Art Therapy

Can It Really Help?

Art therapy? Just what is it? Is it a real, acknowledged form of psychiatry or more fluff science? Back in May of this year, I covered the topic of art and its ties to brain health. Not only is art beneficial to the average person’s brain health, it is also highly effective in treating those “experiencing developmental, medical, educational, and social or psychological impairment. Individuals who benefit from art therapy include those who have survived trauma resulting from combat, abuse, and natural and manmade disasters; persons with adverse physical health conditions such as cancer, traumatic brain injury, and other health disability; and persons with autism, dementia, depression, and other disorders. Art therapy helps people resolve conflicts, improve interpersonal skills, manage problematic behaviors, reduce negative stress, and achieve personal insight. Art therapy also provides an opportunity to enjoy the life-affirming pleasures of art making.”

Are Art Therapists Real Therapists?

Concern as to a therapist’s qualifications is understandable. You wouldn’t want to go to just anyone or send a loved one to any old hack. So just what do art therapists do and how are they qualified?

“Art therapists are trained in both therapy and art, and have studied and mastered both psychology and human development, having received a Master’s Degree. There are various requirements for becoming an art therapist as well as certifications which means they are masters when it comes to using art as a springboard for everything from a general assessment of another person’s state to treatment for aiding serious illness. Art therapists can work with people of all ages, sex, creed, et al. They can help an individual, a couple, a family, or groups of people and depending on the situation, there may be numerous therapists working together as a clinical team.

Art therapists are trained to pick up on nonverbal symbols and metaphors that are often expressed through art and the creative process, concepts that are usually difficult to express with words. It is through this process that the individual really begins to see the effects of art therapy and the discoveries that can be made.”

How Does It Work?

In the same way that music can have a very direct effect on our moods and state of well-being, expressing oneself through art can be just as effective, often times having a profound impact on how an individual processes their emotions. In terms of trauma or abuse, our minds often shut down and close in around the traumatic event memories. For many people, especially children, they don’t possess the vocabulary to describe or articulate what they’ve been through. Part of what is beneficial about seeing a therapist is that you can safely externalize what’s happened to you through speaking about it. But what happens when you can’t find the words to do so?  In my post about Adult Coloring Books, I briefly covered the history of art therapy. While some individuals might not have the words to describe things, they certainly do have mental images. Art therapy provides a way to get these images out, a way to externalize them and begin the process of healing.

UK Combat Stress group. ‘Sessions begin with a quick creative session to get thoughts and images down on paper.’

Once they’ve gotten the images out, the patient can then begin to describe their artwork, explaining bit by bit each part of their drawing. In this way, they can begin verbalizing their trauma. It also seems to be easier to describe the artwork. It’s a thing outside of themselves. But indirectly, the mind makes the connection and in describing this artwork, it understands that it is also verbalizing internalized emotions. One such program in the UK called, Combat Stress has been very successful in treating vets with PTSD. For many of them, they are unwilling or unable to talk about what they’ve seen and what they’ve been through. This distances them and alienates them from their loved ones. Programs like this have given them a safe haven where they’re among others who have been through similar experiences and have given them a means to externalize the horrors of war.

And according to Psychology Today… “Much of art therapy’s value as a form of trauma intervention is predicated on two principles. First, based on recent developments in neurobiology and posttraumatic stress, art therapy is often defined as a form of “sensory-based” intervention (Malchiodi, 2003; 2008; Steele & Malchiodi, 2012); that is, it provides purposeful psychotherapeutic experiences that capitalize on the body’s senses in ways that verbal psychotherapy does not. In other words, by tapping the senses (in this case, through the visual, tactile and kinesthetic aspects of art making), traumatic memories can be retrieved and with further psychotherapeutic interactions, restructured and repaired. Second, there is some evidence that art therapy may help to reconnect feeling (implicit memories) with thinking (explicit memories), a process that may reduce posttraumatic stress reactions (Malchiodi, 2003; Steele & Raider, 2001).”

Personal Experience

From a very personal point of view, art has helped me deal with life more times than I can count. Most of it was by my own doing and not in a therapist’s office. But there was one experience in which the therapist was not understanding the full scope of the turmoil that I felt on a daily basis. Hours were spent trying to draw me out. Was it rooted in molestation, abuse, trauma, etc.? The answer was always no, to all of the above. But still I felt all of these things, all mixed up, all at the same time. And even though she was not an art therapist, she took a pad of paper and a pencil and handed it over and asked me to draw what I felt. I stared at the paper and pencil, shook my head and handed it back to her. I couldn’t draw what I felt in the short amount of time I had sitting there on her couch.  I did however, promise to bring a drawing back the following week. Inspired by the art of comic books, this is the drawing I handed to her…

Self Portrait, Myra Naito, 1992

A strange thing happened while I worked on this self-portrait. Even though I basically copied the artwork from artists like Jim Lee right out of the pages of the comic books I was reading, I found myself pouring my emotions into the work. Each emotion that I felt so acutely…anger, sadness, hopelessness, rage, despair…I worked through them all in that one drawing. At the end, I felt lighter. It was as though I had purged those feelings somehow by putting it all on paper. I gave those emotions a face, an image that I could look at outside of myself. I could study it and reflect upon it. Since then, I’ve never done another self-portrait like that one. Instead, I learned to pour my emotions into any drawing that I’m currently working on, using each piece as an outlet in much the same way that one does with exercise or meditation. And while there never was a psychological diagnosis for what I was going through, I somehow managed to work through it with my art.

Art therapy has gained momentum over the past 15-20 years in both the US and UK, if not most developed countries around the world. No, you don’t have to be an artist to go to art therapy. In fact, the vast majority of people who do, are probably of the stick figure skill set. And that’s okay. It’s not about creating masterpieces. It’s about getting emotions out and externalizing them. It’s about giving those bottled up emotions an avenue out so that healing can begin. And while there is still much research to be done, it certainly seems pretty clear that there is much more to it than just therapy with a side order of arts and crafts.

Further Reading:

Art and Brain Health

Adult Coloring Books