Art Therapy

Art therapy is a human service profession in which art materials, the creative process, and a final art product are the vehicles for therapeutic interaction. Along with talking, creating some sort of art product is a focus of the therapy session. Personal awareness and growth take place as the patient interacts with art materials and learns something about himself or herself from the process of using them. An underlying assumption is that the processes that people use during the creation of images or sculpture mimic the patterns of thought, feeling, and action displayed in other aspects of their lives. Learning occurs through the creation of personal symbols or by linking to universal themes, by illustrating and thinking through problems, and via the release of tension ...