Art Therapy

Art has the potential to change lives and often in profound ways.  When words are not enough, we turn to images and symbols to tell our stories.  And in telling our stories through art, we can find a path to health and wellness, emotional reparation, recovery and ultimately transformation.

Art Therapy is the deliberate use of art-making to address psychological and emotional needs.  Art Therapy uses art media and the creative process to help in areas such as, but not limited to:  fostering self-expression, enhancing coping skills, managing stress, and strengthening a sense of self. 

The Art Therapy Alliance

 Art speaks of originality, individuality, a creative process, graphic materials, colors, textures, spontaneity, risk, alternatives and imagination, (while) therapy implies taking care of, waiting, listening, healing, moving toward wholeness, growth provoking, medicine, human exchange, sympathetic understanding.

Art Therapy helps the individual in two ways.  The first is the process of creating art.  Scientific studies have demonstrated that art heals by altering the patient’s physiology, autonomic nervous system, hormonal balance and neurotransmitters.  Neurophysiologists believe that art making works much like mediation and prayer, activities that are all associated with similar brain activity.

The second is through the perception of the completed work.  It has been suggested that  “ Pictures are messages from ourselves to ourselves”.  Psychological healing is a creative process.  It requires time and the desire to achieve a new level of awareness, an active search for knowledge and problem solving skills.  Metaphor is a vital component of creativity because it allows familiar circumstances to be seen in new ways, it enhances understanding and presents opportunities for change.

Art Therapy assists in the integration and meeting of left and right brain hemispheres.  The art and the creative process is feminine, it is receptive.  The feminine is in surrender and deep trust.  The right hemisphere is intuitive, illogical, irrational, poetic, imaginative, romantic, mythical and religious.  The left-brain is logical, rational, mathematical, scientific and calculative.  The right hemisphere has a language that is expressed, released and revealed through art making, music and poetry.  The right brain has much to offer in assisting individuals move to health.

Recently, workshops were conducted in Hotel Paradise, Boulevard, Srinagar and Kashmir University by Dena Lawrence, an Australian Art Therapist. I, myself was a participant in both the events...

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Sameer Hussaini.