User:Ivana Yizhang Li/Art therapy

Definition
== History of art therapy ==

Art therapy and Depression
For people who diagnosed with depression, feelings of sadness, apathy, hopelessness, and loss of pleasure impact a client's desire to engage in daily activities as well as a treatment to address depression. Art therapy provides an alternative way to help where sufferers have been resistant to talk therapy methods.

Client Information:

 * Name: Simon
 * Gender: Male
 * Age: 18
 * Summary of sessions to date: This is the second art therapy session that Simon has attended. In the first session, Simon explored some current feelings around his depression including the intensity of his depressive state. Simon was able to work on a timeline of his depression that began when he was 17.

Current Client Issues:
Simon learned that his depression began at age 17, and the suffer increased in the past two months. He feels confused about his experience of depression and cannot understand the reason for continually being depressed.

Art Therapy Exercise Instructions:

 * Discuss with the client the type of art supplies they may like to work within this session. The exercise could involve the use of paints, collage images from magazines, pens, or words to express core emotion.
 * Ask the client to reflect on a time or a specific event that they think may be a precedence to their depression.
 * Depression-underlying-issues.jpg the client to reflect on the emotions associated with that specific event or period.
 * Ask the client to label these emotions and express them in their art activity. They can use colors, words, shapes, or specific images to translate their emotions.

Client Insight and Outcomes
The client Simon chose grey to represent the general depressive mood that he was experiencing. He drew a series of large rocks that represented the feeling that every part of his life felt unchangeable and problematic.

The client also felt that problems are on top of each other. He drew himself as a smaller shape compared to the rocks as the problem. The emotions that he was expressed were sadness, overwhelm and confusion.

Simon was able to learn that emotions can be linked back to events and circumstances. He could see events as objects to contain and shift within his mind while he feels unmovable.



== What the future holds for art therapy ==


 * The stigma of therapy is beginning to disintegrate as more people are realizing they can benefit from the effects of counseling.
 * The understanding of the interplay between biochemistry, mental status, and creativity continues to evolve as technology improves. This allows us to study the brain as it relates to the effects of art therapy.

Art Therapy Today
"Despite Our Roots (And They Are Deep) in Psychiatry, Psychology, Art, and Education, the Synergistic Entity of Art Therapy is Open, Creative, and Dynamic."

"Art therapy is both professionally, sophisticated, and personally natural."


 * With the developments in the field of mental health, educators discover new values of art in the schools. People begin to understand the benefits of art to help children to deal with inevitable stress and depression in growing up. Art educators, like Viktor Loqwnfeld, developed an "art education therapy" for those who were disabled.
 * Art therapists are trying to develop the growth of an individual to self-realization and identification. However, educators change from over-concentrate on cognition to a skeptical curiosity about the therapeutic values of art.