Benefits of art therapy
Art therapy is a field of therapy which involves art and psychology. It uses creative techniques such as pieces of art creation, the third party artwork through helping individuals to develop self-awareness, explore their emotions, and improve the social skills and, helps in raising self-esteem. Its main purpose is to help individuals experience both the emotional and psychological challenges to have personal well-being and improve the levels of functions as a result.
Art therapy is a widely accepted therapeutic technique that is used as a means of communication, self-expression, good interaction and conflict resolution. Activities that are involved with this particular type of therapy involves; curving of idols, drawing sacred painting and symbols that are said to help in the healing process.
The benefits of art therapy are said to be diverse and that people of any age group set to benefit. It is the number one leading booster of self-esteem, confidence, and self-awareness.
People who should use art therapy are people with:
- Heart diseases
- Stress
- Depression
- Ageing and deficit hyperactivity
- Substance dependency
- Compassion fatigue
This is because the therapy provides a safe space that gives people the chance to express how they are feeling through a creative art activity. People who have also fallen out of emotions are brought back to a position where they can develop emotions to a particular piece of art. The other huge beneficiaries are individuals with difficulty in having a problem in discussing and even remembering some painful events in their lives.
Techniques and exercise of art therapy:
The field professionals fully understand the powerful effect that these art processes have of an individual. It often in most cases uses psychological, spiritual and artistic theories with a spice of clinical technique to achieve a desirable outcome. The art therapy is proven to benefit a diverse group of people even those with non-verbal abilities.
Common techniques used are:
- Making pottery
- Use of textiles
- Making collages
- Making of cards
- Painting
- Finger painting
- Sculpting
- Scribbling
- Drawing
Through the activities above, the patient will have the platform to express thoughts, emotions, and develop an experience. Research shows that in the year 2004, there were a group of thirty-two women who had heart diseases. They were asked to illustrate their illness by drawing. The results were drawings of:
- Heart at the centre
- The heart is a living body
- Heart diseases as a social illness.
They involved paintings in their drawing, spatial arrangement, and composition was analyzed. This in return helped the professionals in knowing the best approach and appreciates the abilities that these women used to show their understanding of the disease. The moral lesson here is that illness is more often associated with emotions, and tactile, such as working with moulding clay as a refuge.
People mostly women, who are suffering from cancer are encouraged to engage in different visual activities for they have various benefits. Women with cancer are always facing these illness-related challenges such as loss of sleep, loss of confidence, and altered social relationship. Art therapy, in this case, helps the women regain their confidence, maintain a social identity and regaining self-worth all these through symbolically expressing their feelings.
Art therapy has other overall benefits such as:
- Stimulation of mental functions in older people with Dementia.
- It helps the patient reduce stress and anxiety especially in people with asthma.
- Helps in reducing pain by decreasing the symptoms of stress and in return improves the quality of life.
- It is said to help reduce depression in its patients
- It helps the patients know how to deal with pain and the frequent symptoms that may seem hard to handle.
In conclusion, we can say that art therapy provides people with positive distraction which in return adds to the healing processes. The depressed people, in this case, will not be buried by their thoughts but instead, they are busing either modelling pottery or drawing. In the long, they would have mastered the aspect of being away from the deep thoughts and engage in constructive activities. This may be a slow healing process but sure because the patients are the ones involved in most activities.