What is Art Therapy – Therapeutic Ability To Heal

What is art therapy?  It is essentially the professional therapeutic ability to utilize artwork that was produced by individuals who yearn for personal growth. This growth has not been able to be achieved, as a result of trauma, illness, personal crisis, and certain challenges that happened to them.

When it comes to what is art therapy? Irrespective of age, people can make use of art therapy, produced by a professional art therapist who has been well trained about the human growth; artistic traditions in a host of cultures, psychological theories, and the healing abilities vis-à-vis the use of art. Therapies are provided to these individuals during art therapy because they cannot express through words, emotions, and feelings about their true mental condition.

The professional settings that participate with art therapy methods are mental health services, rehabilitation, medical institutions, education services, nursing homes, corporations, forensic agencies, community outreach, and independent practices.

Rigorous standards for art therapy have been established by the American Art Therapy Association, Inc. (AATA) and The Art Therapy Credentials Board, Inc. (ATCB). Certain individual states legalize their own practices of art therapy, while other states permit art therapists to develop into licensed counselors or mental health therapists. These art therapists make use of art-based assessment instruments to verify their client’s level of functioning. From this they are able to devise a certain level of healing programs, settle on what strengths and weaknesses their client has, gaining a better perspective of who their client is and the troubles they have, and be able to appraise their client’s development.

The Master level of training and education for an art therapist is compulsory, as ensuring the right usage and application of drawing tests, evaluation of the instrument validity, and its reliability is particularly important to better serve the client. According to Donna J. Betts, Ph.D., ATR-BC, in her 2005 Doctoral Dissertation, some of the top art therapy tests that can be used are:

1.       Favorite Kind of Day (AFKOD)

2.       Person Picking an Apple from a Tree (PPAT)

3.       Bird’s Nest Drawing (BND)

4.       Bridge Drawing

5.       Diagnostic Drawing Series (DDS)

6.       Child Diagnostic Drawing Series (CDDS)

Rating instruments are also scrutinized, which can comprise:

1.       Descriptive Assessment of Psychiatric Art (DAPA)

2.       DDS Rating Guide and Drawing Analysis Form (DAF)

3.       Formal Elements Art Therapy Scale (FEATS).

These are just some of the art therapy appraisal tools that can be used by art therapists, in clinical settings or in research. Each art therapy tool is a structured appraisal that is collected under standardized conditions. Most are developed to offer a compatibility with psychological testing and psychiatric evaluations:

1.       Art Therapy-Projective Imagery Assessment (ATPIA)

2.       Draw-A-Story Screening for Depression (DAS)

3.       Used to identify children and adolescents at risk for harming others or themselves.

4.       Through the artwork, it can be seen that significant differences will emerge between aggressive and non-aggressive groups in its emotional content and self-image.

What is art therapy is essentially the therapeutic ability to heal? It is most effective for child therapy that is creative and enthusiastic and it can help them focus elsewhere instead of remembering the traumatic experience.