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.

Art therapy courses for Art Therapists are rapidly becoming an international trend, spreading from the United States clear to Northern Ireland. But in the United States alone, the bulk of art therapy education is located on both coasts only. In the U.S. College Search, only 42 Art Therapy Colleges and Universities are listed, as contrasted with 53 for Music Therapy.

The AATA, or American Art Therapy Association, Inc., has a catalog of credited schools they personally have approves for a specific period of time, not going over seven years. And the AATA recognizes long distance learning, providing they follow the same standards of approval that relate to all programs.

The student applying for the Art Therapy courses is necessary to have a bachelor’s degree from any accredited institution in the United States to be valid for Master-level Art Therapy courses. Another alternative is to be already accepted into a bachelor-master duel degree program in art therapy. But if the student is coming into the United States from another country, an academic preparation that is comparable from the out-of-country institution is obligatory.

Each student requires having a portfolio of their unique artwork to the school so as to be admitted to the art therapy courses. The purpose is to show their competence of using the art materials in their work. Once they are admitted, they are required to finish in twelve months:

1.       Minimum of 18 credit semester hours of study with studio art, using a variety of materials and assorted processes.

2.       Minimum of 12 credit semester hours of study in psychology, including developmental psychology and abnormal psychology.

In order for the art therapy courses to be relevant to a Master’s degree, 48-graduate semester credits are required to meet the graduate level art therapy education standards. Some states may entail 60-graduate semester credit for licensing or clinical education standards.

There are several compulsory content areas to be eligible for admittance to the art therapy courses:

1.       Minimum of 24 semester credits in art therapy content

2.       History and theory of art therapy

3.       Techniques of practice in art therapy

4.       Application of art therapy with people in different treatment settings

5.       Group work

6.       Art therapy assessment

7.       Ethical and legal issues of art therapy practice

8.       Standards of practice in art therapy

9.       Cultural and social diversity

10.   Thesis or culminating project

11.   Required related content areas

12.   Psychopathology

13.   Human growth and development

14.   Counseling and psychological theories

15.   Cultural and social diversity

16.   Assessment

17.   Research

18.   Studio Art

19.   Career and lifestyle development

20.   Practicum and Internship

21.   Minimum of 100 hours of supervised art therapy practicum

22.   Minimum of 600 hours of supervised art therapy internship over a minimum of two academic terms

The way art therapy activities are structured depends a great deal on the type of individual that it is being performed on. Remembering that the objective of art therapy is based on each individual client’s diagnosis, their particular capabilities, individual needs, and their personal interests – an emphasis on the creative development is placed along the path rather than the final finished assignment.

As a rule, adults do not respond as well to art therapy activities as do children, requiring a certain degree of convincing that they have creative aptitude. There is an excited enthusiasm about children (and certain adults) when they see paint, pencils, colored paper, and clay. This is why they can respond so well to art therapy activities in a therapeutic sitting as compared to adults. In fact, most adults would have a preference to articulate their own creative side in the solitude of their home in order to diminish stress. But there are times when more serious problems necessitate the assistance of professional help -for instance with an art therapist.

Art therapy activities thrive because they have the capacity to move the mind from the trouble itself, in hopes of achieving happiness and peace. The Dalai Lama once said, “In the final analysis, the hope of every person is merely peace of mind.” This attainment can be achieved with a agreeable state of conscious, on the condition there is a correlation with reality. With art therapy and art therapy activities, reality can be moved and altered for a few minutes, as art can take a person’s mind off what is the dilemma, allowing the subconscious to come forward and speak in another language that is kinder and much more gentler.

When creating with art therapy activities, the body and mind attains a certain flow about it, almost as if it was in a near-meditative status. Over the centuries, philosophers have been conscious that meditation has the capacity to blank the mind out of what is currently going on around it. In reality, the visualizations that build up through this form of creativity have the capacity to build tomorrow’s desired reality, if the art is permitted to be formed in a thoughtless state of pure automation.

This mind-set works fine with art therapy activities, as not all children and adults can correctly verbalize about how they feel what is going on within their mind or their body, especially if something traumatic has occurred. Not in touch with the reality of emotions and inner feelings, the mind is not free to understand the present which is where we are, but is buried in the past with hidden memories that cannot break away.