Introduction
Therapy denotes a special care offered to people experiencing hardships in their lives. It is a form of treatment given to cure these adversities. It comprises of qualified professionals who tackle problems ranging from slump, nervousness, frustrations in relationships, as well as family issues.
Therapy can be classified on the basis of the composition of what is used. For instance, material things like drugs, hormones, or genes. Energetic things like light or sound are used as well. It can also involve human interaction like counseling. Therapy appears in a wide range of categories. This overview expounds on the art therapy, highlighting some of the roles art therapists do as well as the problems they encounter in their work.
Art Therapy
Following the use of visual manifestations that were employed by traditional people to administer healings for mentally sick people, the issue of coupling this old fashioned method with new improved ones arose. It gave rise to the art therapy as a distinguished profession. It was not functional until the beginning of 1940s, resulting from the artistic impression depicted by the mentally ill people. Art therapy is a costly class of therapy that employs artistic materials in its running. It makes use of chalks, paints, as well as markers.
It bases its operations purely on art techniques to boost the fitness of the body, mind, as well as the body emotions of its patients. It is founded on the notion that, the creativity seen in artists can arrest the common family conflicts, can nurture social skills, not sparing behavior and stress. Art therapists are highly learned people who have majored in the field of art therapy. They have been equipped with the relevant skills of interacting with all categories of people, young, old, male, female, couples, families, communities, to mention a few.
“Art making is seen as an opportunity to express one’s self imaginatively, authentically, and spontaneously, an experience that, over time, can lead to personal fulfillment, emotional reparation, and recovery” (Malchiodi 27).
Therapists are trained to identify the appropriate treatments for their people, failure to which the intervention can turn to a disaster. They improve their clients’ capacity of judging, teaching them how they can manage depression and stress. They also show them the appropriate ways of copying up with hardships and solving home issues.
Use of Creating Art in Art Therapy
Creating art is highly essential in art therapy. “While art therapy is its own field, you can use the benefits of art to express your creative side and drawing skills to reduce stress and get in touch with your feelings” (Elizabeth Para. 1). In clinical art therapy, art has been employed as a stress killer where interesting drawings are made, taking the thoughts of the patient off the source of his/her stress.
Creating art, as applied in youth, children, and old people, boosts discussions where the concerned feels free to reveal any problem he/she might be going through. It makes people recall their past fears and disputes, getting another chance of solving them permanently.
It has been found that creating art is a working way of healing, commonly referred to as the therapeutic process. For instance, music can manage high blood pressure, improve ones feelings, and relax ones muscles, among others.
When something visible is created, the process of discussing about it helps people unfold some serious untold issues affecting them and by so doing, end up getting relieved of the matters. Therapists have invented symbols and pictures which they technically subject to their clients in a manner that makes them (clients) address all their problems, giving the experts an easy time of administering the relevant remedies.
Problems Facing Art Therapists
The main difficulty facing art therapists is money. This is so because they offer expensive treatments. This explains why they are currently few in the world. The equipment employed by these experts is quite expensive and this calls for support in order to deliver their services to as many people as possible. As they interact with their clients, therapists experience a hard time especially when handling the aged. This follows from the notion that the old resist changes.
When a therapist attempts to administer a treatment, this category of people does not sense it, even after he/she employs some artistic expressions. Following the laid down rules and regulations, it is an offence for therapists to disclose any of their client’s information.
There are some who are naturally open and cannot manage to keep a secret. They end up being fired for breaking this rule. Since a therapist can either serve a group or an individual client, he/she suffers a lot of temptations in the latter case, when he/she encounters a client of the opposite gender.
Conclusion
Basing on the above art therapy observations, I find the issue of creating art significant. This follows from my realization that art is itself a cure of some of the prevalent problems experienced in almost every home around the globe. This then calls for all potential bodies to join hands in establishing as many art therapy associations as possible everywhere. Though expensive to establish, the solutions therein are incomparable.
Works Cited
Elizabeth, Scott. “Art Therapy: Relieve Stress By Being Creative.” West Virginia: W,Va Press, 2007.
Malchiodi, David. “Art Therapy.” New York: Palm Press, 2004, p.27.