Art therapy can be equally effective for someone with a developmental, medical, social, or psychological impairment. Individuals, groups, couples, and families can be served by art therapy regardless of race, age or ethnicity. Art therapists provide services as individuals and as part of clinical teams in settings that include schools, mental health institutions, medical centers, community outreach programs, nursing homes, independent practices, wellness programs and corporate retreats. Art therapists use art in treatment, assessment and research and provide consultations to allied professionals.

The overall aim of art therapy is to enable a client to experience change and growth on a personal level through the use of art materials in a safe environment in the presence of a trained professional. No previous art experience or art skills are required of a client.

The art image is a very effective way to express complex states of mind. Using art materials art therapy invites the creation of an external image from something felt internally in a non-threatening manner that can then be talked about. The art process can aid someone with undefined, or unconscious feelings to form a “body of work” that is tangible, that can be handled helping a client build self-understanding. Art therapy can be a means to enhance self-esteem, reduce anxiety, manage behavior, increase self-awareness, reconcile emotional conflicts and aid in reality orientation
Chaotic impulses can be contained safely on a page of paper using pencils or through forming a clay mask. Even for the most verbally adept art can be used as a type of symbolic speech. By expressing feelings and experiences through paint or clay in the presence of a concerned individual the client’s feelings can be rendered less threatening. The art can become a bridge between self, the outer world and one’s relation to this world. The art object presents what is possible in one’s imagination and feeling. It presents this subjective possibility within its own internal story and spaces that removes it from needing to be something that must exist in real life.
The tangible artwork is a personal statement that provides a focus for discussion, and self-evaluation. In some practices it can also be a focus for analysis. Because a created work is concrete the art acts a record of the therapeutic exchange that cannot easily be altered or forgotten.

Art therapy Interventions can be directed or nondirected. In a nondirected session an individual chooses from a selection of art materials and creates an image spontaneously without an initially chosen theme. In a directed session the client and therapist have agreed on a specific theme or art materials to explore and suggestions or instructions to follow are given.

Content last modified on Apr 22, 2005