Art Therapy : A Positive Impact On Therapy

Art therapy is a Multi-Functional Psychological therapy that helps the mental mind in connecting things that are disconnected like a patient with alzheimer's where the patient's medial temporal lobe that’s the part of the brain that controls memory. The medial temporal lobe is vital in the brain because that is where the brain recollects the memories and stores them. When you get older the lobe gets weaker in which causes it to disconnect thus causing “memory loss” or dementia. In art therapy we like to cause a visual reconnection of that nerve so in which a patient then can remember more but in a visual stance as in some people like to look at photographs to visually which allows memories to reconnect. These programs are put into place to help anyone with mental issues they are put in place just to help.

Art therapy is said to use “three levels of intervention.” These levels include engaging in the clients senses through the physical manipulation of art materials, using the client’s art as a “symbolic container of their traumatic memories, and “cognitive reflection” guided by the art therapist. The therapist helps to “guide” where the client’s focus lays in terms of their traumatic memories; the goal of the therapist is to help the client integrate elements of their experience, other than the extremely negative, into their

Art therapy is based off of experiential family therapy which emerged from the humanistic approach of existential psychology. Gladding (2014) says that The foundation of experiential theory is that the individual within the family are unaware of their true emotions and if they are aware of them they suppress them. Experiential approaches incorporate family play into session which is good because it helps,

Art therapy as an intervention For the purpose of developing a therapeutic intervention we will suppose that a preadolescent child with similar adverse experiences in reffered for art therapy in a school setting due to heightened social anxiety and poor peer relations. Art therapy is appropriate for children who are socially anxious as they often have trouble communicating their emotions verbally. the presence of art between the therapist and client allows for non-verbal communication.

Similarly, we are well known with the fact that art therapy has a remarkable benefits. It also can distract people from pain and illness. According to the article "Art therapy with adolescent", understanding adolescent is a challenge. Tennegers are very sensative so instead of confessing they put themself in a emotional risk. Therefore, science has invented an art therapy to such childrens who are very poor at expressing themself. They join art therapy, draw/paint their thoughts and express their feelings and their problems through their art. The picture shown is drawn by a teenage boy who is mentally disturbed by his alcholoic mother. He had tired to reflect how he sees to faces his mother through the picture. The 2 masks represent the 2

In the field of mental health, therapists face to work with diverse populations. To provide a superior quality of therapy and elicit positive results, establishing a relationship with a client should be the priority. An adolescent population might be the one that is difficult to build a relationship and thus might be a challenge for beginner therapists. Artistic activities in a therapy session can help adolescent clients open their minds up to a therapist and build a therapeutic relationship. In this paper, I will explore a therapeutic relationship with an adolescent population in art therapy.

Art therapy started in America and Europe in the 1940’s and has spread throughout the world and now people in all countries are using art therapy. By the 20th-century, art therapy was in all hospitals and mental health facilities after discovering that art therapy really helps people’s emotions. Researchers found that art therapy is important to people because nowadays people don’t want to take medication to be treated instead, they are looking for an alternative therapy. It is also important to people who don’t have the ability to communicate because all they have to do is draw to express how they are feeling. Art therapy can be used when people are having a hard time focusing or under stress and don’t know how to solve their problems.

“Art has been used since the beginning of human history as a medium to communicate thoughts and ideas.”(Art Therapy Journal). As society has progressed and developed, art has shifted from a method of communication into a method of self expression and symbolism. Art was only used for these for reasons until around the 1940’s when it first became of therapeutic nature in America and Europe. The first person to refer to art as therapeutic was named Adrian Hill. He was being treated for tuberculosis in a sanatorium, in England, when he suggested art projects to other patients within the sanatorium. The use of art within this corporation made a difference in several people's lives, and made coping with the illnesses more convenient. This example of an influence of art therapy shows that once more people become more aware of the procedures and customs of art therapy they are more willing to participate and experience the beneficial factors. The first art therapy studio was not created until 1981 by a man named Edward Adamson. Adamson allowed patients in mental hospitals to create art by their own leisure without comments or judgments from the public, or other peers. This allowed the patients to feel temporarily

The use of art therapy in the mental health setting has received mixed acclaim due to inconsistencies in the evidence supporting its efficacy

Despite all the ways art and music therapy can help people cope with their trauma, there are some disadvantages for them. For instance, art therapy is not very consistent; the results rely heavily on the patient and the therapist. There are a large variety of methods to art therapy and it differs from therapist to therapist. For example, a patient could be truly benefiting from their therapy under one therapist and moving to another then using methods that aren’t as effective for that particular person. Sometimes during a session a patient may express something with no relevance to their trauma. Or a patient may fail to see the correlation between their artwork and the problem. Another example would be that the patient doesn’t feel comfortable with either the medium or the environment and it could cause

Art therapy is a type of alternative form of psychological therapy that has started to spread throughout the world of drug rehabilitation. It centers the person recovering from addiction on creating highly personal and expressive forms of art. An art therapist will help you identify an art form at which you excel and direct you towards realizing

My desire to study art therapy is rooted in the exact moment I realized the effect art-making could have on the understanding of one’s self. When I was a sophomore in high school I was suffering from depression and during my therapy sessions, I would rack my brain trying to answer my therapist’s questions. I had never experienced depression before and was having a hard time putting a label on all of my thoughts and feelings. I had five months of antidepressants and psychotherapy under my belt, but I was still crying every day, barely eating, and wanted nothing to do with the outside world.. One day, my therapist pulled out a box of crayons and asked me to draw myself on a bridge.

Art therapy is a mental health profession in which clients, facilitated by the art therapist, use art media, the creative process, and the resulting artwork to explore their feelings, reconcile emotional conflicts, foster self-awareness, manage behavior and addictions, develop social skills, improve reality orientation, reduce anxiety, and increase self-esteem. A goal in art therapy is to improve or restore a client’s functioning and his or her sense of personal well-being.

Expressive arts therapy is the use of art modalities, creative process, and aesthetic experience in a therapeutic context. It is a therapy of the imagination (McNiff, 1992). Effective communication is an essential element in therapeutic relationships and, although verbal language is the most conventional means of conveying information, other forms can convey just as much as words. The arts are an alternative form of communication that has recently received recognition for their value in therapeutic settings. There is a long well-established connection between the arts and psychology. Expressive arts therapy builds on a natural, complimentary relationship between the two disciplines. As a formal therapy, this form is relatively new with its

Western traditions narrowly define art as a market-oriented specialized discipline (Levine & Levine, 2004). When art is used therapeutically, content and meaning take priority over mechanics and technicalities.