Art Therapy

Our world is a dynamic place always welcoming changes. Due to modernization and globalization, people tend to adapt to our fast-changing world. Every individual is facing a stressful day giving them reasons to surrender.

Family problems, relationships, traumatic experiences cause people to be involved into situations they do not expect. They lead to uncomfortable conditions such as stress, depression and even allow it to disturb their mental capabilities resulting to psychological problems. These paved the way to the discoveries of different techniques on how to treat mentally disturbed patients. Several strategies such as medicines and therapies aroused to resolve clients who experienced traumatic events.

Using art in treating patients awakened in the early years. Art making engages mental, physical and emotional reasoning that utilizes brain structures allowed the therapists to use it to let the client recover from painful incidents. It aims to make invisible visible in terms of unwillingness of the psychologically disturbed patients to express themselves verbally.

Though commonly attached to the thinking that using art in therapy is only on people with mental disorders, this kind of therapy is also beneficial to ordinary people to lessen stress and depression. Art lets every individual to cope with stressful situations and using art as a means of treating ones health is very applicable that lead to the discovered way of stimulating mind and body, the Art Therapy.

Art Therapy combines traditional psychotherapeutic theories and techniques with an understanding of the psychological aspects of the creative process. Art therapy is used to help people manage physical and emotional problems by using creative activities to express emotions. It provides a way for people to come to terms with emotional conflicts, increase self-awareness, and express unspoken and often unconscious concerns about their illness and their lives. “Expressive arts therapy” or “creative arts therapy”, other names for art therapy, may also include dance and movement, drama, poetry, photo therapy and others (“Art Therapy”, [online]).

According to the American Art Therapy Association, art therapy is based on the belief that the creative process of art is both healing and life enhancing (“Art Therapy”, [online]). Creative processes and issues that come up during the therapy are used to help clients increase insight and judgment. It helps to cope better with stress and traumatic experiences. It also increases cognitive abilities and building better relationships with family and friends to be able to enjoy the life-affirming pleasures of the creative experience. (“Benefits of Art Therapy”, [online]).