Art Therapy
Images are all around us and are as much part of our personal, cultural and social experience as words. The language of images is rich, complex and multilayered. Art therapy employs the activity of creating images, alongside the use of words, to explore and create meaning. This involves painting, drawing or making three dimensional forms, within the safe and accepting space of a one to one, or group session.
Skill and sophistication in making images is not what is aimed for, but rather direct expression of feelings spontaneously. It is not necessary to have any skill or experience as an artist to benefit from art therapy.
The Art Therapists role.
The role of the art therapist is to facilitate expression in words or images and to create an accepting space in which creativity can flourish.
Reading the meaning conveyed by an image produced in a therapy session is a joint project involving therapist and client in which the client contributes thoughts feelings and associations. The therapist offers ways of deepening and exploring the material that emerges through image. This may involve an interpretation as in verbal psychotherapy which relates to the symbolism of the picture. It may also involve a suggestion to, for example, work further on the image in a different medium.
The aim is for the client to develop the means to engage in an ongoing dialogue with aspects of him or herself that he or she may normally not be fully conscious of, but which through the process of art making can begin to emerge and take a comprehensible symbolic form.
Who is Art Therapy for?
Art therapy has a very wide application and may be useful for all the range of issues normally addressed by psychotherapy. It is particularly useful for individuals who feel that their facility with, and sophisticated use of, words, means that psychotherapy may not access more spontaneous or less controlled feelings. It is also useful in the opposite circumstances, i.e with someone who feels they do not have adequate capacity with words to express themselves accurately and need another non-verbal medium in order to express themselves fully.
Images are all around us and are as much part of our personal, cultural and social experience as words. The language of images is rich, complex and multilayered. Art therapy employs the activity of creating images, alongside the use of words, to explore and create meaning. This involves painting, drawing or making three dimensional forms, within the safe and accepting space of a one to one, or group session.
Skill and sophistication in making images is not what is aimed for, but rather direct expression of feelings spontaneously. It is not necessary to have any skill or experience as an artist to benefit from art therapy.
The Art Therapists role.
The role of the art therapist is to facilitate expression in words or images and to create an accepting space in which creativity can flourish.
Reading the meaning conveyed by an image produced in a therapy session is a joint project involving therapist and client in which the client contributes thoughts feelings and associations. The therapist offers ways of deepening and exploring the material that emerges through image. This may involve an interpretation as in verbal psychotherapy which relates to the symbolism of the picture. It may also involve a suggestion to, for example, work further on the image in a different medium.
The aim is for the client to develop the means to engage in an ongoing dialogue with aspects of him or herself that he or she may normally not be fully conscious of, but which through the process of art making can begin to emerge and take a comprehensible symbolic form.
Who is Art Therapy for?
Art therapy has a very wide application and may be useful for all the range of issues normally addressed by psychotherapy. It is particularly useful for individuals who feel that their facility with, and sophisticated use of, words, means that psychotherapy may not access more spontaneous or less controlled feelings. It is also useful in the opposite circumstances, i.e with someone who feels they do not have adequate capacity with words to express themselves accurately and need another non-verbal medium in order to express themselves fully.
