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As an adolescent, navigating yourself, the world ,and how to conquer your own emotions can cause one to face great deals of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty. Many people cope with these emotions in various ways, whether it is keeping their inner thoughts to themselves or expressing their emotions in an unhealthy manner, we see the stereotype of a so-called “moody” teenager emerge.

Psychologists have discovered varying tactics to address your mental health and engage in different therapy practices, but these approaches are all very selective towards different types of adolescents. Art therapy is a method many art teachers and therapists have worked to collaborate on to develop a new form of therapeutic expression for adolescents. Art therapy holds many benefits, and is much more applicable to adolescents than select forms of psychological therapy.  Fei- Ya Su, an art educator for children discusses how she views the creative process in regards to benefitting children. “I wanted students to come to class feeling that this was a safe place to explore their passions with no right and wrong answers or methodologies.”

The biggest highlight of art is that there is no right or wrong. Teenagers are highly self critical, and easily discouraged, and in many areas of their lives feel some external pressure to conform to their surroundings when growing up, in art, none of these pressures are prevalent. In many ways, picking at someone’s brain may cause one to hyperfixate on their issues at hand, emphasizing on what is wrong, leaving more room for criticism, many teenagers are not ready for these tactics to be one of the first steps taken in receiving mental health treatment. In art therapy, the lines often get blurred in the therapeutic side and many patients take it as an art education, which helps separate their mind from the direct problem and solve these issues subconsciously, before having these revelations brought to their attention progressively.

In conducting an art therapy experiment with her students through studying art therapy, Fei- Ya Su discussed the outcome, and reflection of her experiment. “If I could do this class all over again, the change that I would consider making the most is to have students create an art journal and update it every day at home. This would have given them more opportunity to think about trying different art materials and generate new ideas that they could record and refer to come class time.” This instructor saw a great development in her students over time, and the only flaw that was presented was the creative flow process, which is commonly not always present in people’s skill set. While the main focus of this research is discussing the teenage age group, children are able to comprehend the simplicity of art therapy easier than their own emotions most of the time.

The wide variety of applications that come with art therapy help address these psychosocial problems in varying age groups spanning from ages 5-19.  A research study “A Systematic Narrative Review on Art Therapeutic Means and Forms of Expression, Therapist Behavior, and Supposed Mechanisms of Change” was conducted by various researchers in an effort to prove how different applications of therapy impacts qualifying adolescents. “AT interventions for children and adolescents are characterized by a variety of materials/techniques, forms of structure such as giving topics or assignments, and the use of language.

Three forms of therapist behavior were seen: non-directive, directive, and eclectic. All three forms of therapist behavior, in combination with a variety of means and forms of expression, showed significant effects on psychosocial problems.“ This conclusion shows that when applied in a flexible manner, art therapy is highly effective. In this experiment, they studied the applicability of therapy towards certain classifications of psychosocial behaviors the subjects were exhibiting, through this they were able to conduct how they applied art therapy practices. Art therapy is not just a direct practice there is more to it than just the simplicity of having a person sit in front of a canvas. There is an entire curriculum behind the practices of art therapy, just like the psychosocial sciences behind cognitive and behavioral therapy, art therapy has varieties of approaches accustomed to the individual patient.

Through the experiments revolving around art therapy, many researchers question the legitimacy of it’s effectiveness, in the study that was conducted by Bosgraaf , Spreen , Pattiselanno, and van Hooren S, “ The results showed that the use of means and forms of expression and therapist behavior is applied flexibly. This suggests the responsiveness of AT, in which means and forms of expression and therapist behavior are applied to respond to the client’s needs and circumstances, thereby giving positive results for psychosocial outcomes. “ The creativity component to art therapy allows it to be a lot more accessible and flexible for different varieties of patients. Everyone varies heavily circumstantially, which is why the broadness of art therapy can allow a great ordeal of problems to be addressed through these practices.

In conclusion, art therapy holds many benefits, and is much more applicable to adolescents than select forms of psychological therapy. While behavioral, or cognitive therapy allows for many of one’s psychosocial issues to be addressed directly, art therapy can construct itself to present patients with more direct tasks as well. There is a more loosely based science behind the variability of techniques this practice uses, which allows for it to be more applicable to different psychosocial issues displayed in children and adolescents. Being able to interpret the practices of art therapy and how it contrasts to more routine and traditional therapeutic practices allow for us to begin to see the psychological depth behind art. 

References

Bosgraaf L, Spreen M, Pattiselanno K, van Hooren S. Art Therapy for Psychosocial Problems in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Narrative Review on Art Therapeutic Means and Forms of Expression, Therapist Behavior, and Supposed Mechanisms of Change. Front Psychol. 2020 Oct 8

Su, Fei-Ya, “How Can Students Use Art to Learn Problem Solving?” (2020). Theses and Dissertations.