Currently, art therapy is one of the most popular areas in psychological work. It combines the availability of methods with a sufficiently deep study of personal emotional experience. Artistic techniques that promote immersion in the inner world make art therapy attractive to many.
What is art therapy
Art therapy is a method of psychological work, implemented with the help of artistic techniques in order to work out a person's personal problems.
The range of art therapy practices is wide enough. This is drawing, and application-collage, dance, working with sand, clay or plasticine, playing music, composing and acting out fairy tales and stories, creating dolls and playing them, etc. What unites these techniques is that they are all ways of a person's creative self-expression.
The main advantage of art therapy is its accessibility to anyone. For example, in working with children, this is the main method, along with play psychotherapy. Art therapy weakens the protective barriers of the psyche: a person may be afraid to speak out about their desires or problems directly, but will reflect them in a drawing or dance, often without realizing it. Many people like art therapy, because the very process of such psychological work brings pleasure and positive emotions.
Currently, elements of art therapy can be found in any psychological and psychotherapeutic work, regardless of the theoretical orientation of the psychologist.
How art therapy works
Art therapy techniques are aimed, first of all, at contact with the unconscious part of our psyche. In everyday life, it is difficult for us to realize what is happening in the unconscious. However, these processes provoke anxiety, depression, feelings of confusion or causeless irritability.
One of the goals of art therapy is to respond to negative emotional experiences. Usually, we are used to limiting our emotional life: for example, being brave if it is really scary; restrain anger at the boss; suppress guilt and shame, because experiencing these emotions is extremely painful. Art therapy makes it possible for all repressed and unexpressed feelings to manifest in a creative product. And after that we have the opportunity to analyze what happened and draw conclusions.
Another task of art therapy is to bring our unconscious attitudes, values, experiences into the sphere of consciousness. Due to the fact that creative methods of psychological work easily pass the censorship of consciousness, the products of our creativity reflect the true, albeit unconscious, content of our psyche. This is a huge resource for self-knowledge and self-development, for achieving greater personal integrity.
