Art Therapy in Mental Health Promotion Palmira Oliveira; Catarina Porfírio; Isilda Ribeiro ...
Medical sciences forum,
12/2022, Volume:
16, Issue:
1
Conference Proceeding, Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The description of this clinical nursing intervention reaffirms the therapeutic potential of art therapy in the promotion of mental health in a psychiatric setting. Ten patients participated. An ...intervention plan was developed based on the nursing process methodology, using the nursing ontology approved by the Portuguese Order of Nurses. The nursing diagnoses related to the intervention group were identified. The aims and the planning of the art therapy sessions were delineated, and, in addition, the assessment strategies. We concluded that art therapy promoted the relationship between the nurse and the therapeutic group, with positive results in self-concept and mood balance.
In 2021 an article was published that presented an art therapy in prisons program that emerged through a contractual partnership between a major state university and that state's Department of ...Corrections, funded by Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The program was charged to provide art therapy with youthful offenders to alleviate behavioral, emotional, and intellectual impediments to their education. The program began in the summer of 2019 with a 3-year contract for two full-time art therapists for four sites. Responses to the annual reports and subsequent changes and benefits to the targeted population resulted in the contract being revised in the summer of 2021 that expanded it considerably, to four full-time art therapists for nine prisons. This follow-up research article will delineate the successful efficacy of this program and the impactful changes instituted since its inception and expansion. In addition, this article will further examine the evolution in the data gathering process, specifically applying more distinct considerations needed to accurately examine the effectiveness of the program.
Introduction
The accumulated experience, both with typical and atypical children, led to the desire for an easier integration into the collective.Detecting and encouraging the skills of the atypical ...child, with the help of combined arts techniques and environmental stimulation, supports their’s integration into the comunity.
Objectives
Beneficiaries-Centered Art therapy, with the aim of identifying and developing outstanding skills, trough environmental manipulation and combined arts techniques
Methods
The environmental manipulation method is used in the art therapy session trough artistic installations and colorful fabrics. Trough chromatics and textures are generated different contexts and atmospheres sense, through which the atypical child comes to accept and discover that environment. Through the manipulation of artistic installations, gross motor skills are also required, having to produce large movements with the whole body, in order to shape the elements in the environment.
Costume making as a transitional phase in the adaptation of the beneficiary to the previously created environment independently or together with the art therapist, consists in harmonizing the beneficiary with the environment. These stages are achieved through mixed techniques of artistic work, painting, decorating, modeling, collage, weaving and binding techniques.
Results
By practicing these methods during the art therapy sessions, the beneficiaries increased their self-esteem through the achievements they had and discovered and improved their outstanding skills: fine and gross motor skills, color sense, visual thinking, hand-eye coordination; improved and developed both verbal and non-verbal communication between beneficiary - art therapist and beneficiary - beneficiary, in the case of group sessions
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Conclusions
The role of the artist/Art-therapist can be to identify and encourage the creative potential of the beneficiaries by making both individual and team artworks; to support social integration through art and to value the outstanding skills of the beneficiaries.
Disclosure of Interest
None Declared
Art Therapists have long been aware of the intersubjective complexities that are evoked in art therapy in relation to images, art-making and their attendant processes. These have often been ...understood with reference to the psychodynamic concepts of transference and countertransference. In this paper we ask, what happens to these processes when art therapy moves online and becomes digitally-mediated? How do the dynamics of 'the Virtual' affect the image and art-making, and the therapeutic relationship? Drawing on Schaverien and Jung's ideas about transference and countertransference, we propose a new model or 'map' of Art Therapy which helps to think about these questions, which we call a 'Hexagonal Relationship'. To date, published literature has tended to foreground the logistics and practicalities of moving art therapy online, with consideration of complex interpersonal dynamics occupying less of a central space in emerging narratives about digitally-mediated art therapy. We suggest that applying our model to practice could potentially support art therapists to access deeper, less conscious and perhaps more symbolic levels of material in online work, in service of the client's process. We invite art therapists and clients to consider our model with reference to their own experiences of digitally-mediated art therapy, and to test out our questions and hypotheses in their own contexts.
Art Therapists work with the idea that the images made in art therapy are affected by the relationship between the person making the image (often known as 'the client'), the art therapist, and the environment in which the art therapy session takes place. Making and reflecting on images is a way of understanding and working with whatever is going on for the client, both in their 'external' life and also in their 'internal world' (for example, their thoughts, feelings, imaginings and beliefs). A lot of art therapy now happens online, particularly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we are all part of the digital world in terms of how we communicate and relate with others. We think it is helpful to consider how art therapy (including the therapeutic relationship, art-making processes and the images made) might be affected by the digital environment and so we have written this paper to explore these ideas. We show readers a diagram of what we call the 'Hexagonal Relationship' to help explain what we mean. We think this will help us to understand more of what happens in art therapy in the digital world, making this kind of therapeutic help more effective and meaningful for clients and their art therapists. We hope that clients and art therapists will test out these ideas for themselves and come into a conversation with us (perhaps through papers like this one, published in art therapy journals) about how well our ideas stand up to actual experience.
Art therapy, as a non-pharmacological medical complementary and alternative therapy, has been used as one of medical interventions with good clinical effects on mental disorders. However, ...systematically reviewed in detail in clinical situations is lacking. Here, we searched on PubMed for art therapy in an attempt to explore its theoretical basis, clinical applications, and future perspectives to summary its global pictures. Since drawings and paintings have been historically recognized as a useful part of therapeutic processes in art therapy, we focused on studies of art therapy which mainly includes painting and drawing as media. As a result, a total of 413 literature were identified. After carefully reading full articles, we found that art therapy has been gradually and successfully used for patients with mental disorders with positive outcomes, mainly reducing suffering from mental symptoms. These disorders mainly include depression disorders and anxiety, cognitive impairment and dementias, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and autism. These findings suggest that art therapy can not only be served as an useful therapeutic method to assist patients to open up and share their feelings, views, and experiences, but also as an auxiliary treatment for diagnosing diseases to help medical specialists obtain complementary information different from conventional tests. We humbly believe that art therapy has great potential in clinical applications on mental disorders to be further explored.
•Virtual reality is a novel medium for artistic creation.•We explored the potential of VR for art therapy.•Expert art therapists experienced the VR art therapy medium.•Qualitative analysis revealed ...domains of VR medium pertinent to art therapy.•VR art therapy poses novel opportunities and challenges to the field.
Recent advances in technology have enabled the creation of immersive digital environments commonly known as Virtual Reality (VR). The current study explored the potential of artistic creation in VR for art therapy (VRAT) from the perspective of expert art therapists. Seven expert art therapists participated in this study, all of whom experimented with creating visual art in VR and as observers. After the VR experience, a semi-structured interview was conducted to assess central aspects of their experience both as creators and as observers. The interviews were analyzed according to the principles of Thematic Analysis. Four main themes emerged from the findings: (1) The user experience of creation in VR. (2) The qualities of the VR material and medium. (3) The VR environment as a therapeutic setting. (4) The relevance of the VR medium for art therapy. The results indicated that the therapists foresee substantial potential in the novel VR medium for art therapy and highlighted further research directions needed to determine how the virtual medium can be used to treat real world problems.
Nicki is a clinical academic art therapist. During her PhD, she has built a coproduction partnership with The Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Company, a producing arts organisation led by and for ...people with learning disabilities.After co-authoring a paper exploring power, language and labels in healthcare research1, we knew our partnership was built on trust. Next, the Lawnmowers wanted to understand more about art therapy, through experiencing it, to better inform their expert input during Nicki’s PhD. We used a range of arts-based techniques to explore art therapy practice and outcomes. This work to develop our coproduction partnership has deepened our relationship and forged strong connections for us as a group.We think working in this way is disruptive. Using creativity we’ve made the academic world more accessible for people with learning disabilities. Together, we’ve been able to influence system change in the NHS and to design an art therapy intervention that’s relevant for this population.We want to share our ingredients for effective coproduction (and the challenges we encountered), to inspire others to engage in disruptive collaboration!1 voices.no/index.php/voices/article/view/3391
The aim of this study was to examine the impact of the Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy Program on the depression, anxiety and stress symptoms, and happiness of participants. This study is a ...quasi-experimental research with a pretest-posttest design. The independent variable of the study was the Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy Program, which was applied to the study group between the pretest and posttest. The dependent variables of the study were the depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms and happiness of the individuals included in the study group. The study group consisted of a total of 10 participants (8 females and 2 males) between the ages of 24 and 46, who met the inclusion criteria. The Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale (DASS-21) and the Oxford Happiness Scale Short Form (OHS-SF) were applied to the participants both at the beginning of the study and at the end of 8 weeks. A total of 8 sessions of the Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy Program were applied to the study group. Each session lasted 180 min. The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test was used to analyze the data obtained to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The analyses showed that the Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy Program was effective in reducing the depression and stress symptoms of the participants and increasing their happiness but was not effective in reducing their anxiety symptoms. In conclusion, although positive clinical findings were observed in this pilot study, more studies are needed to confirm these findings about the Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy Program as an alternative treatment method for patients with migraine.
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