Are you someone who doodles when you feel stressed? Or finds playing Vivaldi on the piano relaxing after a long day? Perhaps it’s tap dancing, painting on canvas, or disappearing into a character onstage that helps you channel your emotions. Or shaping clay, writing a short story, or creating a mood board? Whatever medium you choose for self-expression, it’s no accident that art is good for our mental health.
Famed American painter Georgia O’Keeffe put it this way: “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way — things I had no words for.”
What Is Art Therapy?
Whether it’s used for treatment of psychological disorders, to process trauma, or to bolster emotional health, art therapy can play a vital role in fostering healing through creative expression. Rolled out as a formalized treatment modality in the 1940s, research from VerywellMind.com says art therapy has quickly become “an important part of the therapeutic field.”
The impetus for modern art therapy began when doctors observed that people who struggled with mental illness often expressed their feelings best through drawing and artwork. This reality came into sharp focus when soldiers returned from the battlefields of World War II. Left with “shell shock,” now known as post-traumatic stress disorder, veterans drew, painted, and sculpted in an attempt to process their harrowing war experiences. This nonverbal expression, one at the heart of creative arts therapy, helped bridge the gap when words couldn’t.
For someone struggling with depression, anxiety, or addiction, words may not always come easily. That’s where art therapy steps in. It provides an alternate means of communication. As a result, mental health art is popular with patients and can be a significant vehicle for healing.
For someone struggling with depression, anxiety, or addiction, words may not always come easily. That’s where art therapy steps in.
Expressive Arts Therapy Benefits
Art therapy and expressive arts therapy, which includes music, writing, dancing, and playacting, has played a key role in a number of game-changing breakthroughs, including:
- Exploring a wide spectrum of emotions
- Improving interpersonal relationships
- Developing greater self-awareness
- Boosting self-esteem by tapping into your creativity
- Coping with stress
- Increasing cognitive function
- Fine-tuning social skills for real-life dilemmas
- Building emotional resilience
- Improving quality of life
- Reducing trauma symptoms
- Decreasing depression levels
- Finding an outlet for grief
For those addressing serious mental illness, research from the past decade shows that art therapy depression treatment is a “potentially low-risk and high benefit intervention to minimize symptoms and maximize functioning in individuals,” according to the American Psychiatric Association (APA).
Administered by mental health professionals, art therapy isn’t the same as simply taking an art class. There’s a proven sense of intention behind it. With art therapy, sensory and symbolic techniques are used to help you access and express your feelings in new ways.
This therapy was proven to be particularly helpful during the pandemic. Whether it was working through the adjustment of lockdown, limited in-person interactions, or navigating a constant state of worry for loved ones, essential workers, and themselves, expressive arts therapy provided much-needed relief, says Smithsonian Magazine.
While the pandemic raged on, mental health took a nosedive for many people. The World Health Organization reported a 25% increase in depression and anxiety around the globe. Creating art alongside a licensed therapist became a decidedly low-tech but powerful way to work through the uncertainty.
You Don’t Have to Be an Artist
While the proof of concept is there, does art therapy work for people who don’t necessarily think of themselves as “artistic?” As it turns out, you don’thave to be Picasso or Renoir to reap the numerous benefits of art therapy. Even those who don’t appreciate fine art, let alone can replicate it, can find their niche.
Rather than focusing on the final product — the painting, sculpture, collage, song, or performance — what makes art therapy so effective is the focus on healing through the process of making art. It’s the journey, not the destination. In a study published by the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, less than an hour of creative activity provided stress relief and had a positive effect on mental health.
Like celebrated Russian author Leo Tolstoy once said, “Art is not a handicraft. It is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.”
What makes art therapy so effective is the focus on healing through the process of making art.
Making Art Improves Overall Health
Did you know that the age-old act of fingerpainting, that big ole mess we made as children, has multiple tangible benefits? With or without gloves, painting with your fingers provides:
- An opportunity to express your feelings without fear of judgment
- Stress relief
- Connection and rapport in a group setting
- Improved concentration since no multitasking is involved
And for some, regularly taking part in creative arts can even help make the daily challenges of a difficult career more manageable. In a six-month study of caregivers for people with long-term illness highlighted by the APA, those who had an artistic outlet had decreased anxiety and an increase in positive emotions
Research gathered by multiple sources has proven that making art can activate reward pathways in the brain, improve your mood, and again, reduce anxiety levels. In hospital settings, art therapy also led to positive outcomes including shorter hospital stays, a reduced need for sleep medication, and patients feeling like they have a sense of control over their lives.
Novelist and poet John Updike reminds us that “what art offers is space — a certain breathing room for the spirit.” And clearly that breathing room can make a remarkable, noticeable difference in whether we merely survive or thrive.
Find Healing at The Meadows Malibu
At The Meadows Malibu art therapy for substance abuse treatment and addiction recovery are part of our holistic treatment approach. Through expressive arts therapy, we incorporate both directed projects and unstructured time with mediums like paint, clay, collage, and pastels. This allows you the opportunity to communicate when words can’t fully describe what you’re feeling — or when emotions are especially difficult to express. Expressive arts therapy is just one of the many ways we guide you in understanding your emotions, behaviors, and coping mechanisms so that you can achieve lasting recovery.
Reach out today to learn more about all we offer at The Meadows Malibu and how we can help you overcome any mental health or addiction issue you may be struggling with. Recovery is not only possible, it’s waiting for you.