Art therapy: definition and benefits

The arts, like all non-verbal expression, favor the exploration, expression and communication of aspects of which we are not aware. In this sense, Working with emotions through art therapy improves the quality of human relationships because it focuses on the emotional factor, essential in every human being, helping us to be more aware of dark aspects, and thus facilitating the development of the person (Duncan, 2007).

Art therapy cares about the person. It is not a project about her, but a project with her based on her discomfort and her desire for change. Based on personal and cultural differences, it tries to update the conditions of creative production, to perceive the specificities of the media used and understand their impacts (Bassols, 2006).

We start

Art therapy can be defined as a discipline with specific specificities and limits. It is an aid – therapy for some – that uses the plastic arts as a means to recover or improve mental health, the emotional and social well-being of the person. The goals of art therapy are the same as those of psychotherapy.

The psychiatrist Jean-Pierre Klein, founder of INECAT (National Institute of Expression, Creation, Art and Therapy) refers to art therapy as “a project that raises the challenge of transforming, at least partially, physical or mental illness, discomfort, painful marginalization, handicap, into personal enrichment. “The pain, the evil, the trauma become tests that the person must overcome to make a stage of their progress.”

Klein, adds in a deeper definition that art therapy “is an accompaniment to people in difficulty (psychological, physical, social or existential) through their artistic productions: plastic, sound, theatrical, literary, corporal and dance works. This subtle work, which takes vulnerabilities as material, seeks less to reveal the unconscious meanings of the productions than to allow the subject to re-create himself, to create himself anew, in a symbolic journey from creation to creation..

This aid focuses on art as a form of communication, in this way helps express and communicate feelings, facilitating reflection, communication and allowing the necessary changes in behavior. Artistic creation, taken as an action, sets in motion a process: the therapeutic space intervenes and bursts into reality, revaluing it.

Art therapy: the arts used in psychological therapy

visual arts

The visual arts are those used in therapy. We talk about painting, clay, collage, performing arts such as acting, stories, reminiscence theater, role-playing games, puppets. With music, rhythm, sound, voice, instruments are used, and different genres can be used in writing. Art therapy is a way of telling the truth by playing on the symbolic. Experiences in creation can represent acts of aggression, abandonment, losses, feelings, and they do so indirectly, without intentionality (Bassols, 2006).

Dramatic Art

In theatrical, dramatic or puppet work, the patient speaks through a character.. It is the art of action through the fictional character, an individual and/or collective creation process that is situated between two worlds: reality and fiction. Through productions with clay, a dialogue with the material is established. It is about encouraging the person’s reunion with the material and accompanying them on the journey that goes from the mud to themselves.

Paint

In painting, a first step of unlocking is taken, letting yourself be carried away by the images that come, the lines, the shapes, the colors. In this way, the aim is for the hand to escape from the censorship of the eye, like a disinhibition, to organize it in a second moment and little by little access the deepest part of the person.

Dance and movement

With respect to dance there is, at the beginning, a moment of awareness of the movement itself, in the sense of listening to it and listening to yourself through that dynamism. Thus, it subsequently allows a closer approach to oneself and facilitates communication with the other. In voice work, the natural voice is sought and used, breathing is unlocked; it is created and transformed from improvisations, combining various sound qualities.

Writing

For its part, Writing enables new ways to play with the imagination based on one’s own experiences and experiences.. Situations and imaginary companions appear, diverse itineraries, until reaching the recreation of stories and tales in fiction.

Working with emotions in art therapy

Emotions are of fundamental importance in human development and experience. In art therapy, working with the arts helps personal and emotional development. Four phases are used to work with emotions in art therapy: naming, exploring, experimenting and integrating. Emotions are our primary form of communication and can be more important than words. If the words are not accompanied by appropriate emotions, they are hardly believed (Duncan, 2007).

Normally when we express something with emotion, we use gestures, images, verbal metaphors and tones of voice to better communicate with other people. They help us understand and express much more than words alone, when emotions are congruent with these words. The arts, like all non-verbal expression, favor the exploration, expression and communication of aspects of which we are not aware.

Improving relationships

Working with emotions through art therapy improves the quality of relationships. It focuses on the emotional factor, helping us to be more aware of dark aspects, and thus facilitating the development of the person. Basic emotions, such as fear, anger, joy, love, sadness and uncomfortable feelings, are essential and necessary for the emotional balance of all people.

All emotions affect our cognitive abilities, our physical health and our professional performance. The ability to express, in a situation, appropriate emotions, at consistent levels, contributes to the health of emotional intelligence. It also implies the ability to have the emotional manifestation of the other in an appropriate way and for empathy.

Working with the arts helps personal and emotional development. The unconscious works more with symbols than with reasoned words, therefore, the use of The arts facilitate the process of reflection and its development. Much more can be communicated through the arts, especially unconsciously, as images convey more than words and offer a safe means to explore difficult topics.

Benefits of art therapy

Art therapy is beneficial in terms of the possibility of developing interpersonal skills, the patient communicating with other people in his environment easily, due to the ease of expression that this therapy proposes. In addition, it is very useful for managing behavior, increasing self-esteem and avoiding the effects that anxiety produces.

Below we detail the advantages of art therapy on the people who practice it:

1. Expression of feelings that are difficult to verbalize

Sometimes it is difficult for us to express what we feel or what we think through the most traditional means, which is why art therapy, being a tool that uses and develops expression, can help you give shape to those thoughts and feelings that are most difficult to let go of. go out.

2. Developing healthy coping skills

Facing feelings and emotions in a creative way can help when changing those behaviors or habits established and carried out every time it is necessary to express emotions. Using art therapy when you are going through a sad emotional process, trying to use said emotion to create, can help when facing the situation optimally.

3. Exploration of imagination and creativity

Using this type of therapy makes the person enhance their ability to create and imagine, as well as enhance these abilities by working on them in a focused way and with the help of the therapist.

4. Improve self-esteem and confidence

Verifying that we can do something for ourselves leads us to achieve greater emotional stability. In the same way, achieving the proposed objectives makes us increase our self-confidence and nourish the thought that we are doing it well.

5. Identification and clarification of concerns

The fact of capturing in the external world what concerns us internally makes us see in a more practical and accessible way those concepts that we cannot understand. Abstract ideas that only by observing ourselves from an outside perspective can be integrated into our knowledge.

6. Increased communication capacity

Using the artistic modality to express oneself makes the person acquire new tools to have good communication, both with others and with themselves. The fact of being able to express what is difficult to verbalize trains the ability to express in a clearer way and more in line with what you want to communicate.

7. Improvement of physical skills

Art therapy normally uses the body to express what we cannot say, so this type of therapy also benefits those people who have difficulty making movements or coordinating them.

8. Art reduces stress and anxiety levels

Carrying out activities related to art and creativity offers the person an experience in which both the level of stress and anxiety are reduced. People who do this type of therapy find these activities relaxing.

9. Motivates the exercise of thought and helps reflection

Scientific thinking goes further and is also related to the ability to be autonomous or to solve everyday problems.

10. Improves concentration, attention and memory

For our daily lives it is important to learn to concentrate. Having a good ability to concentrate helps us enormously to be more effective when carrying out any task. The benefits of have good concentration There are many: they increase our memory, our effectiveness in decision-making, our precision and our agility in the challenge at hand.

The areas of application of art therapy are physical health, mental health, emotional well-being and social well-being. in different sectors of the population. In the case of those people who require specific monitoring of their body expression and movement, art therapy can be applied through…