The American Art Therapy Association provides the following definition for our consideration:

Art therapy is a mental health profession that enriches the lives of individuals, families and communities through active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship.

Within this therapeutic model, art-making offers a more symbolic form of communication that can promote therapeutic growth on its own, or be interwoven with more traditional forms of talk therapy. Within the safe holding space of the therapeutic relationship, art-making enables clients to be able to communicate aspects of their internal experiences that are hard to express in words. It is a highly individualized approach to therapy, in that it can be tailored to the client’s strengths, needs and goals by the trained and experienced art therapist.

Art flow, not art show. -Gina

Because art therapy is focused more on the process, or the experience of making the art rather than on the final product, a client does not have to be an “artist” or possess a certain level of artistic skill, training or talent to benefit from this approach. A gentle reminder you may hear me say in our art therapy sessions from time to time is…

Having said that, it is also an added benefit to doing art therapy that you will compile a growing portfolio of art products as our work continues. Clients often experience a sense of pride, delight and mastery in that there is a visual record of their therapeutic journey that they can return and reflect upon at various points throughout treatment.

Yes!

I love this topic, because it is a shift that many art therapists had to make (and seemingly overnight!) during the Coronavirus pandemic, in order to continue serving their clients. While there are undoubtedly both advantages and special challenges to doing art therapy virtually, digital art therapy is a growing field and offers a wide range of media for clients to utilize from the comfort of their own homes. Doing art therapy sessions over Zoom allows us to make art using more traditional tools like pencils, markers, paints, glue, scissors, etc., but also broadens the spectrum to include common household supplies, natural elements collected from the outdoors, and the world of digital artmaking tools on apps like Procreate, ibisPaint, JamBoard, and SketchesPro. If you would like to learn more about how I incorporate digital art therapy into my practice, watch the podcast episode titled “Interested in Art Therapy” linked below!

Not at all. The offering of art therapy in our work together is just that… an offering, and an invitation. Whether you choose to engage in the art-making process for part, or all or none of our session time together is all welcome! In our work together, art is another therapeutic tool we can draw upon (no pun intended!), in addition to talking, or other interventions I am trained to implement to support therapeutic growth and healing. But it is not a prerequisite to working with me.