How expressive arts therapy accesses our innate power to heal

What is expressive arts therapy and how is it different to “talking therapy” as we know it? Seen as a more “active” form of therapy, where the client is encouraged to use creative modalities such as painting, writing, dance/movement, sand play, music, drama and so on, rather than the more passive therapy of sitting and talking with a therapist, I believe that expressive arts therapy is not an “add-on” to conventional counselling, it is potentially a journey to healing. 

Much of the literature, even journal articles written by expressive arts therapists, discusses potential benefits in vague terms, suggesting that through the use of imagination, the client is better able to examine his feelings, emotions, thought processes and so on. Of course, this is true but it misses the point. Done properly, expressive arts therapy connects the client, perhaps for the first time in his life, with the source of life within. As Georges Braque, a contemporary of Picasso, so eloquently expressed it, “Art is a wound turned into light.”

Scientists once believed that it was man’s ability to make tools that set him apart from the animals. That theory was debunked when Jane Goodall discovered that chimpanzees turned sticks into tools to gather food. Indisputably, one of the things that makes us human is our ability to turn ideas into art. In discovering that we are co-creators of life with Nature, we connect with the creative Source in the Universe in a way that can transform and transcend grief, depression, stress and many of the ills of modern man. Once a client has personally experienced his own creative power, the transformation can be profound.

So, how can painting a picture or writing a poem turn a life around when everything else, including talking therapy, has failed? Whilst expressive arts therapy is a process and not usually not a one-off “Eureka” moment, I can vouch for the healing power of connecting with creativity, both in my own life and those of my clients.

Some years ago, during a time of profound grief, I went to the Hawaiian island of Molokai for a week-long art therapy course. It took a day or so but once I surrendered to that piece of white paper that challenged and taunted me, I painted and cried out my sadness and pain.  At the end of it I felt cleansed and hopeful that I could build a new life. Even more profoundly, on that trip I reconnected with my creativity through painting, writing, pottery and dance. The creative being I am, and whom I had kept “under wraps” for many years in order to please others, had reasserted herself and has never left.

Working with clients, I have seen miraculous changes made possible through deep connection with creativity. Leigh, a middle-aged woman, was mourning the loss of her long-term partner, Geoff. She came to me because she was suffering from disturbed sleep. In teaching Leigh to remember her dreams and write them down, a whole new world was opened. She discovered that the “nightmares” that had formerly terrified her and stopped her from sleeping, had simply been trying to show her that she was angry. Geoff had acknowledged to everyone but her that he knew he was dying and Leigh felt cheated that they never said "goodbye".

Together we created some rituals that allowed Leigh to release her anger and forgive Geoff, as she realised it had been his great love for her that made it so hard for him to say those words. As well as helping her connect with her deeply suppressed feelings, expressive arts therapy taught Leigh to understand the symbolic language of her dreams, and this is a profound new connection with Self that she will take into the rest of her life.

I believe that expressive arts therapy can be a particularly dynamic tool in reconnecting a depressed person with their life-force. When I first met Steven he told me he didn’t have a “creative bone in his body.” He was resistant to the idea of sand play but finally agreed. After many sessions he finally revealed the abuse he suffered in childhood, choosing a very ugly and threatening figurine to represent the perpetrator and a fragile china bird to represent him. He broke down that day and released decades of denied grief and anger. The following session he brought in a delicately carved wooden bird he had made to show me. He was so proud of that bird and a little sheepish when I suggested that perhaps he had a few creative bones after all!

When we express our creativity we celebrate the life-force within us. And when we do that, we discover our own innate power to heal.     

Joy Aimée is an expressive arts therapist who offers face-to-face, Skype and phone counselling. 

Article originally published in Dec 2014 issue of Art of Healing Magazine