Art Therapy

Art Therapist

What Is Art Therapy?

Simply put it is a discipline within the field of mental health treatment that utilizes the human ability to express oneself through imagery and talk about the conscious and unconscious issues that everyone encounters throughout their lifetime.

At Creative Sanctuary, I have been practicing art therapy for over 40 years. As a clinical art therapist, I treat adults, children, and individuals with special needs.

An art therapist is trained as any therapist to use words to talk about and encourage a person to speak about feelings and thoughts that are on their mind and address them in order to resolve conflict, heal and grow. But it is generally accepted that we all have an unconscious aspect to our existence that can not be easily spoken about, if at all. That is the nature of the un-conscious. Using art, or more accurately, imagery, which is comprised of colors, forms and rhythms that may or may not “look like anything recognizable”, allows for expression of conscious and unconscious feelings and perceptions to be expressed, such as in a drawing or using paints.

This expression is a “hotline” to the unconscious. Imagery bypasses the conscious mind and gently releases emotions, thoughts and other psychic perceptions in a tangible form. This newly created form allows the art therapist to help the patient explore and learn about forces at work that are not usually available as quickly to the conscious mind through talking alone.

The creative process of art making is a mirror of the creativity of life itself. By approaching your self this way you open the doors to unlimited understanding of the worlds within you and without you. You may be wondering “What does that have to do with any issues or problems I have in my life?” We all live within the larger context of our geographic area, country and planet. Our planet exists within our universe…this continues on and on. We are all affected by the larger realities we cannot always give a name to.

“It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality,
and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.”

~D.W. Winnicott~

Art therapy is often misunderstood as a recreational experience or hobby. It is not. It is a highly specific course of study, demanding a master’s level of education and mental health service licensing in most states. There are many art therapy courses and workshops available to the public and other mental health professionals. It is important not to confuse a trained art therapist with a mental health practitioner who may have taken some rudimentary coursework or workshop. Very often therapeutic techniques may be introduced, but it takes years of firsthand process to fully be able to analyze, understand and appropriately intervene into someone’s emotional process through the mysterious and mystical language of symbols, forms and vibrational energy, which is commonly referred to as art.

In its deepest meaning, including multidimensional parallel worlds of understanding art can be understood as a portal to the many levels of consciousness available on this planet and beyond, but only in the hands of an experienced art therapist, who him or herself is deeply involved in the transformational process of bringing imagery into our world in a tangible way (making art) can the therapeutic impact be fully realized.

If you go to www.dictionary.com the following definitions are helpful to begin to think more clearly about Art Therapy.

Art:

The quality, production, expression or realm, according to aesthetic principles of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

Therapy:

The treatment of disease or disorders as by some remedial, rehabilitating or curative process.

Art Therapy:

A type of psychotherapy that encourages the expression of emotions through artistic activities such as painting, drawing, or sculpture; psychotherapy based on the belief that the creative process involved in the making of art is healing and life-enhancing.

Creative Process

There is only one creative process throughout our existence and universe. The rules that govern creativity, of which can be understood through quantum physics (made more accessible in my books Quantum Imagery and The Quantum Correlations Of Imagery) are the guidelines that art therapy follows, as the process is one of creation, making art is healing, growth promoting and life-enhancing because of the nature of the forces at work during the creative process.

It is an entirely different approach than traditional, verbal therapy alone. In fact the field of neuroscience has already demonstrated that verbal repetition of past traumas alone simply re-traumatizes the brain and its nervous system. We need a therapy process where speaking about conflicts, emotions and thoughts are simultaneously integrated with a creative, intuitive methodology that does not threaten a person’s sense of being in control. This perhaps easily the most misunderstood concept, unless you are an artist or are working with someone who is, and who can understand the forces that manifest them selves during the art making experience. Only with proper training and experience can these forces of creativity be integrated and used as a therapeutic intervention in the treatment of mental health issues.

The research also suggests that when creativity is emphatically integrated with cognitive understanding, our brains and nervous systems have the capacity to heal their former trauma and / or actually grow new neurological connections thereby creating the opportunity to ameliorate preexisting trauma. This is why art therapy is not just doing a drawing and having someone (however qualified) analyze the imagery. Analysis is not healing…creation is. It is the doing rather than the more passive witnessing alone of your internal processes that opens the doors of perception AND experience of encountering your truest self.

So while there are many levels and dimensions to the field, it is important as in all therapeutic relationships to find a practitioner of art therapy who is qualified and YOU feel you can build a safe, trusting relationship with…for only then can you embark on the journey to your most authentic self, uncovering the vast potential that exists for anyone who accepts the challenge of awakening to full consciousness.

Learn about art therapy and how I use it to improve life in this Podcast!