Do you have to be an artist to do art therapy?
This is a question I often get as an art therapist, and the answer is not a simple “yes” or “no.”
In order to answer this question, you must first ask yourself: “What does it mean to be an artist?”
The beauty of art is that there is no right way to do it, and there is no precise science in regards to being an artist.
The only thing you need to do to be an artist is to bring intention around the way you see within and without.
Anyone can be an artist, and the only requirement to creative mastery is to continuously explore how you experience the world using art materials.
The artist becomes an examiner of their inner and outer landscapes and strives to find the places where they intersect.
Most of the time art is telling a story whether explicit or implicit about the creator's life, their struggles and insights. One of the great philosophers Socrates proclaimed, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and art has proven to be one tool to help examine it more deeply.
In the art therapy room the client becomes the artist and all forms of expression are welcomed, whether it be stick figures, tissue paper glued together, or even a written poem. The end product is not actually the goal in art therapy. The magic lies within the process of art-making, when different bits of information rise to the surface as the person creates.
Art therapy has a wide range of therapeutic benefits and can be used in many different ways.
The foundation and core value of art therapy is to use imaginal elements of creative expression to encourage healing and growth.
Art offers limitless ways to express and explore, and it can be used as a space for growth, insight, and transformation.
Art helps us make meaning of the challenges in life through the use of metaphors and symbols. When you look at the world through the artist's eye, you may see grief in a wilting flower, or a brick wall matching the feeling of a closed heart. The world begins to speak to you in subtle ways, offering bread crumbs of insight along the ups and downs of life.
Art creates space between us and our emotions, allowing us to see the whole picture in a new way. One of the benefits of this space is that there is no need to produce a masterpiece to utilize it. It's a space that welcomes messiness and chaos and allows us to examine disorder.
Sometimes we use art as a container to examine the issues and feelings that we are being challenged with. It becomes a safe place to become curious about emotions and how they move through us. When we use art like this, we can look at what is overwhelming and then metaphorically and physically put it away until we are ready to look at it again.
In art therapy the artwork that you create is yours and yours alone. It is confidential, and only you decide if you want to share it with others. You become the creator and the destroyer of your artwork.
This is where the practical magic of art therapy lies. By inviting each person to become curious about their art and art-making, art therapy provides the tools to transform emotions and life’s challenges into a tangible space one can enter and exit. The art becomes the place in which the client and the art therapist enter into together, and the imaginal elements come to life to foster healing, growth, and creation.
About the Author:
Joy Watts (she/they), MA, LPCC, ATR-P, earned their Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and Transpersonal Art Therapy from Naropa University. Joy strives to co-create a space that fosters authenticity, inclusivity, compassion and transformation. In her free time, Joy loves to be outside either snowboarding or mountain biking, cooking plant-based meals, reading psychology books, and making pottery.