What is art therapy?

When we were kids, art time was often the best part of grammar school. Who didn’t enjoy coloring, drawing, and painting? It was fun, relaxing, and you got a wonderful euphoric feeling from creating something you made with your own hands.

Then you proceeded to working life in front of a computer for 8 hours a day. At least. The movements of your hands were limited to typing on the computer keyboard and your imagination was put to sleep like your beloved ill dog, which suffered from cancer.

Yes. A sad story. Today we are no longer creative. We have far less ways to express our emotions. We shout at our kids, we pump at the gym, we come home edgy after a full day at work… Jenny was like this until she discovered art therapy.

She never would have thought that art therapy could help her through the toughest spots in her life, but it actually did. It helped her to release all her emotions, without the need to scream or pull out your hair from your head.

WHAT IS ART THERAPY?

Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses a variety of art media as its primary mode of communication and expression. It’s a particularly useful method of finding ways to explore difficult emotions. I use art to help grown-ups and children deal with emotions including loss, grief, transitions, attachment, emotional, bullying, mental health, behavioral issues, and confidence issues among others.

There is something so freeing about art therapy. The goal of art therapy is not a production of an art masterpiece, it is rather a creative process in which you take out all hurtful and sad emotions to the daylight. From your brain, heart, as well as the subconscious mind. You speak, not with words, but with colors and images. You move, you create, you are in the flow.

All you do is you move your brush or pencil, create, take it all out with fierce red or the blackest black.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF ART THERAPY?

1. You reduce stress.

You had a bad day at work. You have a problem with your boss. You come to an art therapy session. You imagine you are telling your boss everything by colors and lines you put on paper in front of you. Thinking about your boss and your feelings towards him/her, you let these feelings come out. When you finish you feel relieved, born again, happier.

2. You address past traumas.

Do you remember that hurtful break-up between you and this man you so much cared for? You buried it deep down inside and from that time your relationships with men are not going well. In the art therapy session, you work to release the emotions about that break-up, which are still present in your body and mind. Maybe you didn’t express them before? Maybe it was too painful to dwell in it? Now is the moment to say a proper ‘good-bye’ with art therapy method.

Art therapy is great when dealing with marriage problems or divorce.

Kids quite often use art therapy unconsciously, when for example, their parents quarrel or divorce.

Plantation of Creativity leads art therapy sessions for children and adults. Contact us and schedule your first session with us!

“If you’re feeling blue, try painting yourself a different color”.