Art psychotherapy aims to help people feel safe enough to express their thoughts, feelings and personal matters. It aims to help a person bring about changes in his or her life by making shifts in the way he or she thinks and feels.
An individual art psychotherapy session usually lasts up to an hour. Group sessions last up to two. It is not an art class and you do not have to be an experienced artist to take part, just willing to give it a try.
The session will take place in a room either dedicated to art psychotherapy or adapted for the session. In this room, there will be a good range of art materials available, space to make your visual image, somewhere comfortable to talk to the art psychotherapist and ample storage for anything you make during the session.
Below are some examples of the relationship between the kind of mental health problems you might be experiencing and the differences or changes you can expect through art psychotherapy.
Art psychotherapy for people with long term depression and anxiety
What you may be experiencing:
- You recognise that your thoughts, emotions or behaviour are restricted because of the impact mental health problems or significant life events have had on your life.
- You have decided that you want to regain and develop your capacity to think and feel more freely.
What art psychotherapy can do:
- By making images in your art psychotherapy, you can experience a more flexible or spontaneous response to something new.
- When familiar patterns of thought and feeling appear, they can be addressed by you and your psychotherapist together.
- The attention your images receive from your art therapist introduces you to a different way of being understood.
- Outside the session, you may feel an increased sense of personal wellbeing.
Art psychotherapy for people who have experienced severe mental illness
What you may be experiencing:
- You find it stressful to interact with others and this gets in the way of you expressing and communicating what you think and feel.
- You have decided that you want to regain and develop your ability to think and feel as best you can.
What art psychotherapy can do:
- By meeting regularly with your art psychotherapist, you work at and gain a therapeutic relationship that feels like a reasonably good experience and does not feel intrusive or overwhelming.
- Using art materials gives you a lot of control and gives you choices to work with.
Art psychotherapy for people who have relationship or achievement difficulties
What you may be experiencing:
- You recognise that you are having difficulties coping with the demands of your personal, family or work relationships
- Your thoughts, feelings and behaviour in these relationships appear to be dominated by emotions and ideas that you act on, but don't fully understand.
What art psychotherapy can do:
- Using art materials in your art psychotherapy you can represent these emotions and ideas, then discuss them with your art psychotherapist.
- The understanding gained from this can increase your sense of personal wellbeing and your ability to function as an individual.
After Art Psychotherapy
Sometimes, as a result of their experiences with image making in art psychotherapy, or because of a pre-existing interest or identity as self taught or formally educated artists, some service users seek to engage with art forms in a social and or vocational context in order to continue to create personal value and meanings. The Trust assists these efforts through the ‘Arts and Culture’ resources it provides and supports.
