Art and Grief

Do art and grief ever cross paths? What about art and anxiety, stress, depression, frustration, etc.? Art is often overlooked as a means to work through tough times.

Though I’ve never officially had an art therapy session, this collage of X-Men (© Marvel) characters was one I drew for a therapist who wasn’t quite understanding the intensity of the emotions I was feeling. The drawing proved most effective.

It can be rather effective especially in art therapy sessions run by a licensed therapist. Even if you don’t have access to an art therapist, you can still use art to work through your emotions. It doesn’t even matter if you’re artistically inclined or not. In fact, most people who are in art therapy are not artists.

It’s not about making masterpieces.

It’s about working out grief, anger, frustration, or anything else you might be experiencing. Art and grief might look like a Jackson Pollock with splattered paint covering a canvas edge to edge. It could also be scrawled Sharpie in a sketchbook.

The very act of getting your emotions out of your head and physically onto a canvas of some sort, is therapeutic all on its own. This is the basic principle of therapy. Expressing your emotions rather than bottling them up. Regular therapy patients express themselves verbally. Art therapy patients express themselves by getting things out on a canvas.

This is useful in cases where the patient is unable to express themselves verbally.

This can be true in cases of extreme trauma and PTSD. Sometimes even without extreme trauma, our grief or stress can reach such high levels that we might not be able to (or want to) express them to anyone else.

The difficulty with art and grief, at least for me personally, is that when I’m deep in my grief, I have no motivation to do much of anything. I have to wait until the emotions aren’t as overwhelming. But I have used art to show a therapist how I felt inside when she wasn’t understanding the intensity of what I was going through every day. It was a rather effective solution and I got the help I needed at the time.

If you need to deal with difficult emotions, take it out on a canvas or a sketchbook. No experience necessary. Fling paint, slash with a Sharpie, abstract, detailed, whatever. Maybe scream at the top of your lungs while you’re at it. The important thing is to get it out of you and onto a canvas. Of course, if you’re experiencing overwhelming emotions, you might seriously consider seeking a licensed therapist to help.

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