Healing through Art
Art Therapy combines the advantages of psychology with artistic expression to help people manage stress, process emotions, and understand their inner selves. Art therapy is far more about the experience than the result, as compared to traditional art classes, which focus on technique and skill. Under the guidance of a licensed art therapist, clients can engage in creative activities created especially to support self-discovery and healing.
Healing Through Art
by Kirsten Emery, MS, LMFT, CADC
Therapy can be quite helpful in understanding and taking care of ourselves as we navigate our emotional health and personal development. In the same way that we take time to cultivate our mental health through talk therapy and self-care, creativity provides effective means for expanding our self-awareness through the healing process. Art therapy can be a powerful and amazing tool that enables us to explore emotions, lower stress levels, and build resilience, just through the simple act of creating.
WHAT IS ART THERAPY?
Art therapy combines the advantages of psychology with artistic expression to help people manage stress, process emotions, and understand their inner selves. Art therapy is far more about the experience than the result, as compared to traditional art classes, which focus on technique and skill. Under the guidance of a licensed art therapist, clients can engage in creative activities created especially to support self-discovery and healing.
The beauty of art therapy is that everyone can benefit from it. You don’t need to be an artist to take part, just a willingness to participate in the creative process and related self-reflection. Research has shown that art therapy is beneficial for people of all ages who are dealing with:
Anxiety and depression
Trauma and PTSD
Grief and loss
Self-esteem and body image struggles
Neurodivergence (ADHD, autism, etc.)
Stress reduction and emotional regulation
OUR BRAINS AND ART
In addition to being fun, all types of creative acts have important advantages for our brains and general emotional health. Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, authors of the book Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us, make a compelling case for the importance of creativity in brain function. According to research, artistic expression can:
Reduce stress and improve mood: Even just 20 minutes of doodling or humming can boost mental health.
Promote neuroplasticity: Creating art helps build new neural connections in the brain that increase cognitive flexibility and resilience.
Support processing of trauma: For trauma survivors in particular, art offers a nonverbal means of exploring and processing challenging emotions.
Encourage mindfulness and relaxation: Like meditation, creative pursuits help us to be in the present moment.
As Magsamen and Ross highlight in their book, "Art is not a luxury for our downtime, but an important contributor to physical and mental well-being."
CREATIVITY FOR SELF-CARE
If you’re looking for ways to start bringing creativity into your self-care routines, consider some of the following simple creative activities:
Journaling with sketches to visually express your feelings
Using coloring books as a tool for practicing mindfulness
Creating a collage to explore your identity, aspirations, and values
Engaging in music or movement-based creativity, such as dancing, to process and release emotions
When it comes to creative self-care, there is no right or wrong way of doing it. Finding what makes you happy and fulfilled is what really counts. Art isn’t about being "good" at something. It’s about showing up for yourself in a way that nurtures and supports your mental health and personal growth.
Start small if you want to incorporate more creativity into your everyday life. Experiment with different forms of art and creation and notice how they make you feel. Our art therapists Jacqueline Chaidez and Hannah Schupbach are available for sessions if you’re interested in bringing art therapy into your well-being journey. The simple act of creating can be transformative, and your mind and heart will thank you.
Kirsten Emery is a Licensed Marriage and Family Counselor and Certified Addictions Counselor with Padera Therapy and Wellness. She is also the Co-Clinical Director at the practice. Kirsten specializes in treating addictions, eating disorders and body shame, mood disorders and family issues. Kirsten also has a special clinical interest in working with clients who practice consensual non-monogamy and are part of the Kink community. When Kirsten isn’t practicing clinically, you can find her perusing bookstores, reading fantasy and speculative fiction, and spending time with her husband and two pets.
Focusing Inward
As we move past the flurry of February’s celebrations and into the fresh energy of March, it’s a great time to shift our focus inward. While Valentine’s Day may have emphasized relationships with others, the arrival of a new season serves as a reminder that one of the most important relationships we can nurture is the one we have with ourselves. With the promise of renewal in the air, there’s no better time to reflect on how developing a healthy, loving, and secure relationship with ourselves can positively impact the way we show up in relationships with others.
Focusing Inward
by Kirsten Emery, MS, LMFT, CADC
As we move past the flurry of February’s celebrations and into the fresh energy of March, it’s a great time to shift our focus inward. While Valentine’s Day may have emphasized relationships with others, the arrival of a new season serves as a reminder that one of the most important relationships we can nurture is the one we have with ourselves. With the promise of renewal in the air, there’s no better time to reflect on how developing a healthy, loving, and secure relationship with ourselves can positively impact the way we show up in relationships with others.
KNOWING YOURSELF
Just as in developing a healthy relationship with another person, it’s necessary for us to explore our own values, needs, and wants. The more we get to know ourselves, the better we can show up in our relationships.
When thinking about our personal values, it can be difficult to know what this entails. For many, values are the things that are important to us and the principles by which we live our lives, or as Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, suggests, they are “the measuring sticks by which we determine what is a successful and meaningful life.” When we can identify our values, we have a blueprint for how we want to live our lives each day in a way that feels fulfilling to us.
Your personal values can range anywhere from “happiness” to “loyalty” to “wellbeing”, and with such a wide array of potential values, it can be difficult to truly narrow down those that are most important to you. Brené Brown, researcher and author of a number of books on shame, vulnerability, and belongingness, offers a useful guide to narrowing down your values. Though her worksheet suggests narrowing it down to two, I often suggest trying to narrow it down to a list of top five (because that in and of itself is difficult enough!)
Once identified, your values can become the stepping stone to gain a better sense of what is important to you in your everyday life and identify the needs that help you feel fulfilled and balanced. For example, if you particularly value creativity, you may notice that you feel energized and fulfilled by playing music or cooking a new recipe, making those key activities to integrate more frequently into your life. From developing an understanding of these parts of yourself, you can then be armed with the knowledge of the things that are most important to you and deserve to have your time and energy put into fostering.
YOU’RE NOT BEING SELFISH
Many of us not only find it difficult to set boundaries to protect time just for ourselves, but believe it to be a selfish act to do so. The decision to take time to engage in self-care, solely focusing on doing activities for ourselves, often leads to worries of being too selfish. However, the reality is that when we take time out of the day to care for ourselves, we are then able to give even more of ourselves to our relationships in return. When we fill our own cups, we have more to give to others.
Social media has taken the idea of self-care to a new level, sometimes to the point where it feels like it may not be entirely achievable on an average day. We can’t all make a perfectly cooked and balanced dinner, follow it up with a luxurious hour-long uninterrupted bubble bath, and then go to bed early, falling asleep almost instantly without once touching our phones. In fact, I would hazard a guess that most people can’t do this on a typical night. While there may be pressure to have the perfect type of self-care that seems to eliminate all forms of stress, in reality, self-care is more accurately any activity that helps you to feel like your physical and emotional needs are met. So while it can include all the previously mentioned activities, it doesn’t have to.
Here are some questions to consider when addressing your different needs:
Physical self-care: Are you getting appropriate sleep? Eating three meals per day? Getting some level of movement and exercise that feels right for your body?
Psychological self-care: Are you incorporating ways to appropriately process your emotions? Engaging in activities that feel mentally stimulating to you?
Social self-care: Are you making time to connect with others? Feeling fulfilled in your current relationships? Being conscious of boundaries around how you are being treated?
Spiritual self-care: Are you taking time to reflect on your life and experiences? Being present and mindful in different areas of your life? Connecting with a community that engages in similar spiritual practices, if that’s of interest to you?
When you start to take time to engage in these self-care practices, you're prioritizing parts of your life that help you feel balanced and fulfilled. And when you feel balanced, fulfilled, and taken care of, you can then give more to your relationships, making self-care an essential part of your life that should be protected and cherished. Building a healthy relationship with yourself isn't selfish – it's the foundation that allows you to show up as your best self for others.
Kirsten Emery is a Licensed Marriage and Family Counselor and Certified Addictions Counselor with Padera Therapy and Wellness. She is also the Co-Clinical Director at the practice. Kirsten specializes in treating addictions, eating disorders and body shame, mood disorders and family issues. Kirsten also has a special clinical interest in working with clients who practice consensual non-monogamy and are part of the Kink community. When Kirsten isn’t practicing clinically, you can find her perusing bookstores, reading fantasy and speculative fiction, and spending time with her husband and two pets.