Art Therapy Services

What is Art Therapy

Art Therapy is an evidence based and effective mental health support. Individuals use art as a way of communicating and to speak for them where words are not enough. Art making can be used to work through a problem or issue to and find a different way of looking at it. At other times the art process can provide a chance to release emotions and find a way of self-soothing. By using a creative approach the individual is in control of their own therapy; they are able to create new solutions or at the very least find a level of relief and hope in their experience.  You don’t have to be good at art to partake in Art Therapy because it is about the experience of creating not the end product - it is not the same as art classes.

Some of the experiences/outcomes you can expect to get out of Art Therapy:

• Exploration of thoughts and feelings using art processes.
• Extend creative thinking: using and developing right brain hemisphere functioning which will assist with problem solving.
• Use of art to understand and communicate difficult thoughts and feelings.
• Safely address challenges such as difficulty expressing anger, feelings of anxiety and other confronting emotions.
• Use of art to learn and experience self regulation and self soothing.
• Art processes used in a guided therapeutic manner can help individuals to “get used to” and “be with” difficult emotions. This assists with the integration and healing of painful past experiences and historical trauma.
• New insights and understandings about problems or issues that may not have come to light before.
• A sense of catharsis and a feeling of being truly heard by another.
• Increased sense of wellbeing.
• Increased self awareness, reflective capacity and personal insight.
• Increased emotional literacy, through explicit and implicit non-verbal communication.
• Increased resilience, reduction of psychological distress and increased affect tolerance.

Listen to an interview with our Senior Art Therapy Leader, Cath Lappin by clicking HERE