Art making in therapy is a user-friendly process, and is driven by your experiences and your therapeutic goals. Your therapist may suggest an artistic directive or open ended prompt (e.g. to create a body map of your current emotions) to help you communicate your ideas, experiences, motivations, and emotions that you may be struggling to communicate with words alone. Clients may also focus on the sensory and physical aspects of non-directive art making to provide healthy relaxation, integrate physical and psychological processes, expand focus, and improve your mood.

Sometimes clients prefer to make art outside of their therapy time, and will share their images at the beginning of sessions. Other clients select to make art during sessions to make use of creative guidance from the therapist. You may prefer to let your art speak for itself, or to explore its meaning in dialog with your therapist. The process of verbally engaging with your art may help you see the issues you have been struggling with in new ways. It may also answer important questions, strengthen your communication skills, and assist with the formation of meaningful relationships.

Your initial session with a therapist at Chicago Art Therapy Collective will include a thorough exploration of what you are facing in your life, and is a place to begin to organize your goals for the therapy process. While the therapist may ask direct questions, you are in control of the pace of therapy, and are encouraged to disclose information at a level that is comfortable for you.

Accessing your creativity helps your brain to step out of feeling stuck, improves your mood, and increases your self-esteem and personal confidence. You do not need to be traditionally artistic or confident in your art making to receive the full benefits of art therapy.

Art therapy is unique in that it draws on the inclusive process of art making rather than the aesthetics of the finished product. Many studies have shown that the neurological and psychological benefits of art therapy are available to all people, regardless of artistic skill level. Your art therapist will carefully and sensitively explore with you the forms of art making that feel most comfortable to you, and will work with you to establish creative practices that support your emotional health and personal growth. In this process, your therapist will not be critical of your images and will provide empathic guidance and encouragement to expand your artistic confidence.

Many of the decisions around therapeutic art making come down to personal preference and client comfort. There is no set practice of art making that will work universally for every person, and individualized art therapy provides time to get to know a variety of artistic materials to see which options best fit your goals. Your therapist uses her experience with the Expressive Therapies Continuum (Hinz, 2009) to help you choose appropriate art media and to provide structure to organize the expression of your sensations, perceptions, feelings, and ideas. Many clients engage in art therapy using the following materials, many of which are provided at the studio:

Graphite pencils

Markers

Oil Pastels

Paint sticks

Cut paper collage

Air-dry clay

Watercolor paints

Acrylic paints

Art journaling or altered books

Found object sculpture

Felting

Knitting and crocheting yarn

Photography/digital art making

Art therapy is effectively practiced via telehealth platforms. The client and the art therapist will discuss best practices for each individual, and work together to select appropriate art media for the client to have available during sessions. Sometimes clients enjoy making art during sessions, and use their webcams to share the art content that they have produced in the meeting. In other instances, clients will work on therapeutic art making between sessions, and will share pictures of their completed images with their art therapist prior to each session. This gives each participant access to the relevant images for discussion and processing in session, and provides opportunities for responsive art making in sessions as psychological content unfolds and is worked through collaboratively.

Art therapy services are an effective adjunctive therapy. Often clients are happy with their current therapist or treatment team, but are looking to supplement their traditional therapy with additional modes of therapy in order to deepen their work or engage their visual brain in their growth and healing. Art therapy is successfully incorporated into a comprehensive treatment team approach, and we are open to coordinating care with other providers in order to provide a unique component of holistic mental health care.