The American Art Therapy Association (AATA) describes Art Therapy as "a mental health profession that uses the creative process of art makng to improve and enhance the physical, mental and emotional well-being of individuals of all ages. It is based on the belief that the creative process involved in artistic self-expression helps people to resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, manage behavior, reduce stress, increase self-esteem and self-awareness, and achieve insight."
How Art Therapy Works
An Art Therapist uses a variety of art methods - drawing, painting, sculpture, and collage with clients of all ages, from young children to the elderly. Clients may have experienced emotional trauma, physical violence, domestic abuse, anxiety, depression, and other psychological issues and stresses. The benefits of creative expression serve as an adjunct to the healing process by focusing on inner experience, feelings, perceptions, and imagination. Emphasis is on the development and expression of images that come from inside, and not from what is seen on the outside.
Anxiety and Mental Issues Are Real
Reaching out to understand why starts with understanding that turmoil exists within.
Art therapy has a way of unraveling emotional pain through verbal and visual expression.
Talking is never motionless. Our hands are expressive tools.
Ears hear the words struggling to be found, but all-the-while the hands are painting an invisible visual.
Hand motions have a way to expressinve trauma and pain, assertiveness, stress, frustration, and imagery begging to be told.
Art, in any form, allows that expression to appear and interpret the power of the gesture.
Images, colors, the stroke of a paintbrush, or the smudge of a pastel, begin to emerge in tandem with the heart and mind.
The hands will begin to speak, express, and identify what was difficult to verbalize. As that inner pain surfaces, dialogue flows.
The pain begins to unravel!