Therapy
The word "therapy" can sound intimidating, however art therapy is not only "problem oriented". It is also resource and awareness oriented, providing time and space to discover how to listen to and care for yourself better as you experiment and explore with paint and other art supplies. This creative process provides a different access to ourselves, not primarily a cognitive one, but one in which we become more present to ourselves. The therapist serves as a guide in this process. No previous art experience is necessary, if you can hold a pencil or a brush, that is enough.
What is art therapy?
This is a translation of part of a German article describing art therapy in Switzerland:
"Even in ancient cultures, it was known that the arts had a healing effect on physical and mental health. Be it in the form of theater, music, sculpture or in pictures.
In more recent times, however, the term "art therapy" was used in the German-speaking world to refer to therapy using paint and drawing supplies, whereas music therapy, drama therapy or dance therapy were not summarized under the collective term "art therapy" but "artistic therapy".
Therefore, a lively discussion about the professional title took place in Switzerland when renowned associations of artistic therapies came together in 2002 to form an umbrella organization, the Organization of the Working World (as a partner of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation). The aim was to establish a common, regulated profession with a higher professional examination. The result was the current recognized professional title: art therapist (ED) with a federal diploma and a specialization. These are: Movement and Dance Therapy, Drama and Speech Therapy, Design and Painting Therapy, Intermedia Therapy, Music Therapy. Thus, since 2011, Switzerland is the first country in the world with a professionally qualifying state degree for all directions of therapy using artistic means. Art therapy stands today in Switzerland for all directions and methods.
Maybe you think: "I have no artistic skills, never sang or painted, in school these subjects were boring or a nightmare for me...".
Art therapy - unlike art - goes to the base, to the simplest elements and is suitable for everyone in almost all situations. It can be actively practiced or passively heard, seen, experienced, felt, moved; for example, music therapy for great exhaustion or pain.
More often, however, we engage in art therapy, we are active and create a "work". The work appears as a form of movement, as a picture, as a design, as a word or sound. We experience what it is to be able to act autonomously, sovereignly and self-competently. What I create in my chosen medium (sound, movement, color, etc.) under expert guidance has never been done before and helps to find new solutions.
The relationship level is special in art therapy. Whether with materials such as clay, stone, paper and paints, or with sounds, movements and words - something new always emerges, a work in which the unspeakable is expressed and which has an intensive effect on the body. These effects can be experienced and measured and modulate the symptoms of illness.
In the safe framework of a supportive therapeutic relationship, I shape the emerging work. It affects my breath, my body sensation, my pain, my aches, my life situation. I am also "in relationship" to the design created.
The therapist is, more than in conversation-centered forms of therapy, a companion, also a model in demonstrating techniques. Under expert assistance I find new solutions, a further access to myself. Less in the mental reflection than in the directly viewed reality, which undoubtedly arises from me, with me but also real in front of me.
Art therapy acts as a personal experience of your own abilities, with the help of which you can better cope with life problems, traumas, crises and diseases... With the means of art - specifically applied and specifically as therapy - inner things can be brought to expression."
First published as six blog posts on the homepage of Swiss insurance company Helsana AG in November 2014. Written by Dietrich von Bonin, MME. Certified art therapist (ED), specializing in drama and speech therapy. President of the Quality Assurance Commission of the OdA Conference of Swiss Art Therapy Associations, head of the KSKV/CASAT and head of the research department for art therapy at the IKOM of the University of Bern. Author of various professional publications.