What is Art Therapy

WHAT IS ART THERAPY?

Imagine a gentle but dynamic process in which you symbolically access your deepest desires and bridge these safely to verbalize your clearest inspired goals. Art making and the creative process are ancient impulses that people have always used to make meaning of their experiences.

Using art in therapy, with individuals or groups that can be visually oriented, creates a nonthreatening method of exploration and access to feeling states which may be difficult to verbalize initially. The art allows an externalization through symbolic expression to facilitate clarity and stress relief in challenging situations. Art ability is not required. Safety and trust are built into the therapeutic relationship to lead you to responsible self discovery. It is possible to transcend trauma through image and containment.

Many professionals use art materials in their intervention, but working with a credentialed art therapist ensures that the evocative nature of art making is carried out with safeguards in place to avoid emotional flooding and retraumatization.

“The materials and process are what do the talking.
It is this mysterious reciprocal quality of art that
intrigues and makes one think of one’s work as visual poems.”

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Cori Dantini, artist, whitechalkstudio.com