May is Mental Health Awareness month. For that reason I thought I would discuss the benefit of art in the treatment for some mental health disorders. For more information, please visit the link below.
https://www.nami.org/Get-Involved/Awareness-Events/Mental-Health-Awareness-Month
As an artist and someone who suffers with anxiety, I know how much expressing myself through art has helped me in my life. There have been a tremendous amount of research into how art helps people with mental disorders like anxiety, PTSD and even Alzheimer’s. The value of art as therapy has been documented by studies conducted by art therapists. Patients include soldiers who have returned from war who deal with the aftereffects of combat trauma and other. It has been found to very effective along with traditional therapies such as talk therapy.
Art therapies available
Some art related techniques used for therapy include:
- Collage.
- Coloring.
- Doodling and scribbling.
- Drawing.
- Finger painting.
- Painting.
- Photography.
- Sculpting.
- There are other types of artistic therapies that include dance as well.
Focusing on art therapy, in 2014, Pavel Piskarov, a psychologist, developed Neurogenic art or neurographica. This type of art helps to remake the connection between the conscious and the unconscious. It reconnects the mind and body to ease stress and helps with the intense emotions of anxiety disorders. There are art therapy professionals who offer this type of therapy to patients in conjunction with regular therapy. You can do your own search if you want to experiment with this art therapy at home. A YouTube search will give you many available channels that have tutorials in neurogenic art.
That was what I did while I was researching this topic. The above examples are of my own experiments using black sharpie marker and watercolor paint. There are even schools that offer a professional art therapist education to those who want to pursue this as a career.
Disclaimer: When experiencing anxiety or depression please talk to your doctor to discuss your symptoms. The statements above are my opinion and not intended to treat or diagnose.
Peace to you and your family.
