Art is an expression of our inner thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It's also an expression of creativity that can be used for self- reflection or social influence. Art is healing because it forces you to forge a connection between your mind, body, and spirit. Art evokes self-knowledge and makes it possible to mobilize the resources that exist in every human being, with the intention of self-empowerment and fulfilment.
Through the means of creativity, we assist our soul in connecting with the very essence of completeness, wholeness, of who we truly are. Art helps us understand our deep emotions, turmoil, the meaning of life; it helps us coexist, and mostly expresses our identity, and tells a story.
Defining psychotherapy
Defining art #therapy is coping with #stressors and art as a way to #explore the self and the world — a #symbolic form of communication.
Beliefs, problems, feelings, verbal exchanges and worldviews helps in both art and therapy, the aspects of personality and the self, and art as a form of communication pushes the individual to verbalize his thoughts in the making.
Art Therapy is defined as a form of #psychotherapy that uses art medias as its primary mode of expression and #communication. When you think of making art, you naturally think of using some sort of medium with which to create. It might be a brush with tempera paint, a chunk of water-based clay, or a set of brightly coloured markers. Such materials are the core of what we do. To put it simply, without media and tools, there can be no art. While there is indeed such a thing as mental imagery, and people of all ages do think in pictures, for such images to become art they must be concretized in some way.
During therapy, we can utilize many different creative and healing mediums (i.e., #painting, #colortherapy, #music, #meditation, #couture, #kintsugi, #ceramic, #fiber art, and #massages). Among them, #painting and #pottery have been historically recognized as the most useful part of therapeutic processes within psychiatric and psychological specialties.
For example, Clay can stimulate feelings of disgust as well as feelings of pleasure; it can seem cold and unyielding as well as soft and manipulable. While these possible responses are partly a function of what you bring to the experience, they are also dependent on the particular qualities of the material.
“For centuries art was reserved only for the elite, but today art is available to a growing number of the population and facilitate expression and communication and in this way, psychological and emotional analysis of the behaviour.”
#Art therapy research subjects, the mind, in order to discover words, pain, and also suggest a form of expression, that is often less threatening; the use of words, or too painful subjects to put into words, or traumatic. It evokes self-knowledge and makes it possible to mobilize the resources that exist in every human being, with the intention of empowerment and fulfilment.
"If You Were an Art Material, Tool, or Process, What Would You Be?"
An exercise that we find symbolic, and that never fails to demonstrate the capacity of materials and processes to elicit meaningful personal responses. In this experience, each person is asked to think about which medium, tool, or process he or she might be. Some wish to be paint because they want to feel fluid and colourful, while others identify with paint because they often feel out of control. It is important to be as aware of the symbolic qualities of materials as of their pragmatic aspects. Only then is it possible to appreciate the full impact on the reality of Art therapy. Our encounter with different media and tools. What is essential is to have not only a cognitive awareness of what is available but also an appreciation of the "personality" of each medium, tool, and process-what it can and cannot do, and how it relates to developmental levels in terms of difficulty and symbolic meaning.
Such an awareness can only be gained through substantial personal experience with the medium, tool, or process. Ideally, this experience should be under the supervision of an expert in the area, who can teach the essential skills needed to make the material do its work for you. The challenge of how much to "learn" and how much to allow us to find our own way is one of many that call for clinical as well as educational judgment.
Equally important are the processes, both therapeutic and artistic, by which we transform media into products.
What Do We Mean by Process in Art Therapy?
Without some kind of creative working process, media and tools do not become art. A jar of paint and a brush do not become a painting until an individual uses one to place the other on a surface. Although the processes of working with different mediums are closely related to the physical characteristics of each, there is a wide range of possibilities. As with materials, it is essential that you be aware of these so that you can help yourself to the fullest and most satisfying experience with whatever is offered. The challenge here, as elsewhere, is to know when to do it on your own (which can take a wide variety of forms) and when to ask for assistance for the therapist own devices. Some general thoughts about the creative process may help to guide this challenging decision-making act.
I believe that, whatever our age, the natural and organic way to begin with any material is to explore. Just as we experiment with a new toy or get to know a new person, the initial step with a new medium is exploration. This is contrary to the common educational way of beginning by instructing the person in how to properly use a material or tool. My own conviction is that therapy itself is an exploratory process, one in which it is hoped that people discover and understand their own ideas and feelings, which eventually helps them to be more in charge of their lives. One of the positive aspects of art therapy is that we can offer experiences of exploration and discovery through media as well as words.
And finally.....reinforcing the creative behaviour
So far, we emphasized on the creative process using art media in the most general sense. There are also some specific aspects of creative thinking and behaving that are highly relevant for art therapists. These are the capacities found by psychologists to be characteristic of creative people, whether studied anecdotally or experimentally. These traits usually include fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality. Each of these can be promoted and encouraged in a client's experience with art in therapy, and each relates significantly to the larger task of creative problem solving in life.
Art evokes self-knowledge and empowerment.
Art therapy has gradually become a well-known form of spiritual support and complementary psycho-therapeutic relationship, whereas an integrative mental health and human services profession that enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active applied psychological theory relationship, and human experience. Therefore, turning towards complementary treatments, addressing the health needs of individuals is more than half a century old.
The main objective of this approach is to distinguish what is the cause of a person's difficulties and what are their manifestations. For example, learning to reduce its manifestations such as fatigue, tension; by means of locomotion such as breathing, relaxation and listening to the body. The idea is to find and preserve its general balance. It is very important to identify what makes you suffer in the situations you encounter, and what could help you better adapt to them.
“Art evokes self-knowledge and makes it possible to mobilize the resources that exist in every human being, with the intention of empowerment and fulfilment.”
The goal of art therapy is also fun and educational. The art therapist’s primary concern is not to make an aesthetic assessment of the client’s art. The overall goal of is to enable the clients to change and grow on a personal level, relax; even in clinical, requirements are personal growth and development, professional and social and spiritual inclination, through the use of artistic materials in a safe and convenient environment. The idea of creativity will gradually take a central place in art, and refers to the inner, untapped artistic capacities that each individual would have within him to create.