How Art Therapy helps you regulate emotions

How Art Therapy helps you regulate emotions

How does Art Therapy actually work, according to Science?

Art therapy helps you feel the things that words can't always describe 

It doesn't hurt that "working [with] art materials is experiential and often offers a trigger for activating emotions". Ok well, maybe it does hurt for a moment. But it helps you move through the hurt.

Art therapy reduces trauma symptom severity and anxiety in traumatised adults, according to research reviewing 38 studies.  And it does so because "art therapy offers a space for exploration and experiencing emotions and/or (inner) conflicts. Feelings or themes that are difficult to process or handle can be explored without being directly expressed in words".

So, in doing art therapy, you can safely feel your feels. You know, instead of trying to talk your way out of feeling them.

Art therapy benefits

The benefits of these art therapy exercises are endless. But to name a few: they help you regulate your emotions, build resilience and self esteem, and can help you recognise limiting beliefs and unhealthy patterns in your life.

In short, these art therapy activities can empower you to change what isn’t serving you in your life, by making you aware of the thinking patterns that hold you back and changing those through regular practice.

So, how does Art Therapy work? Examples:

Making art can be really healing. That’s what they say. But how? Well here are some examples of what I do in my private art therapy classes.

  1. Draw your inner critic to distance yourself from it.

    Give it a name, and label it whenever it comes up for you. This art therapy exercise helps remind you that you’re not your thoughts, and liberates you to do the scary and hard things for the greater good regardless of your fear.

  2. Practice making mistakes using permanent markers

    Allow your mistakes to be there and practice talking back to your inner critic. Instead of quitting you are retraining the way you think of mistakes, and learning to let them spur you on instead of giving up. This art therapy activity teaches you to be resilient, and to reprogram what you think of mistakes. Mistakes are a part of success.

  3. Draw an outline of your body and colour in how you feel

  4. This helps you be present in your body. It teaches you that you are safe and ok to experience all the feelings in your body. This helps to empower you not to run away from uncomfortable emotions, but to observe them. This art therapy activity is great for training emotional regulation.

    • scan your body from head to toe

    • ask yourself some art therapy prompts like:

      • what color is that sensation?

      • what texture is that sensation?

      • where is that sensation?

    • and add that to your outline of your body

Interested in trying out an art therapy lesson?

Book your free online consultation with me.

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