Art is medicine
Expressive art, like expressive writing, can help heal emotional wounds — Part I
Therapeutic art is a thing.
Art can help us heal. Doing creative art is telling our stories in a non-verbal way and has the unique power to help restore us. We all have stories. Many of us struggle to get our stories out and get it heard.
Here’s the thing: emotional trauma can happen to any one of us, at any given time. Pain and hurt and trauma don’t only happen to the meek and the weak. No one is immune. It is seldom planned — and yet, when left untreated and unresolved, often leads to physical and psychological symptoms and poor health. Coping with these emotional wounds can be overwhelming: it can constrict the soul. (Think of soldiers and veterans returning from overseas missions or survivors of abuse.)
There are no quick fixes, but there is help. Art therapy, (often under-appreciated), is a clinical modality with medically proven benefits.
Gone are the days that medicine is seen only as the stuff you buy at the drugstore, prescribed by your doctor, be it in pill, syrup, or injectable form. Or, that medicine is undergoing an operation or non-invasive procedure to fix a condition or when you go for psychotherapy to heal mental ailments. All of the latter…
