What is art therapy?

In the artistic creation process get internal as well as external experience individual expression. This can be also called actualisation process. During this process the symbols which show a bridge function between deliberate and unaware contents are formed. In the art-therapeutic examination these can be made deliberate and be acquired again. (See Bulfon)

What do these words mean? Artistic figures are something universal; it appears in all cultures of this world: even groups with a little material possession decorate their objects, improve the appearance of their bodies, find poetic expressions for certain occasions, play music, sing, and dance. Where from does this need, the evident joy in the artistic figure come? It comes along because art is a human behaviour, our evolution-historical inheritance.

Picture 2: Indian Hut in the Saxman Totem Park, Ketchikan, Alaska, USA.

There are three indicators that exist to develop specific behaviour:

1) Art leaves a pleasant sensation that (human behaviour is a choice and we select what does us good), both, producer and viewer enjoy  

2) People spend a lot of time and energy for a certain activity, because it’s worth it

3) Finally, every culture has its own art. Even the modern cognitive science speaks about the

joy of painting that has a positive effect on our brain.

Picture 3: Painting - adult

Primarily, art is considered as freedom. The artist Joseph Beuys defined:

Art = person = creativity = freedom. And like Beuys, Klara Helg; (art therapist) is of the

opinion that every person can be creative.

Art therapy offers space for children as well as adults to paint down their internal feelings using different colours and to be become aware of them.  Moreover art is neither false nor true.

Earlier children had the possibility to be creative outdoors; they played with mud, earth, stones, grass, and blossoms, through that they realised their creativity and gathered different experiences. This has changed. In many flats kids don’t have that much space, in addition parents are often worried about their furniture.

However, children need to realise their creative strength. Because of that children often need to do this institutionalised.

Picture 4: Painting - child

Everybody makes bad experiences; some can cope better with them than others. In fact on the  one hand in some situations it is important to ignore strokes of fate to survive but on the other hand ignored situations have constantly a bad effect on the person, even if the situation happened years ago. Many ignored situations have their beginning in the early childhood, but as an adult, people aren’t aware of them anymore.

Art makes it possible to reconsider forgotten situations and feelings and to be able to talk about them.

2009    June

Eva Fellner / Austria