For Essays Guru M6D1 Responses

Jared,

Art therapy is a universal language in the sense that art is all about self-expression.  Therapy allows patients to demonstrate their feelings through the media of their choosing.  Some people express their feelings best through words, whether those words are spoken, written, or sung.  People can paint, or sculpt, or weave.  Art therapy is focused on the patient, and allows the patient to identify how they want to express their feelings, which can help them come to terms with whatever it is that makes them feel the things they are feeling.

                One program that focuses on connecting military veterans and their families to veteran focused art therapy organizations is Operation We Are Here (Operation We Are Here).  They have many resources that offer art therapy through a variety of art forms like dance, theater, film, music, and writing. 

                A study was done in Hong Kong to determine the effectiveness of Art Therapy in reducing death anxiety and burnout in end-of-life care workers in the long-term care and hospice industry (Potash et al.).  During the study, volunteers participated in a 6-week course led by a certified art therapist, where they were asked to complete a variety of tasks including art making, and reflective writing.  According to the study, art therapy was effective for helping caregivers to reduce the level of death-anxiety they suffered from, and actually helped them to reflect on death in an emotionally healthy way (Potash et al.).

                I was able to find some theories on the purpose of art therapy, and will relay them for you here.   According to Van Lillith (2016), some therapists play the role of observer, they observe a person on their journey toward knowing their self better through art therapy.  Others use art therapy to help their patients gain new perspectives.  Still others use art therapy to reinforce the idea that the patient has support, and that they can trust their therapist.  Lastly, some art therapists use art therapy to compound the human experience of their patients through “sensory-motor, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, social and spiritual aspects” of their self (Van Lillith).

                Each of these perspectives has a different theory behind them, but they all attempt to do the same thing.  They want to help the patient understand their self and to do it through self-expression.  Art therapy helps people to process complex emotional events in ways that simple question and answer sessions cannot.  It is through the expression of our most complex and deep emotions that we can come to understand why we think in a certain way about a situation, and why these situations carry such strong emotions.

Jayson, 

Art, whether it be drawing, music, sculpting, etc. can help people in all situations. It can be a form of relaxing to escape from a stressful day or to help one express their feelings after a traumatic situation. The saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” is absolutely true. Some people don’t know how to or can’t express their emotions with words or even through a normal physical outlet so drawing/sculpting is an outlet for that expression of a feeling. For instance, many psychologists use drawings tests as a subjective way of trying to understand children's home lives (Huntsberry 2014). They use this because many studies have been done that show when kids draw a certain way, use certain colors or draw certain things; they are expressing some feeling about their home life that they may not be able to communicate effectively. For example, how does a child tell someone that they don’t feel loved or are being abused by their parents, the answer is they don’t. But, in a drawing, they may draw themselves apart from their parents or not put a smile on their own face. This allows the child an outlet to express their emotion and once the problem is identified, the right questions can be asked and help initiated. For an adult, art may help people find relief from overwhelming emotions, crises or trauma. They may discover insights about themselves, increase their sense of well-being, enrich their daily lives through creative expression, or experience personal transformation (Tartakovsky n.d.).  Finding personal meaning in one’s images is often part of the art therapy process.

As for this being a universal language, people of all ages and cultures can express their emotions through art of various kinds like we saw in the video. One can look at a drawing from a person in a different country and understand something about that person. I’ll close with a testimonial from an art therapy creative counseling group in Australia. “Art for me has always been a journey of self discovery. Regarding depression, I have learned the hard way that what you resist persists, and art has given me a voice in working through this resistance to come to a place of understanding and acceptance. I liken my depression to being isolated in a cave, afraid to stand at the entrance and look out into the ‘scary’ unknown. When I am making my art it gives me the confidence to move to the mouth of the cave and step into the embrace of creativity.”