Art Therapy
Art therapy utilizes art and the creative process as a way to facilitate self-expression, communication, and psychological healing.
Research supports the use of art therapy for mental health concerns such as depression and anxiety, coping with physical illness, increasing self-esteem, cultivating emotional resilience, and processing difficult emotions.
Art therapy is open to all people regardless of artistic expertise. No art background or skill is needed. The focus is more on the process than the product. Art therapy interventions can easily take place during online sessions.
“Through integrative methods, art therapy engages the mind, body, and spirit in ways that are distinct from verbal articulation alone…Visual and symbolic expression gives voice to experience, and empowers individual, communal, and societal transformation.”
~American Art Therapy Association, 2020
Indigenous peoples began creating art at least 40,000 years ago.
The arts in the pre-modern era often occurred within the context of rituals that marked important life events.
These ceremonies took place at times of transition between different states such as birth, marriage, wartime, sickness, death, and rites of passage. At these moments of great uncertainty the arts give us the ability to shape and bring esthetic beauty and meaning to the unpredictability of everyday life. In traditional situations, everyone participated in these artistic experiences, no one stood back and merely watched or listened (Dissanayake, 2013).
Art as Therapy
Today in our society involvement in the arts are often relegated to people who are uniquely talented and highly trained. However, the therapeutic role of the arts in alleviating suffering and in resolving emotional conflict predates the idea of the professional individual artist by thousands of years.
I believe the practice of art is a way for all of us to reclaim our ancestral connection to a life-sustaining source of health and creativity.
Online Art Therapy
Art Therapy sessions can easily take place long distance. I can recommend simple and inexpensive art supplies that can be purchased for home use. Including art in a session could be as accessible as making a drawing of lines, shapes and colors as a way to express feelings.
During your session you may choose to use art materials such as pencil, pen, chalk, paint or other media. No skill or previous experience in art is needed. Many people find it calming to work on making a creative project during a session as they talk.
Creating artwork can also be an excellent way to express and safely contain emotions or experiences that feel overwhelming. Clients may photograph the artwork they create during a video session and text or email it to me or I might ask their permission to take a screen shot of it so that we can more easily discuss it.
You might also choose to make art in between sessions that you can photograph and send to me so that we can discuss it in future meetings.
“I contain multitudes.”
~Walt Whitman
Start Your Journey
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