available to children and adults of all backgrounds and circumstances, opens up avenues of communication that extend beyond verbal language, exploring feelings that cannot be spoken.
Expressive art therapy is the use of creative arts as a form of therapy and is a fantastic field that has proven to work wonders in many people’s lives. It can help someone express themselves, explore their emotions, manage addictions, and improve their self-esteem.
It really helps children with developmental disabilities, however; art therapy is awesome because it can help anyone!
When It's Necessary
Art therapy helps children, adolescents, and adults explore their emotions, improve self-esteem, manage addictions, relieve stress, improve symptoms of anxiety and depression, and cope with a physical illness or disability.
No artistic talent is necessary for art therapy to succeed, because the therapeutic process is not about the artistic value of the work, but rather about finding associations between the creative choices made and a client's inner life.
The artwork can be used as a springboard for reawakening memories and telling stories that may reveal messages and beliefs from the unconscious mind.
What to expect
Helps children, adolescents, and adults explore their emotions, improve self-esteem, manage addictions, relieve stress, improve symptoms of anxiety and depression, and cope with a physical illness or disability.
Art therapy can be used to treat a wide range of mental disorders and psychological distress. In many cases, it might be used in conjunction with other psychotherapy techniques such as group therapy or cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Some situations in which art therapy might be utilised include:
-Children with learning disabilities
-Adults experiencing severe stress
-Children suffering from behavioral or social problems at school or at home
-People experiencing mental health problems
-Individuals suffering from a brain injury
-Children or adults who have experienced a traumatic event
How It Works
Art therapy is founded on the belief that self-expression through artistic creation has therapeutic value for those who are healing or seeking deeper understanding of themselves and their personalities.
Besides helping someone better their emotional being, art therapy is great for many other things. It can help general illness. Art is a fabulous escape from feeling icky.
Art therapy can help someone who has a cancer diagnosis. Battling cancer takes both a very physical and emotional toll, and is even a struggle accepting the diagnosis. Art and dance are powerful expressions of these emotions, and can help relieve a lot of stress, anger, and sadness.
Someone in need of therapy to have some relief after a disaster would also be an excellent candidate for artistic therapy.
Children
Children are naturally creative, and it is usually easier for them to draw a picture as opposed to answering questions directly.
They may be reluctant or even hostile about discussing certain topics.
Creating artwork is a non-threatening venue that allows kids to tackle tough issues in a creative way.
Art therapy can be helpful to assist children with a number of issues including:
Death of a family member or friend
Childhood trauma involving physical, mental, or sexual abuse
Emotional issues like fear of abandonment or phobias
Treating mental disorders such as depression
Understand and treat behavioral problems
Adults
Art therapy ideas for adults are proven helpful for adults to express creatively what they feel and things they want to address.
It is usually used in order to improve a person’s mental and emotional well-being and it’s also a way to relieve tension, stress and it can also be used for self-discovery.
Art therapy can be classified into two types; it can be creative or expressive art therapy. Expressive art therapy makes use of different art materials like chalk, markers and paints.
It combines the traditional psychotherapeutic techniques and theories.
Creative art therapy is also designed to increase awareness for other and for self.
This helps in promoting personal development, improve cognitive function and increases coping skills.
Creative art therapy is based on human development, art education, personality theories and psychology.