Three Reasons Why I LOVE Art Therapy

The number one question I am usually asked in my daily life is “what is art therapy, what do you do?”. First off, this is super exciting to me that someone wants to learn more about art therapy and secondly instead of trying to make a quick elevator pitch I prefer to list three reasons why I LOVE it.

Art therapy can amplify and celebrate our strengths.

Using art therapy can provide us an opportunity to amplify and celebrate strengths that are already inside us. This can look like creating a ‘Who Am I?‘ collage and recognizing how you are a caring and kind friend to those around you. Or maybe you’re trying to create a clay octopus but it keeps falling apart over and over again. Instead of giving up, you might use your strength of problem-solving and adaptability to change the plans and create an eight headed lion instead. Having opportunities to utilize and celebrate our strengths alongside an art therapist can build resilience when we face challenges in our lives.

We can learn new things about ourselves and build new skills.

In art therapy groups or one-to-one with an art therapist we have the opportunity to try new ways to interact with others and test out new skills. Maybe at home we feel nervous or anxious about sharing our toys with a sibling so we prevent that from happening by not letting them touch our stuff. Joining an art therapy group would give us an opportunity to try out and explore different ways we can share supplies and practice making boundaries around this to build our social skills. When we practice how to interact with others in an art therapy group we can expand and apply this awareness to our daily life.

We don’t have to talk about our problems directly.

Instead of trying to talk about our problem using direct words, art therapy provides an opportunity to explore using metaphors, stories and symbols to show how we feel. It can be nerve wracking or scary to speak to our worries directly. Maybe we are feeling anxiety about starting at a new school. When creating with an art therapist we might create puppets and a story about what the first day of school might look. As we create the story and the identity of our new puppet we can explore how the puppet feels and what we could do to help them calm their anxieties if they are feeling worried. When we use metaphors, stories or symbols we have a chance to transform what is making us feel anxious and interact with it in a new way that maybe words can’t get to.

There we have it, three reasons why I LOVE art therapy. Now let’s go make some art!