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Natalie Amos
Professor Sipin
English 211
04/12/2015
The Effective Art of Healing the Mind
The study of the human psyche, as compared to other scientific research, is relatively new
and almost as soon as humanity began to unravel the secrets of the mind, they have attempted to
develop ways to treat the many problems found within it, which are normally referred to as
mental illnesses. Many forms of therapy have been explored by psychologists as the years have
gone by, such as psychoanalytical, cognitive, humanistic, and so on. More recently there has
been an alternative form of therapy being used to explore and heal the mental and emotional
issues of patients: creative arts therapy. This method of therapy, which can take the form of
studio arts, drama, dance/movement, and creative writing, has been shown to help many types of
psychological illnesses, disorders, and disabilities. Through the use of art, therapists can often
reach patients who are either reluctant to discuss their problems or who may not even know what
exactly is the cause for their issues. Unfortunately, many are not familiar with art therapy and it
is not as widely used as more traditional forms of rehabilitation. This is a truly saddening fact, as
in many cases art therapy can be much more effective in its ability to reach certain patients than
other forms of therapy and is overall an incredibly viable form of therapy with less detrimental
side-effects than these other forms.
From schizophrenia, to educational disabilities, to addiction, and trauma, art therapy has
the innate capability of helping each and every one of these maladies and many more. One
specific example of art therapy at work is how it has helped so many of those that have

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committed crimes and have been rehabilitated using this method of therapy. One program at the
Missouri Eastern Correctional Center took a group of inmates and by having them stage the final
act of Hamlet helped them to truly begin to understand and open up about their crimes and start
on the way to changing their lives (Act V | This American Life.) By letting these inmates express
themselves through drama, they are more receptive to the help they need. Much like these
inmates, there is another art therapy program in Saudi Arabia at Mohammed Bin Naif
Counseling and Care Center which is now treating former Jihadists with the studio arts.
According to Al-Yami, a counselor there, drawing is a way for the inmates to express emotions,
anger and depression. This center has worked with thousands of Saudi men and has 80 percent
success rate of rehabilitation (Amos, Debra.) Using art therapy to treat these kinds of patients, in
many cases, shows the improvement of the mental health of adult and adolescent offenders,
increase of emotional literacy (management of feelings and capacity to empathize with others),
improved behavioral outcomes within the correctional context (reducing rule-breaking and
improving relationships), and a decrease of recidivism rates (Kiv, Kristi and Lii Kaudne.)
Studies like these prove that even for those that seem as if they are beyond help, creative arts
therapy has the ability to reach across their barriers and begin to heal them.
Yet another fine example of the uses of creative arts therapy, trauma, especially as it is
expressed in adolescents, has quite extensive research that would indicate that this method is
particularly helpful and in some ways more useful that other forms of treatment. There are many
scholarly articles that can be found which help to illuminate the benefits of Art Therapy and its
uses with trauma patients who have suffered a psychological ordeal, one specific therapeutic
program that demonstrates this is shown in the article Group Therapy on the Edge:
Adolescence, Creativity, and Group Work by Craig Haen and Mandy Weil. The program

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discoursed in it shows how art therapy can make it easier for adolescents to explore and express
their feelings without the sense of being overly scrutinized by the therapist. It can, also,
sometimes be difficult for adolescents and children to understand or even put their feelings into
words and creative arts therapy has the ability to give them a way to learn about themselves as
they go through therapy (Rappaport, Laury.) Not only this, but this form of therapy supports
personal growth (Reed, Katherine, Heather Kennedy, and Marianne Wamboldt) and helps its
patients develop feelings of calm and groundedness; and increase positive
emotions(Rappaport, Laury), which are the tools to deal with future trauma and improve
resilience (Rappaport, Laury; McGuinness, Margaret and Kathy Schnur.) Overall, an
overwhelming amount of the research done with art therapy and traumatized adolescents would
suggest creative arts therapy is incredibly beneficial for the care of these patients.
Of course, along with the numerous benefits that art therapy provides, there are some
draw-backs to creative arts therapy, as there are with any method of treatment, specifically with
differing interpretations of the art. Difference in perception between clients and therapists about
whether the arts form was meant for direct or symbolic expressions created client-therapist
dissonance (Haen, Craig, and Mandy Weil.) This can cause problems in therapy by creating a
gap between the therapist and client that can sometimes be difficult to bridge, but the drawbacks
of art therapy are equivalent or even lesser to those that accompany other forms of treatment. For
example, with any type of therapy which requires interviewing the client, there is the risk of
lying and distortion. Using medications to treat mental illnesses can also have very detrimental
side effects that can change the life of the patient significantly. With any mental illness, one must
try to choose the method which will do the best at returning the patient to normal functioning,
while keeping in mind the risks that go along with it. In many cases, creative arts therapy is the

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most effective form of therapy with the fewest disadvantages that can be used to treat a multitude
of issues.
There are still those that are skeptical of the benefits of Art Therapy or fail to take it
seriously as a viable form of treatment. They proclaim that art therapy is nothing more than selfhelp and that it cannot truly help those with serious illnesses like therapy such as psychotherapy.
Some, like Lizzie Lamb in her article When Art Isnt Therapy, even suggest that it can be just
an attempt to gain attention by twisted minds, pointing to people like Charles Manson who are
remorselessmurderers and enthusiastic artists. There are also those in the world of creative
arts that disregard art therapy, because it isnt truly art since the patients were never formally
trained or have created well-respected works of art previously. Many of these ideas are based
upon both ignorance of the good that art therapy can do and on snobbery on the parts of
psychologists and those who dwell in the artistic world. The good that art therapy has done in the
multiple cases in which it has been used is enough proof of the fact that art therapy is a form of
therapy that should be taken seriously. Not only this, but Art is an incredibly subjective topic,
peoples opinions of what can be considered art are so different, that one can hardly say that just
because someone is using art as a form of therapy that that means that it is no longer art without
becoming truly hypocritical. As stated by Aristotle, art is cathartic, it is meant to provoke feeling
and provide some enlightenment of the human condition, and it is foolish to assume that there is
no healing effects in creating this art. In the case of Lizzie Lamb, she does speak some truth, but
it is common knowledge that in all forms of therapy, one can only be helped if they have the
desire to be and these callous killers shrieks for attention can only be rewarded if society is too
weak to deny it to them.

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The art process can be extremely helpful in treating numerous mental illnesses and other
disabilities as it is incredibly enlightening for the patient as well as the therapist since it has been
shown to help provide quite a bit of insight on oneself. In this way, art therapy can be very
helpful in the communication between patient and therapist. Not only this, but art therapy has an
innate ability to reach those that many would presume are unreachable if they were only to use
traditional forms of therapy and in doing so it opens the door to healing for many that might have
gone without. Even with the few disadvantages of creative arts therapy, one cannot deny its
multitude of benefits. Those that work in the field of psychology and people that suffer from
psychological illnesses who see the many studies and copious amounts of research cannot help
but to understand how much more effective art therapy is compared to cognitive therapy as well
as other popular forms of therapy and how it proves that it should be more widely used as it can
help people to explore themselves and more easily express the emotional turmoil that they are
feeling.

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Annotated Bibliography
Amos, Debra. "Treating Saudi Arabian Jihadists With Art Therapy." NPR. NPR, 5 Apr. 2015.
Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
"Act V | This American Life." This American Life. Chicago Public Media & Ira Glass, 9 Aug.
2002. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
Haen, Craig, and Mandy Weil. Group Therapy on the Edge: Adolescence, Creativity, Group
Work. Creative Arts Therapy. Vol 34. Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society (2010): 3752. Web. Mar 18 2015.
Kiv, Kristi and Lii Kaudne. Impact of integrated arts therapy: An intervention program for
young female offenders in correctional institution. Scientific Research Publishing, Inc.
(2015): Web. 6 April. 2015.
This article explores the benefits of many different forms of creative therapy, including art
therapy, with young women who experience emotional and psychological problems. It provides
detailed information on a very specific group of patients and analyzes their progress. This
information is very educational as it can show the benefits of art therapy on a certain type pf
patient and how it effects them.
Lamb, Lizzie. "When Art Isn't Therapy." ArtsHub Australia. ARTS HUB AUSTRALIA PTY
LTD, 06 Mar. 2015. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
McGuinness, Margaret and Kathy Schnur. Bullying, trauma, and creative art interventions:
Building resilience and supporting prevention. Guilford Press (2015): Web. 6
April.2015.
This article discusses the effects of childhood trauma, specifically the long term effects of
bullying. It then discusses how art therapy could help to both heal these wounds and work as a
preventative force to keep serious trauma from occurring. Bullying, trauma, and creative art
interventions: Building resilience and supporting prevention provides valuable evidence from a
real life perspective of how art therapy can help treat children and adolescents undergoing
emotional and psychological trauma.
Rappaport, Laury. Focusing-oriented expressive arts therapy and mindfulness with children
and adolescents experiencing trauma. Guilford Press (2015): Web. 6 April. 2015.
This article discusses how art therapy can reduce the effects of trauma and also help increase the
ability of a child or adolescent to better gauge and deal with their own emotions. This type of
therapy is shown within this article to help increase the resilience of children/adolescents so that
they can better deal with future issues. The information this article provides is insight into how a
therapist can help prepare youth for the future.

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Reed, Katherine, Heather Kennedy, and Marianne Wamboldt. Art for Life: A community arts
mentorship program for chronically ill children. Taylor & Francis (2014): Web. 6
April.2015.
This article follows the Art for Life program which serves a wide range of ages of adolescents
and children. The program shows the benefits of creative arts therapy, including art therapy, for
the participants and how it was able to help those with many different perspectives. This article
provides useful information on how art therapy can benefit people of many different types.