Art Therapy helps to heal on a deep level.
It is positive and non-threatening for children to connect which leads to positive changes.
Art therapy uses the language of art for personal growth, insight, and transformation. It is a way of connecting what is inside – our thoughts, feelings, perceptions – with outer realities and life experiences. Art therapy can be used with individuals of all ages and can be used as a stand-alone approach or concurrent with other therapeutic approaches.
Art therapy might also be ideal for people who:
- Have difficulty verbalizing feelings and just do not know what to say or how to say it
- Are flooded by anxiety, grief or depression
- Are stuck or feeling hopeless
- Have trouble communicating with words
- Are stalled in their current talk therapy
- Who want to recapture or grow their creative abilities
- Have psychological barriers to verbal therapy
- Want to deepen their relationships, spirit/soul and life experiences
Some of the materials used during art therapy include paint, clay, oil & chalk pastels, marker/crayons, collage, plasters, mask making and other materials.
Other expressive mediums are often used, including writing/journaling, photography, sand tray and play therapy.
Benefits of Art Therapy BC:
- Provides a way to communicate thoughts, feelings and beliefs
- Develops insight of self and others to facilitate change
- Improved perspective; externalize an internal process; take a step back
- Develops problem-solving skills
- Improves and manage difficult or problem behaviours
- Relief from overwhelming emotions or crises
- Reduces stress
- Increases self-awareness and self-knowledge
- Increases self-esteem and confidence
- Teaches skills
- Improves concentration
- Increased ability to cope with symptoms, stress and trauma experiences
- Enhances cognitive abilities
- Improves sense of well being
- Fosters transformation; use past experience to create a new present; author a new narrative of one’s life
- Promotes integration and wholeness
- Assists to identify processes of change
- A non-threatening form of self-expression
- An effective tool for the management of stress and anxiety
- Alternative treatment for less verbal clients
- An effective means for personal growth and exploration
- Provides a more direct link to the emotional centers of the brain
- Provides a concrete record of progress attained in therapy
- Stimulates creativity which can enhance a sense of well being and self-esteem
