· Art Therapy can be beneficial in individual or in group settings.
· Art Therapists work in a variety of environments including hospitals, palliative care, prisons, schools, disability services, mental health services etc.
Art Therapy can be an excellent medium for all age groups and cultural backgrounds as verbal communication is not central to this form of therapy.
Filed under: What is Art Therapy? |
arttherapyireland 
Nice site! Like all the info you put on your site. I work in trauma in the United States. Curious about how you practice.
Hi Carol,
Thank you, I’m glad you found the info useful! I have only worked with trauma indirectly; cancer care, palliative care and some clients who experienced domestic violence.
I have found if clients are comfortable with art making art therapy has proven an effective and empowering way for them to access sometimes raw memories and feelings. I mainly work non-directively (I don’t set themes or projects) so the client leads the pace and depth that they travel at. It seems that the art work, as its tangible can give a different view on what has often been verbalised before or regressed completely; a client may not see a figure you may see in an abstract painting and weeks later in a review of all they art work it may seem an obvious figure to them, their defence mechanisms still remain intact until they can bare to ‘see it’. Also since a trauma now has a physical representaion of a piece of art work the client can tangibly leave it with the therapist (containment),lock it away re model or paint it or destroy it! There is quite an academic but non the less interesting chapter called ‘Trauma and the work of art’ in a book called “Principles and Practice of Expressive Arts Therapy” (2005) by Knill,Levine and Levine, Jessica Kingsley Publishers. If Trauma through Cancer is a topic you have an interest in I would highly recommend, “Art Therapy and Cancer Care”(2005) edited by Diane Waller and Caryl Sibbett, Open University press. I hope this is of some use to you, Thanks for your lovely comment, Fiona