WHAT DOES ARTS THERAPY INVOLVE?
Arts therapy involves an arts therapy participant and a registered clinical arts therapist working through creative processes and making art about personal experiences.
What sorts of art processes are used?
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Creative processes used in session involve acrylic paint, water colour paint, oil paint, chalk pastel, oil pastel, pencils, felt markers, paper collage, clay, play dough, plastecine, natural materials, craft materials, jewellery, miniature figurines, sand tray, movement and visualisation.
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What is an arts therapy session like?
Sessions take place in an art studio, sessions are often an hour long, and like counselling sessions, often run weekly or fortnightly. Arts therapy is often focused more on creative processes than on a final product, and so a session is less like an art class and more like a session of counselling.
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HOW DOES ARTS THERAPY WORK?
The art images and creative processes in an arts therapy session are a way of expressing what is going on inside our mind and emotions. This is similar to the use of verbal expression in talk-based therapy; in arts therapy creative images are visual expressions of our inner experiences. Then via further creative processing and reflection we can gain new understandings and perspectives on these experiences and start to increase our well-being.
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Making images of this allows us firstly to:
express, acknowledge, experience, clarify, contain, externalise, expell aspects of our inner experience of the world.
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Further creative work with our images then allows us to:
understand, respond to, accept, reject, explore, remember, practice, modify, deepen, integrate, grieve, and resolve these aspects of our inner experience.
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This then allows us to build up personal resources including:
resilience, emotional awareness, emotional capacity, self reflection, self soothing skills, problem solving, creative thinking, sense of identity, confidence, trust, sense of safety, connection to self and world, processing of grief, and management of difficult emotions.
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WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM ARTS THERAPY?
Arts therapy is a powerful therapeutic tool for all ages; for children, teens, adults, and seniors. It is effective in areas including anxiety, depression, grief, emotional regulation, self-care, behaviour management, anger management, and trauma, amongst others. Arts therapy is beneficial for teens and adults who suffer in these areas.
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Arts therapy is suited to children experiencing emotional and behavioural challenges at school, those who are having trouble coping with changing situations at home, or those who are have experienced childhood trauma. Arts therapy can be very effective with children as it is a gentle and creative way of working with topics that can be overwhelming for young people to talk about directly.
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Arts therapy is suited to those suffering from physical and cognitive challenges that impede their quality of life. Arts therapy is also effective in supporting people with unclear, complex or undiagnosed health and well-being experiences.
WHAT DOES A SESSION LOOK LIKE?
Our arts therapy sessions often start with verbal discussion and a check-in about recent experiences and personal progress. The arts therapist may then invite the participant into creative processes, called therapeutic interventions, where art images are made and shared. Here client and therapist may explore an experience, theme, thought or feeling. Interventions may be more directive, or may be client-led, with many different processes occurring depending on the nature of the participant's goals.
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After art making there is often a period of reflection and discussion. Here the arts therapist may guide reflective and creative processes to bring out responses and reflections. In this way, as the participant's creative expression moves from a creative form, which is often intuitive and aesthetic, to a more cognitive and verbal form, clients are able to solidify their new understanding, and take this creative and personal learning back to daily life.
