Art therapy: The intersection of creativity and psychology

IMAAN MOIN

What is art therapy?

According to the British Association of Art Therapists, art therapy is a type of psychotherapy that involves making art to communicate unspoken feelings and experiences. Rua McGarry, an art therapy master’s student in the USA, defines art therapy as:

“a practice that incorporates art into therapy, where clients are given the opportunity to use more than words to process and express themselves. It is also a beautiful opportunity for clients to receive unconditional praise for their skills, build confidence, and connect with themselves.”

Clients need no previous art skills or experience to participate. Art therapy sessions will vary in activity depending on clients’ needs and preferences. For example, art may be made in silence or while in conversation with the art therapist, and the medium and materials used is up to the client. Clay sculpture-making might suit one more than painting with acrylics or watercolors.

Meanwhile, the art therapist might sit quietly and pay attention as the client makes art, or they may join in on the artmaking. Art therapists will then help the client think through the “thoughts, feelings and experiences” that appear when studying the art made or during the creative session.

Can it help cancer patients?

Many people can use art therapy to help with emotional difficulties. Charity organization Cancer Research UK supports art therapy as an option to help cope with cancer symptoms and treatments.

In fact, a study was conducted in the UK in 2019 on how art therapy might impact pain after breast cancer treatments. Previous research has shown that art therapy can improve depression, health, and other factors, so it might have strong potential in being a form of pain treatment. The results are currently unavailable, but this is just one example of art therapy being explored in different fields.

An art therapist in training

Rua McGarry is studying to become an art therapist in the USA.

During her undergraduate studies in studio art and psychology, McGarry interned with licensed art therapists at an art center at a residential camp for people with social, cognitive, and developmental disabilities. Also during university, they gained experience as a social work intern at an intensive outpatient day hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. McGarry worked with children with behavioral and mental health issues who couldn’t participate in their regular routines.

“As a social work intern, I spent a lot of my day calling therapists and trying to establish long-term care to follow discharge, but I also spent any free time coloring, crafting, and being present with the children.”

Through these internships, McGarry was able to witness people regulate their emotions by making art and see just how finished artwork elicited pride and offered paths to talk about difficult feelings.

“My own experiences using art to process complex emotions have also played a large role in inspiring me to seek greater knowledge about art as a therapeutic mode of healing and communication.”

McGarry began their graduate studies in the summer of 2022, so she is at the beginning of her training. The foundations of graduate studies in art therapy begin with the history of art therapy. Students like McGarry learn how art therapy has developed using Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic therapeutic theories. They also study how prehistoric cave paintings contribute to modes of art and communication in the modern day. Studying art history – specifically the history of creating and making art alongside the history of storytelling – demonstrates that people have been making art for no purpose beyond creating and leaving a legacy of sorts. Expressing emotions and complicated feelings through art is a historical process, and people in the modern era are explicitly harnessing this creative process to improve mental health.

Art therapy students can also take classes on power, privilege, and oppression, which McGarry is really excited about. “It is so important, especially for therapists who are in a position of power, to be knowledgeable about how their actions [have the potential to be] deeply harmful.”

Supporting those in times of mental health crisis involves understanding individual struggles and the larger external systemic processes that are causing long-lasting distress and damage to people. By studying both art-therapeutic theories and systems of oppression, art therapists are being equipped to help people cope with the complex problems they face in our world.

In the future, McGarry’s dream is to open an art gallery where people experiencing housing insecurity can create and sell art. This unique method of art therapy would allow some of society’s most vulnerable individuals seek mental health support while also offering an opportunity to make money and ease some financial burdens. Furthermore, this gallery space would facilitate informed community support, which would make a positive impact on the wider public as well.

But right now, as she works through her first year of graduate school, McGarry is most excited to learn how to interpret clients’ artwork. “I think we say a lot subconsciously through art.”

ANOSMIA VISUALISED LADY M

COVID-19 and its associated symptoms have raised awareness of anosmia (loss of smell) which is at the centre of my practice research. ‘Anosmia Visualised’ is my response, as an olfactory artist, to the life-changing effects of the condition, representing pungent and appetising foodstuffs as bland and transparent, showing what it must be like without the sense of smell or taste.