What is art therapy integration? Consider this story…A man once visited a monk living in remote solitude. Curious about why somebody would choose to live so remotely, the man asked the monk for an explanation.In response, the monk led him to consider an old fountain.Stooping down to pick up a stone, the monk tossed the […]
A great inspiration for many art therapists is Freud’s frustration with words. In discussing dreams, he noted: “We experienced it predominantly in visual images … part of the difficulty of giving an account of dreams is due to our having to translate these images into words. ‘I could draw it,’ a dreamer often says to […]
Does a diagnostic approach marry well with art therapy? That’s a good question. When psychologists use drawings and paintings in their counselling of children, they might be tempted to lean on a diagnostic approach. However, there are several risk factors to consider. The first problem occurs should the therapist look too hard for ‘evidence’ in […]
Anger is a completely normal human experience. It is after all an emotion—a raw emotion that has an evolutionary basis: respond and act against danger or unfair treatment. Of course, anger varies in intensity from mild irritation to outbursts of fury and rage. And it is accompanied by physical changes in the body and energy […]
Trauma is an overwhelming amount of distress that exceeds a person’s coping capacity. The result? An inability to adequately integrate all the emotions related to the experience. Trauma experienced in childhood is particularly severe. When trauma memories aren’t consciously integrated, the trauma asserts power over the child by triggering the conditioned arousal or avoidance responses. […]
Art can be a great form of communication, especially for children and adolescents who are ill or hospitalised. This may help to alleviate feelings of helplessness while undergoing intervention, surgery, chemotherapy, burns and the like that place children, adolescents and adults in a passive role. In this way, medical art therapy enables the patient to […]
Young children who have autism (and many other things, like red socks, blond hair for instance) tend to lack the basic skills required in the areas of attention, play, communication, cognition, limitation, generalisation and motor coordination to understand and engage in the world. These skills are, of course, developed through the process of growing up. […]
Hi, my name is Fred. I am 11 years old and I am in my last year at Abbot College. Today, I want to tell you about how through Art Therapy, I learnt how to express my feelings and learned strategies in managing my ADHD, particularly my impulsiveness and hyperactivity. Pushing buttons repetitively just to […]
The metaphor of an iceberg to describe the two major aspects of human personality is often associated with Sigmund Freud. The tip of the iceberg above the water represents the conscious mind while the bulk of mental content, in the unconscious, lies below the surface. What makes mental health issues so challenging is that often […]
Art Therapy is an evidence-based intervention developed in the mid 1940s for the management of mental health disorders in both adults and children. It is widely used in Europe and the United States but the practice of art therapy is still in its early stages in Australia. Art therapy encourages self-discovery and emotional growth. Evolving from Freud and Jung’s […]