What Is It Like to Be an Art Therapist
Because I have a somewhat unusual job, I spend a lot of time explaining what art therapy is. In the form of that chat, I inevitably talk nearly what I personally LOVE virtually being an art therapist. This got me thinking that I've never shared that with you. Let's fix that. And then without delay, hither are some of the height reasons I beloved being an art therapist.
My job is to help people abound, and sometimes that means dealing with hard things, but that doesn't mean that the treatment needs to injure. At that place is a lot of laughter and creativity in my part. I like information technology that way. And then exercise my clients.
ii. Art therapy is both cathartic and containing.
Expressing yourself through images "transfers" some of your feelings into the art piece and helps clear yous out a bit. The epitome so "holds" some of those feelings for you, whether in a sculpture, painting, drawing, volume, or a box.
Nosotros need all the help we can get when nosotros feel overwhelmed, art therapy can frequently provide some immediate relief. See this post on doing fine art "to become the crazies out."
3. Fine art therapy teaches coping skills.
The skills and techniques people learn in my office tin can all be used at dwelling. Once you meet how you can center and footing yourself by drawing mandalas, creating a string painting, or collaging in an art journal, you lot tin find means to weave the healing ability of art into your life.
Cut handmade stamps
four.In that location are some things that words just cannot properly express.
If you lot have experienced extreme emotional distress, trauma, or loss, some of your feel is "beyond words -" there are images, sounds, smells, and sensations that hang around, sometimes unwanted. We now know that trauma often gets processed and encoded in unlike ways than our everyday memories. (For farther information on trauma, see this article on PTSD, and this one on developmental trauma.)
It can be very difficult to talk your way out of this. Using art is a way to speak the language of the senses, and transform your experience.
5. Art therapy is a whole-brain approach.
While I am no neuroscientist, I am fascinated by the fashion our encephalon operates. As yous know, art therapy engages different parts of the brain. Why wouldn't we use all the tools at our disposal? If yous've been talking about your bug for ages and aught has inverse, why not engage your imagination and creativity and see what happens?
6. Fine art therapy offers a new perspective.
Oft, in one case my client completes an paradigm, we will stand information technology upright, take a few steps dorsum from the art table, and look at the art together from a distance. I like several things virtually this.
First, just like in life, the fine art changes when yous run across it from different vantage points. The client and I both notice different things, and that often gives united states of america new insights or solutions.
Standing together looking at the image also diminishes some of the power differential that exists betwixt the "doctor" and the "patient." I am an expert on mental health and fine art therapy, it'due south true, but the customer is the expert on herself, and we both are adventurers exploring the territory of this paradigm. I experience less similar client and therapist, and more like two artists looking at an art piece.
This is incredibly empowering to the art therapy client. I think that's really cool, and it'due south function of what makes me feel proud to be an fine art therapist.
Finally, I love this technique because especially with strong feet or trauma, looking at the slice and becoming curious about it is a powerful tool against feet and panic. You lot tin can't exist "scared out of your wits" while besides feeling curious.
We take a highly evolved frontal lobe in our brain that is designed to largely turn off during emergencies. (Though given our electric current realities, this besides happens when y'all get actually mad at your dominate. For a scholarly caption of the stress response, click here, and for the "Wiki" 1, click here.)
vii. I dearest showing adults that they ARE creative.
Teaching people to tap into their inventiveness is a part of my chore. How amazing is that?
eight. Art is a great language to use with "resistant" teens.
Of grade I don't recall that most of the teens I see are "resistant;" they might experience scared or be in denial, but resistant implies that they are stubbornly doing something to impairment themselves.
I have notwithstanding to meet anyone who is doing anything that doesn't provide them with some benefit. I remember nosotros just aren't wired that way. I like to assistance people tune into what is helpful about what they are doing, every bit well as what'southward not, join with them about that, and then start to explore other coping skills that will help more than than they hurt.
With teenagers who already experience awkward nigh themselves and their issues, asking them to create a magazine photograph collage about their anxiety can seem a lot more than fun and natural than proverb, "So, Emily… why are you so anxious? Y'all're pop, pretty, yous go good grades. Is this chat making you anxious? Is that sweat forming on your brow?"
As my teens would say: "Awwwkward!"
Of course we verbally process the collage, simply it puts the conversation in her terms, non mine. That'southward of import. There's the consequence of giving power back to the client again. See what I hateful? Art therapy rocks.
9.The treatment options are countless in art therapy.
I go to be creative without even picking up a paint brush. If my client is feeling stuck, I can dream upwardly 15 different ways to help them feel and explore "stuckness" through art. (Art therapist, Lisa Mitchell, at Inner Canvas, is a main at helping Whatsoever therapist tap into their creativity, even in talk therapy. Please check her out!)
I might say, "Could yous make an prototype of stuckness?" Or, "Perhaps you lot could make something with this tough clay as a way to explore the stuck feeling?" Or, "Let's tangle and knot up a brawl of yarn and then work through undoing it and see what's happening with the stuck feeling."
All of those options would give her the physical experience of getting stuck and eventually, getting unstuck, as well as a visual paradigm of stuckness. For a bank of ideas that an fine art therapist might use in her piece of work with clients, visit my Art Therapy Ideas board on Pinterest.
Imagine how much more than stiff that is than the same client sitting slumped in my function couch, talking in low tones, apathetically giving the same old oral communication nearly how nothing ever changes for her.
Finally, fine art therapy combines beautifully with mindfulness techniques, visualization and meditation, and sensory activities. This offers me tons of flexibility and creativity in every session. No matter what we are doing, it's creative somehow. That's a huge perk in my chore.
10. Art therapy feels "magical."
There is a picayune "magic" in art therapy. It doesn't mean it will conform anybody or cure your every ill, only I detect the power of the unconscious to speak to us through images, similar information technology does in our dream life, very powerful. When y'all take the help of an art therapist to explore these images, you may gain insights you never would by just talking.
I will never forget the adult female who painted a cute abstract image with lines of diverse colors radiating from a circular shape. When she finished, nosotros stood it up on the table and stepped back. To our surprise, we saw a woman, looking upwardly to the light.
It was amazing. Powerful. Moving. Whether or not it was "intentional," she gave herself the hope she so needed in that moment through this image. The hope was in that location, but this was the simply way she could run into it.
(We tin can just talk too!)
Of course I have fun with my talk-based clients, but being an fine art therapist, I arroyo fifty-fifty my talk-based sessions in a artistic, imaginative mode. This makes my job and then much more fun. To larn more than about working with me through your anxiety, depression, trauma, creative blocks, and personal growth goals, click here.
What do you love about art therapy?
What do you lot honey about art therapy? How has art played a transformative role in your life? Do you crave more creativity? Fear it? Run from it? Tell united states of america about it in the comments.
Source: https://mindfulartstudio.com/10-reasons-i-love-being-an-art-therapist/
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