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Eden Social Welfare Foundation
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2022-10-07

Art Therapist in Rehabilitation

In a secure and judgment-free environment, new connections, relationships, and meanings are discovered via art therapy. This process offers the client other viewpoints on life and interpersonal interactions. As a result, art therapy may benefit the complete individual by addressing their sensory-motor, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual needs. Progress in the arts is regarded as an indicator of overall personal growth.

The concerns that art therapists deal with include: mental health issues; learning difficulties; language and communication difficulties; incarceration; medical issues; sensory or physical issues; stress; and emotional and/or social issues. Each of these environments has unique requirements for rehabilitation, thus art therapists must think about how art therapy might contribute to the healing process. As a result, the setting in which they operate serves to define what art therapists do, for instance, highlighted how art helped to rehabilitate a sense of self, self-esteem, and social skills via group involvement and self-exploration in his study of people who had survived an acquired brain injury as well as the researcher's own life experience.

Generally speaking, art therapists steer clear of employing medical jargon and diagnostic labels with their patients since doing so is interpreted as undermining and restricting the client's personality and requirements. They understand that the art therapist's job is to "set the stage for the process to begin and then promote the process' progression".

Many therapists use a framework that includes the therapist, client, and the artwork to conceptualize the therapeutic interaction. Art therapists who emphasize an analytical approach to comprehend the non-verbal and verbal interactions occurring within the therapeutic milieu are most likely to employ this triangle paradigm.

A supportive psychological and physical environment that fosters and nurtures safety and trust is necessary for an ideal creative process to take place, and it must be actively created and maintained by the art therapist in order for this to happen.

Art therapists highlight the value of art as having healing power. They provide safe and comfortable environment for the patients, which means art therapy is the process. The most important element for the art therapy is how therapists leads the whole remedy. Within the trust and the safety engendered, the restoration and transformation on art become better.

 

 

Citation: Art and Rehabilitation

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237092398_Art_Therapy_in_Rehabilitation

Picture: https://countryroadsmagazine.com/art-and-culture/visual-performing-arts/the-connections-between-art-and-wellness/