If you love to express your creative side or remember art as your favorite class back in school, today is your lucky today. Thanks to the popularity and tried and true methods of holistic therapies, practicing various expressions art is becoming increasingly common to coping with stress. Maybe it’s a surprise to you to learn that art can actually be an effective tool in mental health treatment and coping with traumatic events as well. As a special kind of medium, art can be effectively used to help therapy clients communicate their emotions, learn more about their thoughts, overcome high levels of stress, and explore what they enjoy creating overall. The best part is that art therapy can be applied to anyone who wants to take part in it. That means no matter what gender you are, how old you are, or how much experience you had in art before, the therapy method will bring valuable insight to your life.
Where Did Art Therapy Come From?
It’s no surprise that art has been around since the beginning of human existence. Our brains are hardwired to express our inner thoughts, desires, fears, and beautiful stories through art mediums. Yet, the cave men weren’t using the art therapy that are recommended in recent years for patients who are suffering from stress or post-traumatic stress disorder. It wasn’t until doctors noticed that certain patients who suffered from a variety of mental illnesses found positive healing results through daily drawing or painting that art become a pillar of therapy.
Today, art therapy is considered a foundational part of holistic addiction treatment and mental illness treatment. It is also used for people who could benefit from having a creative outlet like children with various learning disabilities, adults experience severe post-traumatic stress, children suffering from social anxiety, individuals who had a brain injury and those with a substance abuse addiction. With that in mind, an art therapist will tailor which art method they think will best suit the person and encourage using either drawing, painting, clay sculpture, collage, or even something like knitting to help clients who need a peaceful pass of time. Unlike the art classes that we all sat through in our early learning years, art therapy sessions concentrate on the inner experience of a patient. That means that a lot of energy is focusing on their feelings, inner perceptions, and their imagination overall. Instead of teaching the intricate skills that certain art mediums require, therapy mainly wants the person involved to develop a sense of their personality and express what is speaking to them.
Is Art Therapy Regulated?
Like every other type of therapy that takes on clients who may have an addiction disorder or a mental illness, a career in art therapy requires professional experience. In most cases, if you’re interested in working in art therapy, you will need to first become a licensed clinical psychologist, a professional counselor, or gain experience as a social worker who deals with a wide variety of people. Start your research by checking what your state regulations are and what level of education is required for the particular position you are most interested in. Within the U.S., the Art Therapy Credentials Board, Inc. (ATCB) actually offers credentialing programs to help aspiring art therapists become registered, board certified, or licensed. However, keep in mind in addition to completing this program, the minimum requirements is to have a master’s degree in counseling or art therapy since it’s heavily advanced. While this sounds like a long journey of hoops to jump through to start working with people in art therapy, the process is designed to accept only the most passionate, hardworking, and highly educated individuals to help those in need.
Art Therapy And Technology
Luckily to the ever changing technology we have today, patients can complete art therapy online with digital art as well. We desperately need new art therapy techniques to keep up with the updating software, social media platforms, and lifestyles that young people are growing up with today. Children especially by this decade have been raised with IPhones and laptops by their side at every second, so providing an outlet that adapts to that environment is truly effective. By giving them a computer with the right tools to create art, a patient could do a session in the comfort of their own home by electronically designing a collage or using a drawing software to make illustrations. As of last year, software packages on Windows even allow users to create animated and 3D illustrations that seem to come to life before your own eyes.
Art Therapy Is Fun
The main point to take away about art therapy is that it’s actually enjoyable for the patient from start to finish. Unlike having an uncomfortable conversation with strangers in a support group, going through drawn out detox, or checking into a rehab center to talk to a counselor, art therapy allows people to feel in control and freely express whatever is crossing their mind. In art, there is no right or wrong answer except for the emotions, figures, or stories that you want to come alive.
Let’s do our part to make sure that anyone we know who is struggling with a mental disorder or has other health issues that could benefit from art knows it’s an available treatment method. The word about getting treatment is still highly suppressed in our world today as the stigma of admitting poor mental health or visiting a rehab center is strong. However, if we all try our best to speak positively about the strength of getting help and asking questions the people who might extremely enjoy art therapy will feel more empowered than ever before!
