What is art therapy and how can it help our mental well-being?
In honour of Stress Awareness Month (April 2020), we sat down with Katie Flower, Art Therapist and Founder of Wild at Art Studio, to discuss what art therapy is, how it works, and how it can help us de-stress and support our well-being.
For Mind HK’s Stress Awareness Month Tips, please visit: https://www.mind.org.hk/stressawarenessmonth/
1. What is art therapy and how can it help support our mental well-being ?
I have often found that when people hear the two words Art Therapy, they might think of colouring books, crayons and children. One of my wise teachers once said that Art as Medicine is an age-old practice, humans have used the arts for thousands of years as a way to communicate not only experiences of celebration and beauty, but also those of struggle, crisis and trauma. So in the right setting, we can use hands on art making to manage stress, build resilience, find growth solutions, develop coping skills, to strengthen a sense of self as well as understand and heal trauma.
The Imaginal Realm:
As humans our brain sees in images, that’s how we create our internal world. When I ask you to think of “water”, you are unlikely to see a word, instead you will see an image of waves, or a drip, or a waterfall etc. We can also use symbol and images to illustrate ambiguous concepts, such as pain. We can use words to describe a pain, yet there are many times when words are just not available or accurate or not enough. When we ask someone to draw or paint that pain, this can lead to the stories around the pain, the depths and extent if that the residual fallout affecting the rest of the body and we can locate that pain, zoom in on it, try and make friends with it, communicate with it, possibly understand and eventually heal it. The goal in art therapy is to try and understand someone’s lived experiences in as many dimensions as possible. The three-way relationship between the therapist, the client and the art provides the context for this to happen.
Trauma Treatment
Many people enter therapy, due to a trauma of some kind, such as a loss or divorce, or a series of traumas throughout childhood, or an abusive relationship or it could be due to a disease or injury.
Trauma and its resulting stress harms people through physiological changes to body and brain, and that damage can persist throughout life. The event and its effects are housed in parts of the brain that we do not have access to; it can rarely be described or even attributed to the moment. In that flight or flight state, events bypass the Brocas area of the brain, (the language centre) and simply remain trapped in the body as a series of sensory memories or imprint.
Art, music and dance are often used in trauma treatments around the world, as they have the capacity to circumvent the speechlessness that comes with terror, offering other access points to healing.
Art in Therapy:
This is the client-centred work described above, which commonly takes place in a confidential setting where exposure to the art materials and the process of image-making, supported by the art therapist, can enable the client to access stories and memories. This is highly specific to the client and the presenting issues. In art therapy the focus is not on aesthetic value, but simply bringing to light the unconscious material in a safe and supportive space. When people are given opportunities to externalise thoughts, feelings and stories, they can gain the kind of insights, which can lead to profound self discovery, healing and change.
Art as Therapy:
This the term I would use to describe the general activity of art making when it is centered around stress reduction, self regulation, building and daily coping mechanisms, as well as developing art making as a mindfulness practice. This can include doodling, making mandalas, painting for pleasure and meditation and art journaling. Art making in and of itself, is life enhancing and can provide a “time out” coupled with a strong sense of self efficacy.
- art making for resilience
- art making for self-expression
- art making for exploration of self
- art making for processing difficult emotions
- art making for self-reflection
- art making for mindfulness
- art making to experience a flow state
- art making for relaxation
Art Therapy Qualification
Art Therapy is a fully recognized mental health profession requiring specialized graduate level training. It’s an established and widely recognized mental health practice with professional associations in Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and other European countries, and it can now also be found widely in Hong Kong, in a number of clinical, private and educational settings, Art Therapists need to be fully accredited and affiliated with the Hong Kong Association of Art Therapists ( HKAAT ).
2. We’re collectively facing a very stressful and challenging period of time. How can doodling, painting, or doing other creative tasks help us de-stress during this time?
At any time in our lives, creative practices can play a huge part in stress reduction and mindful healing. The practice of engaging in hands when art making in and of itself can provide a highly therapeutic experience. Some activities such a doodling facilitate decompression and mindfulness through art. Although the word doodling can sound like a time wasting activity, research shows that in a multitude of workplace and therapeutic settings, making marks in a repetitive and rhythmic fashion has been shown to help people to:
- Focus
- Self regulate
- Slow down
- Calm ruminating thoughts
- Stabilize
- Enter a flow state
- Self soothe
Self-Regulation is the ability to self-soothe and calm oneself when under stress. When the amygdala has been activated and people experience the fight, flight or freeze response, we need to restore the body to a calm and composed state. Using doodling or other mark making activities helps people back to the present moment, so that they can gain a sense of self control; it helps to gradually turn off the bodies emergency systems.
I love to use these techniques myself and have found that recently during the times of Covid-19 uncertainty and my own worries, I can anchor myself quite quickly by picking up a pen and continuing a doodle that I started earlier, or even by cutting out collage pieces for my ongoing mandala.
3. Aside from helping us cope with stress levels, what are the other benefits of art therapy?
Self Awareness:
Art making can help people to learn about the self and to gain insights. It helps people to access deeper stories, foster self-expression, manage stress, develop coping skills, find growth solutions and to shift self beliefs and perceptions, in order to strengthen a sense of self.
Externalisation:
Creating images to express inner feelings entails working with metaphor and stories. A process of drawing or painting inner stories means that people have immediately externalised something previously held inside. This helps them to:
- Review and explore what may be happening internally
- Put some distance between it and “me”
- Changes the way that issues can be discussed as they are then in the third person
- Start to detach from the strong feelings that may be associated
- Start to describe and explore a narrative around the image
- Potentially change or alter the image as a way to shift a difficult sensation or situation
- Find a jumping off point from which to create next visuals as part of a story, so working to solve a problem or to heal from pain or beliefs
- Imagine and visualise possibilities, new endings or outcomes.
3. What happens in an art therapy session?
An art therapy session takes place within a counselling conversation; artwork might be created to explore a specific topic or in response to a directive or an emergent issue which might arise. Shifts and insights can occur during the actual process of making the artwork as well during the careful collaborative exploration of the artwork itself. The art therapist can skill-fully guide the client to explore what might be inside, beyond or behind the image, in order to gain further insights into their own healing journey. The client and the art therapist stay curious throughout the process and explore what has been created.
4. How has art therapy impacted you and your patients?
I passionately believe that artistic creativity is primarily a force of health and well-being. Connecting with our own creative energy through art making is a gentle yet powerful and often deeply profound way to practice self-care.
I came to art therapy having developed a lifelong personal art journaling practice. I use text, words, collage, images, scribbles and other art making to process my own journey. I also use art making to ask and answer questions and to generally dialogue with myself, to process and make sense of my world and daily life. Sometimes just to elevate something small and rather mundane to a place of noticing and fine focused attention. This first hand practice has enabled me to provide many art journaling courses for groups and individuals to also use this practice for self care, self-awareness, healing and growth.
5. With everyone in social isolation, what can people do at home for their own “art therapy”?
Around the world, people are relearning how to “be” both by themselves and with their family group. This can be challenging as it can bring people face to face with loneliness, isolation, relationship challenges and family unease. There is a quickening need to decompress at home, to find new ways to structure time, as well as to face who we are. People are finding new hobbies and activities to fill time, or to stay healthy. Art can be one of those past times, as it can take place at home and carried out with very few materials.
If people have access to shops then they can buy a sketchbook, some crayons and even watercolours - lots can be achieved with a pen and paper. For a free online destress doodling video, see Katie’s video here: https://youtu.be/BB35ksRYMRk
Connection:
Like many others, I have shifted the focus of my art therapy business from in person encounters to zoom classes and online sessions, to maintain a sense of community. We live in series of nesting communities from family to country and feeling connected with those communities is vital to emotional health.
6. What steps have you taken during the COVID-19 outbreak to take care of your own mental well-being?
During this period the Covid-19 outbreak, I have developed calming and anchoring practices to help me take time out from the news. I have an ongoing collage mandala, which I can visit and add to when ever I want to. (rather like the practice of making a jigsaw over a period of days). My journaling practice has centred around the notion of Silver Linings and the hidden gifts that this strange new time can bring us as humans. I have also made that notion the main focus of my new online classes. As a strength based art therapist with a deeply rooted philosophy around the ability of art making to help us ritually shift perceptions as we create, I can see that this has been vital to my clients and groups.
7. Please share anything other tips on art-therapy, dealing with stress, or taking care of your mental health (Optional).
“Stress-related hormone Cortisol: lowers significantly after just 45 minutes of art creation”
Excessive stress can lead to a myriad of adverse effects, both physical and psychological; such as sleeplessness, increased heart rates, panic attacks, endless negative self-talk and self judgement as people strive to live up to expectations and may find themselves in extremely competitive settings.
Wise Ancients have always known this, and now current research reveals that art making can offer us so many healing pathways: Girija Kaimal, EdD, MA, Assistant Professor at Drexel University states that employee burnout is a significant problem across all industries. She goes on to state that the act of making art — including doodling — stimulates the senses and engages different areas of the brain and can in fact reduce stress.
“Giving employees the opportunity to safely and creatively express themselves has tremendous physiological and psychological benefits ”.
Her recent study included 39 adults, from 18 to 59 years old, who were invited to participate in 45 minutes of art making, with cortisol levels being taken before and after the activity. The researchers found that 75 percent of the participants’ had cortisol levels that were measurably lowered after 45 minutes of making art.
With that in mind, Kaimal has gone on to suggest that employers could help their workers by keeping a small activity nearby that can be used throughout the day, such as knitting, woodworking, or having a small notebook on hand for doodling. This can improve concentration and relieve stress.
For Mind HK’s tips on managing mental well-being and staying well during the COVID-19 outbreak, please visit: https://www.mind.org.hk/coronavirusoutbreakmentalhealthtips/ These tips are now available in 10 languages.
For a list of emergency contacts, please visit: www.mind.org.hk/find-help-now/
For non-urgent services, please visit our Community Directory: www.mind.org.hk/community-directory/
Questions? Email the team at media@mind.org.hk
