Art therapy is the lifesaver of modern society

God made a man out of clay
and left him an unused piece.
– What else to blind you? God asked.
– Blind me happiness – the man asked.
God did not answer, only put a man
in the palm of the remaining piece of clay.

At a time when it is important for a person to get additional energy to overcome crises, difficulties, or simply to experience fateful events, society turns to art, creativity, and other forms of creative self-expression. The expression of creativity structures the reality of a person, so through a song, drawing and dance, one can regulate an impulsive or aggressive state, stabilize internal homeostasis. Through a fairy tale and puppet therapy, one can effectively convey the social experience of all mankind without long and painful moralizing. Techniques and methods of art therapy are the most realistic and environmentally friendly for a person, and are also relatively safe in the work of a practical psychologist at all stages of psychocorrection. Let us consider several arguments in favor of the effectiveness of these forms of psychological assistance.
1.Psychological work with individual art-therapeutic products “I” of a person always has a positive effect on self-esteem and self-knowledge. So each drawing, analysis of personal photographs or just images (phototherapy) provides a person with thoughts and directs his thoughts “inside” himself. And self-knowledge is the highest form of knowledge.
2. Art therapy techniques develop and activate those areas of the human brain in the right hemisphere that systematically and systematically die off in the process of schooling: a huge amount of memorization, tests, learning algorithms leave no room for creativity, search and self-realization of the child in the learning process. And even labor training lessons, which are aimed at the formation of creativity and ingenuity, are held according to standardized blanks and templates, which a priori excludes individuality and originality. And we get as a result of adults who are not able to make decisions and make choices. But it all starts with a question to the teacher – “What color to draw the sky?”. And the teacher’s answer is the first program either to zombify and robotize the child’s consciousness, or to freedom in a flight of fantasy.
3. Art therapy is the most painless “vacuum cleaner” of negative emotions and experiences of a person. Drawing and acting out, modeling in the sand or on the stage of complex life situations, provides a person not with one way out, but with a whole range of adequate, socially acceptable forms of acting out problems. This reduces emotional experiences on existential questions “What to do?”. And so in the process of working with a psychologist, a dead end becomes a new door that you just need to open to get a whole world of possibilities.
4. The materials with which the art psychologist works provide a thin and indestructible, in the process of the formation of mankind, a thread between man and nature. Clay, doll, sand, paper, fabrics, charcoal, paints – this is what accompanied humanity at all stages of the transformation of civilization, and therefore quite successfully helps to overcome problems and the formation of an individual. After all, it is much easier for a person to get rid of resentment: by drawing them as a funny offender, creating caricature sculptures of a problem or making a defender doll from resentment.
5. In moments when it is necessary to focus or tune in to our own methods of information, we constantly draw scribbles in the margins, but when a child draws such scribbles, we try to find meaning. And very often you just want to go back to childhood and draw kalyaki-malyaki, or cook porridge-malash from clay. After all, only in childhood we receive a charge of strength and potency for life. So art therapy makes it possible to travel to childhood, “bringing” souvenirs from there: in the form of resourceful memories, experience of overcoming, readiness to accept support, skills not to be ashamed of one’s feelings, and simply faith in the miracles of life.
6. Also, art therapy is a mechanism that forms a harmonious family space. Yes, of course, there are a lot of factors that unite a family. Among them is the place where they live nearby, the food they eat together, and the habits they form together. But there are not so many factors that would unite the souls of the family. And one of them is joint family creativity, let it be preparing a gift for mom for a birthday or designing a family album with children or creating a drawing for memory “About how our family lived this year”, everything will do and then you won’t even notice how children begin to listen to their parents, how they fulfill family responsibilities with pleasure. After all, this is the only way a child feels like a part of something whole, big, strong, reliable and his own – a family.
7. Our genetic commonality with animals has been proven by scientists and does not require further explanation. But what distinguishes us from our smaller brothers is creativity. Only a person with his Divine gift is able to create, create, create, change, improve, including himself, and art therapy is the method that reveals himself to a person.
Nazarevich Victoria