Is there a difference between therapeutic art and art therapy?
The answer is yes! Art therapy is guided by someone that has gone through years of psychological training and has been board certified and licensed as an art therapist. It’s considered an important addition to mental health treatment. The goal of an art therapist is to have their patient communicate or express something.
Therapeutic art uses the same kind of concept as art therapy but it doesn’t require a licensed professional or years of training. In fact, it is something that’s available to anyone and it doesn’t need specialized training. You can say that this is a lifelong tool you can use because therapeutic art is learning to creatively express yourself to support you through your life journey during the highs and lows.
What are the benefits of therapeutic art?
Therapeutic art doesn’t need to be expensive. It’s affordability and accessibility is what makes this such a great tool to work through issues you may have. There are many different projects that can use various mediums like paint, zen triangles, or marbling but really you can use just a pencil and paper.
In practicing therapeutic art, you get a lot of benefits including having a cool art piece to show off. Over time, you will accumulate works of art. It is sometimes revealing to see your work over time. It’s this process of self-discovery that this type of art helps to be therapeutic.
Therapeutic art is about learning and experimenting.
Through this process you get to learn a lot about yourself. You can scale up your abilities in making art and expressing yourself. The result is higher self-esteem. Often times, there are groups that do therapeutic art together. You get a chance to form social connections with like minded people. Therapeutic Art is a perfect gateway into learning about yourself at your own pace because you get as much as you put into it. There’s no right or wrong kind of art. Keep this in mind and try out some therapeutic art at a local workshop!
