Art Psychotherapy
Art psychotherapy uses visual art-making (for example: collage, sculpture, masks and painting) within a therapeutic relationship to explore and make sense of thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
Clients do not require art skills or previous art experience.
Advantages of Art Psychotherapy
Art is used as a symbolic language to access thoughts and feelings that can often be hard for children and adolescents to express in words. Art therapy offers a safe and non-threatening way to make sense of difficult experiences and resolve any inner conflicts. It increases self-awareness and helps children and adolescents to reduce worries and stress, develop better interpersonal skills, manage behaviour and increase self-esteem. The act of creative expression is in itself therapeutic.
Art therapy has been shown to generally improve mental and emotional well-being and to increase self-acceptance and understanding of self.
More about Art Psychotherapy
Art therapy is an expressive form of psychotherapy that uses art materials within a therapeutic relationship to improve and enhance physical, mental and emotional well-being. The emphasis is on the process of creating and meaning-making, rather than the end product. Art therapy combines traditional psychotherapeutic theories and techniques with psychological, interpersonal and somatic aspects of the creative process and self-expression. In mental health, art therapy is used in many clinical settings and with diverse populations.
Art therapy is offered on an individual or group basis. Individual art therapy typically lasts 1 hour and sessions can be directive or non-directive. Art therapy groups typically run from 1-2 hours and are more directive in nature. The literature shows that art therapy is a valuable intervention expanding the possibilities of working psychotherapeutically with client populations who may not be able to engage in more talk oriented psychotherapies. Read more