Art Therapy in a Nutshell
Often during a consultation or an intake session, I find myself attempting to answer the question, “But what is art therapy?” I have a feeling that if you were to ask one hundred different art therapists that question, you would receive one hundred different answers– each no more correct than the last. Here, I hope to leave you with both a good understanding of what art therapy is to me and how we can experience it together to help you re-orient yourself to your path toward best-wellness.
What is Art Therapy?
The American Art Therapy Association defines art therapy as “a mental health profession that enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship.” In short, art therapy is an additional language that the therapist and the participant use for a variety of therapeutic purposes. Similar to how traditional talk therapy utilizes conversation and verbal interventions to accomplish therapeutic goals, art therapy utilizes both the art product and the art process to gain insight and to make meaning.
What is an Art Therapist?
An art therapist is someone who is specially trained in using art and the artmaking process with a participant with the goal to help the participant achieve therapeutic growth. Art therapists have graduated from a Master’s program in Art Therapy and are either licensed or provisionally licensed with the Art Therapy Credentials Board. In Illinois, art therapists are also licensed or provisionally licensed psychotherapists. For instance, I am currently licensed both as a Registered Art Therapist (ATR) and as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). Essentially, that means that I can practice therapy using artmaking and traditional talking methods.
Just like traditional talk therapists, art therapists often draw from or follow different psychological models, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Psychodynamic, Narrative, and Gestalt theories. And, just like traditional talk therapists, each art therapist incorporates modalities differently, so each works and thinks in a way unique to them. Do not hesitate to ask your art therapist or potential art therapist what they use or how they work.
What Art Mediums are Involved?
Easy answer: any of them! Every single art medium– from clay to paint, from markers to pencils, from collage to found objects– has inherent therapeutic qualities that can be incorporated into the therapy process. In practice, art therapists regularly use a tool called the Expressive Therapies Continuum (ETC), which organizes all art materials into different categories based on shared therapeutic properties. Such domains are kinesthetic (your physical movement), sensory (how things feel, smell, and look), perceptual (your understanding of your and others’ perspectives), affective (your feelings and emotions), cognitive (your logic, thinking, and problem-solving) and symbolic (how you intuitively move through your actions and experiences). The reasons why you chose to pursue therapy imply use of different ETC domains, and we will explore artmaking processes and media that may help you move toward accomplishing your goals by ways of creativity and expression.
That said, we will use whatever art materials you’re comfortable with! You know your wants, needs, and preferences better than anyone, and therapy should feel like a safe place for you to voice them. Adaptations are always welcome in the art therapy space– everyone wants your treatment to work for you.
Am I a Good Candidate for Art Therapy?
As with all therapies, different approaches work with different people. You do not need extensive experiences in artmaking or years of study with an art material to participate in art therapy (in fact, some of my favorite in-session experiences have been with folks who were “not artists”). Nearly all of us had colored with crayons, finger-painted, or played with Play-Doh as kids, which paves us a perfectly solid foundation on which to create. Our creativity doesn’t just go away; what is more likely is that we can lose touch with it and bury it. Art therapy revitalizes our creativity to help us learn to self-soothe, better understand ourselves, and visually represent our internal and external experiences.
All you need to be an excellent art therapy participant is you. You already know how to move your body. You already know how to communicate. You already know how to touch, smell, and visualize not just objects and pictures, but the world around you. Each and every one of us holds a vast galaxy of humanhood that we can reach and explore using the powerful vehicle that is artmaking. As long as you can, even if for just a few minutes, release yourself from the (ridiculous) notion that “I am not an artist,” you can have great prospects in participating in art therapy.
Simply put, art therapy is another way to try to accomplish your therapeutic goals using artmaking. We all have creative bones, we sometimes just forget they’re there. As with all things, art therapy is best understood by experiencing it; and still, you may have questions you need answered before jumping in. Either way, I invite you to reach me via e-mail at eme@snowlakecounseling.com with any inquiries and queries. Happy artmaking!
Written by: Eme Swaggthorne, MA, ATR, LPC