About Creative Arts Therapy

“Creative Arts Therapy - for when words are too much, not enough, not possible or misunderstood.”

Creative Arts Therapy (or sometimes called Expressive Arts Therapy or Arts Psychotherapy) is a therapeutic approach that combines psychology with creative and expressive modalities to engage the whole body, the mind and the spirit through non-verbal, imaginative, symbolic and metaphoric exploration to gain insight, make meaning, gather new resources and find pathways to capacity and healing. Where classic talk therapy takes a top-down, cognitive-focused processing approach, the Creative Arts allows for a bottom-up, body-focused processing approach.

It is about the process rather than the outcome or product.

Creative Arts Therapy often takes an integrative, multimodal approach – skillfully combining:

✨Sensory Play - engaging all the senses through play and experimentation with materials, tools and toys

✨Visual Arts - painting, mark-making, drawing and sketching, art journalling, bilateral drawing, origami and other paper-folding arts, collage – abstract, traditional and mixed media, construction and upcycling, clay and dough, analogue and digital arts such as drawing and graphic design, photography, videography and animation, and fibre and textile arts such as sewing, knitting and weaving.

✨Language + Narrative Arts - creative writing and poetry, storytelling

✨Dance + Movement Therapy (DMT) - spontaneous and expressive gestures and movement, exploring culturally inspired movements (Middle Eastern Dance, Temple Dances), yoga, tai chi, qi gong - often while listening to music of course!

✨Music + Sound Therapy - listening to or making sound and song together

✨Drama + Psychodrama Therapy - dramatic enactment, spoken word, group performance, mask-making and costuming

✨Eco/Nature-Based Therapy - making art outdoors, sculpture and assemblage using various art materials with nature-based and found objects

✨Play Therapy - sand tray, dough play, doll play, Lego and Duplo play (aka Block Therapy)

✨Transpersonal Arts - mask making, mandala and sacred geometry art with various materials, visionboards or dreamboards, combining dreamwork with other modalities, creating ritual and ceremony, making altars and sacred spaces, spiritual journalling ( i.e Grimoires, Illustrated Faith)

*Not an exhaustive list!

For every kind of challenge with mental health, neurodiversity, disability and adverse life event, there is a creative or expressive therapeutic modality or combination of modalities that can be tailored to a person’s subjective needs, interests and physical abilities.