Art therapy: when art makes you feel good
Art therapy is a process that leads to self-knowledge and to the expression of every emotion, without censorship or limits. Each creative laboratory gives the opportunity to see perhaps for the first time in images what we normally experience only in the interior, from which we often shy away. This type of therapy is aimed at different people, from which however everyone can find benefit, both adults in particularly difficult phases of life for children at school, as a training experience but at the same time relaxing. Furthermore, this activity favors the improvement of self-esteem, seeing the arts as perfect allies for our psychophysical health and well-being.
How art therapy was born
"Art as a whole is nothing but an" art of surviving. "
Thomas Bernhard, from the book Old masters
Therapy that uses art does not have a single origin. One of its first "cells" dates back to the second half of the Thirties, when Frield Ducker Brandeis realizes the powerful link between words, shapes and color. He becomes an art teacher for the children of the Prague ghetto, where he tries to vent the negative emotions and feelings of his students through artistic representations.
Subsequently, in the 1940s, both Great Britain and the United States began to use art therapy to treat traumatized war veterans hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals. The power of art as a cure for mental well-being continued to be studied through different approaches. Among the most important are the names of Edith Kramer and Margeret Naumburg. The first considers this "treatment" from an artistic point of view, underlining how the positive effects derive from the psychological factors that are activated during the realization of the drawing or painting by the "patient".
Naumburg, on the other hand, drew on the studies already of Freud and Jung, who saw art as a link between the unconscious and the rationality of the individual. What people cannot admit with words or emotions and thoughts that do not they don't even know that they have rationally emerged thanks to artistic expression.
See also
Today, the term art therapy s "indicates a path of psychic support or treatment. This approach takes place in a non-verbal way, but through artistic materials and mediators that can be of various sizes. In fact, there is no longer any appeal. only to art in itself - understood as painting or sculpture or other techniques - but also to all those other artistic disciplines such as theater, dance and music, for which special workshops were born.
«The best art is often the fruit of loneliness, it is what comes out of necessity and not strategy, which is born in your belly and which, like a child, you will have the courage to bring into the world, risking criticism and failure. "
Francesco Bonami
The "typologies" of art therapy and to whom it is addressed
Depending on the path to be pursued, art therapy partly modifies its procedure and its objectives, adapting to the needs of those who need it. Usually there are three areas of intervention.
1. Therapeutic Area: this is when art therapy is included in the rehabilitation program for cases of severe handicaps and psychiatric disorders, such as autism or schizophrenia. In this case, the art declined in the various disciplines is neither the solution nor the cure, but becomes a complementary activity to the rehabilitation process and can lead to good results.
2. Rehabilitation area: in this case, art therapy is also used in the presence of people of all ages, from children to adults and the elderly, who, however, have not been diagnosed with psychological pathologies. In this case the "art therapy it is no longer a rehabilitation path, but a playful one, with the aim of helping those who practice it to express themselves without judgment. In fact, its goal is to allow the expression of thoughts and emotions, not necessarily having to do "a good job" from an aesthetic point of view.
3. Preventive and educational area: this last branch of art therapy aims to foster inner and personal growth during particularly difficult times or times of change in the course of life. In particular, it is aimed at those who are facing a slight depression or a crisis in a relationship or a reversal in the work situation. Through art, frustrations and particularly negative thoughts will be released, to introject positive energy.
How does an art therapy laboratory work?
As already mentioned, art therapy, with its various forms, always remains a treatment for mental health and well-being and, therefore, takes place within the limits of time and space. Normally, a group workshop with art as a protagonist. therapy lasts at least a couple of hours and revolves around the fundamental figure of the art therapist. It is a professional who has undergone a "special training and who takes care of" setting up the space, giving a lot of importance to light. In the same way, the art therapist organizes the various materials that encourage many stimuli to those who take part in the class, both adults and children. Colors of all kinds cannot be missing, from pencils to tempera and markers, as well as paper, fabric, modeling clay and much more useful material for all techniques.
During the workshop, it is the therapist's task to welcome the group and maintain a calm and serene atmosphere for all hours of work. To do this, he uses both a certain type of verbal and non-verbal language, made up of gestures and indications to give creative ideas to users.
There are cases in which art therapy also takes place at school, aimed above all at those children or adolescents who have attention disorders or other cognitive deficits. During the hours set aside for this creative process, each person has the opportunity to "disconnect" from the "normal" lessons and the "commitment required to devote himself to his own mental well-being.
"There is rhythm in every art, no matter whether you are a painter, a musician or a director: rhythm is there, and people feel its call."
F. Gary Gray
This is the basic setting of a laboratory based on the visual arts, but, as mentioned, the term "art therapy" or "art therapy" can also refer to other laboratories.
- Music therapy: it can be both "active", ie the users play a musical instrument in the first person, and "receptive", when listening to music with the aim of promoting relaxation and relaxation.
- Theatrotherapy: allows you to communicate through verbal language and also through that of the body.
- Dance therapy: thanks to the movement of the body, emotions, feelings and torments can be released and expressed.
The benefits of art therapy
"Both art and the artist do not have their own identity, but acquire it in the" encounter of "one with the other."
Harold Rosenberg
Despite the different areas of intervention, it is possible to recognize, in general, the benefits of art therapy. First of all, in the laboratory hours we aim at the self-knowledge of anyone who experiences it. Through art it is possible to activate a process to express emotions and thoughts either unknown or normally silenced. They take shape in artistic creativity and take concrete images, thus being able to be observed as something "detached" from itself. Each patient comes into contact with his own personal and unconscious world through a different "experience than usual: no longer thanks to dreams, but in reality.
Furthermore, it has been noted that drawing, painting and artistically expressing oneself has an "effective capacity for relaxation and relaxation, making it perfect even for those who do not suffer from mental illness but are facing a particularly difficult and stressful period of life.
Finally, in addition to improving teamwork skills, art is one of the favorite ways to affirm and contribute to the growth of the patient's self-esteem. Artistic products made in an art therapy laboratory are never judged critically, but only from a psychological point of view by the art therapist. In doing so, one cannot speak of "beautiful" or "ugly", but only of how one's feelings have been expressed.
