Art Therapy Research Paper

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” Although this quote is often overused, it describes art therapy well. Art therapy can be defined as using creativity and hands-on activities to help a person express what they may be struggling with. Art therapy was not officially termed until around the 1940’s by an artist known as Adrian Hill, despite the fact that art has been around for many centuries (“The History of Art Therapy,” n.d.). This essay will describe in detail what art therapy is and the different types of art therapy, and when and how art therapy can be applied to children’s lives. The first question to address is what is art therapy? As stated in the beginning, art therapy uses hands on, creative activities to help visualize what a

For example, recently, the use of adult coloring books have become very popular. While coloring is often seen as a child’s activity, it can also take on a deeper level of meaning. For some, it may be a way to combat anxiety and get away from the stress of the day. Another classic example of art therapy is having a person draw or paint a picture, instead of talking about his/her struggles right away. Although, the client is only painting a picture, he/she is giving the art therapist a view into his/her life and his/her possible struggles. In the article, “Art Therapy in a Socialization Program for Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,” a group of children with ADHD used a combination of group discussion and art activities to help them with their struggles with ADHD. However, it did take some time for the group facilitating this program to be able to get the children to think about what they were struggling with and how to portray that through the use of art. Before they actually started their artwork, the group of children were involved in what was called a “friendship circle” where they talked with their peers about what they were struggling with that day. If they had a hard time getting the conversation going, the leader would have them do a little artwork to be able to help them explain what they were having a hard time talking about. This artwork was the bridge to help the

According to Cook and Cook, children at a young age (between 3 and 6 years of age) begin to remember objects and experiences they have seen or have dealt with. The ability to recall what these experiences were like are called mental representations (2010). Since children are able to remember events, presumably good or bad, at such a young age, this would be the time that art therapy could be used. Michal Wimmer, an art therapist, explains it as this:

In terms of cognitive development, this stage [around 2 ½ - 3 ½ years of age] marks the beginning of symbolic cognition: the child can now use his drawings to represent events along a temporal sequence, distinguishing between past and future events. The child free-play style and the stories related to the drawing will be more and more clearly related to actual experiences during the day, and at the same time the child’s verbal skills will develop significantly