What is Expressive Arts Therapy?
“…therapy is spontaneous, the relationship is dynamic and ever-evolving, and there is a continuous sequence of experiencing and then examining the process”.
— Irvin D. Yalom, The Gift of Therapy
In our first moments of life, we did not speak, we did not know how, and some never were able to. Our eye contact was present, however curious about a sound, a color, a movement we tried to follow or mirror. Without words we found ways to express our needs, our desires, and our wants. It was sometimes spontaneous and always free. It was true, it was authentic.
Expressive Arts Therapy continues this liberation, which enhances your full range of expression by integrating talk therapy, art, music, movement, drama, and poetry. The first nations taught us this and lived by it. Community and support always incorporated song, movement, art, storytelling, and reenactments. This variety allows me to meet you where you are at, in that exact moment and offers a different approach of how you want to participate, communicate, and engage. In our first moments of life, we did not have to speak, we did not know how, the only difference this time…it is your choice.
— Christine G. Joseph, LMHC
Benefits of Expressive Arts Therapy
Nonjudgement
Expressive therapies allows participants to explore their identity through an objective and nonjudgmental manner.
Emotional Regulation & Memory
Arts psychotherapy can access and activate the limbic system, aiding emotional regulation and implicit memory to create new emotional memories (Chong, 2015).
Self-Expression
Openly expressing writing through poetry is both stimulating to the poet as well as the audience (Bruce & Davis, 2000)
Therapeutic Containment
The art becomes a tangible marker of the therapeutic process, and a container of therapeutic content. When the subject is revisited through the artwork it can allow new thoughts to surface (Chong, 2015).
Safety
The arts allow a space for nonverbal ambiguous communication by creating a safe area for expression (Schlitz 2014).
Communication
It becomes easier to connect to the information in sessions because the information was breached artistically (Schlitz, 2014).
References:
Bruce, H.E., & David, B.D. (2000). Slam: Hip-hop meets Poetry: A strategy for violence intervention. English Journal: The National Council of Teachers of English. 119-127
Chong, C.Y.J. (2015). Why art psychotherapy? Through the lens of interpersonal neurobiology: The distinctive role of art psychotherapy intervention for clients with early relational trauma. International Journal of Art Therapy, 20(3), 118-126
Schlitz, L. (2014). Multimodal arts psychotherapy with adolescents suffering from conduct disorders. The Arts in Psychotherapy 41, 187-192
What to expect
“...one art form stimulates and fosters creativity in another art form and links all of the arts to our essential nature” (Rogers, 1999 p. 115)
Clinica Artesana LLC offers choices in expression so you feel empowered, seen and heard.
The expressive therapies continuum (ETC) is a tool used in expressive arts therapy. It demonstrates the intersection of creativity and human development. Through this lens, we look at both functional and artistic expression for self-fulfillment. The components (in order from bottom to top) include processing through: Kinesthetic/Sensory, Perceptual/Affective, and Cognitive/Symbolic levels. Self-expression branches off of these components, translating what the inner self feels, to tangible experiences. Navigating through each component (versus just a few) nourishes creativity. Expressive arts therapy is about the process of creativity, not the product.
Reference:
Rogers, N. (1999). The creative connection: Expressive arts as healing. Pennsylvania: Science & Behavior Books