The aim of Art Therapy is to help clients understand their inner processes and come to a realisation of how they might help themselves realise a safer and happier state of being. This is managed through specific art activities given by the art therapist who is there merely to show support of the process.
Art Therapy follows, to a large degree, Jungian psychology, in which individuation is supported. Hence there is no judgement or working through issues by talking over the story of what might have happened in the past. The idea is that everyone has suffered something at some time. We all respond differently and so what might be a trauma to one man might be nothing to another. The therapist begins with the premise that the client has and is suffering to some degree but, that he/she has within him/her the ability to work through the trauma/pain and come to a positive resolution – all through given art activities.
Art Therapy follows, to a large degree, Jungian psychology, in which individuation is supported. Hence there is no judgement or working through issues by talking over the story of what might have happened in the past. The idea is that everyone has suffered something at some time. We all respond differently and so what might be a trauma to one man might be nothing to another. The therapist begins with the premise that the client has and is suffering to some degree but, that he/she has within him/her the ability to work through the trauma/pain and come to a positive resolution – all through given art activities.