Creative Art Therapy
Art therapy is an integrative mental health and human services profession that enriches the lives of individuals,
families, and communities through active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship. Art therapy, facilitated by a professional art therapist, effectively supports personal and relational treatment goals as well as community concerns (AATA, 2017). Through integrative methods, art therapy engages the mind, body, and spirit in ways that are distinct from verbal articulation alone. Kinesthetic, sensory, perceptual, and symbolic opportunities invite alternative modes of receptive and expressive communication, which can circumvent the limitations of language. Visual and symbolic expression gives voice to experience and empowers individual, communal, and societal transformation (AATA, 2017). Research in the field confirms that art therapy improves and enhances the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of individuals of all ages.
"It is an enjoyable activity that promotes dialogue, reduces anxiety, increases self-awareness, helps patients identify and explore fears and uncertainties, and promotes healing on every level” (AATA, 2011 p.2).
According to Cohen, as cited in Siegel (2007), “creativity challenges people to increase their abilities and offers the possibility of a longer more active lifespan” (pp.174-175).
The art-making process, rather than traditional talk therapy, shifts a person’s mode of thinking to creativity, intuition, and problem-solving as opposed to linear and analytic thinking (Gibbons, 2015).
Common struggles and challenges various disability diagnoses include are: lack of physical control, abnormal thought processes, high risk of comorbid health concerns, and lack of understanding of social norms and appropriate behavior, the inability of those around to allow/understand expressions of grief and other emotions, inability to develop and understand the language. A unique side of this population is that the individual’s conditions can never be “healed” so treatments involve, goals of creating a happy, healthy, and independent lifestyle. Due to the art therapy approach to healing with a variety of art materials and metaphoric qualities; its use with this population can create a positive healing environment. Art therapy can facilitate a variety of therapeutic benefits and goals for the disabled community including:
Physical and Occupational: improving motor skills, sensorimotor functions, and enhancing physical movement and feeling.
Cognitive: improvement of memory, prioritization, planning, problem-solving, abstract thinking and organization.
Psychosocial: improving interpersonal and social skills, expression of feelings, collaboration, and working in groups.
Emotional: improving impaired control, easing anxiety, and easing depression from feelings of loss, loneliness, guilt, frustration, and improving self-concept and self-esteem (Caprio-Orsini, 1996). Cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, reduce and resolve conflicts and distress (AATA, 2017)
With the use of art therapy in developmentally disabled people’s daily routine, it can help ease and eliminate some of the challenges faced with the accompanying disability. Art therapy has been proven to be successful with this population, is a wanted and needed form of therapy to better aid in the health and wellness of the developmentally disabled community.