Magical Applications of Art Therapy Activities

The use of art therapy activities depends a lot on the type of individual that it is being used for. Remembering that the goal of art therapy is based on each individual client’s diagnosis, their particular capabilities, individual needs, and their personal interests–an emphasis on the creative process is placed along the path instead of the final finished project.

As a rule of thumb, adults do not respond as well to art therapy activities as do children, requiring a certain degree of convincing that they have creative ability. There is an excited eagerness about children (and certain adults) when they see paint, pencils, colored paper, and clay. This is why they can respond so well to art therapy activities in a therapeutic session as compared to adults. In fact, most adults would prefer to express their own creative side in the privacy of their home in order to reduce stress. But there are times when more serious problems require the assistance of professional help–such as with an art therapist.

Art therapy activities can be successful because they have the ability to move the mind from the problem itself, in hopes of achieving peace and happiness. The Dalai Lama once said, “In the final analysis, the hope of every person is simply peace of mind.” This achievement can be accomplished with a pleasant state of conscious, on the condition there is a connection with reality. With art therapy and art therapy activities, reality can be moved and changed for a few minutes, as art can take a person’s mind off what is the problem, allowing the subconscious to come forth and speak in another language that is kinder and much more gentler.

When creating with art therapy activities, the body and mind obtains a certain flow about it, almost as if it was in a near-meditative state. Over the centuries, philosophers have been aware that meditation has the ability to blank the mind out of what is currently going on around it. In fact, the visualizations that develop through this form of creativity have the ability to build tomorrow’s desired reality, if the art is allowed to be created in a thoughtless state of pure automation.

This mind-set works well with art therapy activities, as not all children and adults can accurately verbalize about how they feel what is going on inside of their mind or their body, especially if something traumatic has happened. Not in touch with the reality of emotions and inner feelings, the mind is not free to experience the present which is where we are, but is buried in the past with hidden memories that cannot break free.

Jung–Art Therapy

Carl S. Jung–Art Therapy in the Making

Carl Jung, known for the Jung art therapy theory, was one of the colleagues of the famous Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud, the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud became internationally recognized with his groundbreaking theories regarding the conscious vs. unconscious parts of the mind. Simultaneously beginning his Jung art therapy theories, Jung felt that even though Freud made the goal of his therapy the unconscious conscious, he felt that it was made to sound as if it were an unpleasant “cauldron of seething desires.”

But according to the American Art Therapy Association, Inc., Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud together, along with many other psychiatric individuals at the time, had a big hand in the development of art therapy. It was thought that these historical practitioners had the same insight that entered into the development of art therapy, along with its application of conflict resolution. The healing and learning that was derived from the “talk therapy” these men eventually became known for, was thought to have built a base for uncovering the unconscious levels of the mind. But many feel that it was the Jung art therapy that seemed to be the method upon which today’s art therapy received its roots.

One of the tools Carl Jung used for his patients to express their unconscious feelings was art, bringing forth the Jung art therapy method. Influenced by both psychology and psychiatry, Jung’s influence was based on his devotion to the psychological meaning that was inside of each art piece. Freud himself never had his patients do their own artwork, but Carl Jung encouraged it. “To paint what we see before us, ” Jung wrote, “is a different art from painting what we see within.”

Totally rejecting Freud’s theories, Jung expanded the field of psychoanalysis on a personal level. The Jung art therapy included artwork of all levels, the interaction of mythology and its influence on the present moment, and the thoughts of native people which included the round spiritual mandala and the Sanskrit. Many felt he had more common sense than Freud, as the he felt the individual’s psyche had more than one interacting systems. One of these was the ego, as he dismissed Freud’s superego and id, feeling that the ego alone was considered a personal unconscious state of the mind but as a fundamental collective unconscious one.

With much more of an optimistic view of art than did Freud, with his Jung art therapy views Carl Jung felt that psychological art originated within the psyche and was considered to be intelligible to the general mass. But even more, he discovered that another style called visionary art, dew on the collective unconscious and was a lot deeper and with less individual nature. This sort of art were of images–appearing in dreams and in the art form–and were more spontaneoius and were considered to be more fulfilling images. He considered them as metaphors that held the troubled individual’s separate worlds together in a world of trauma and chaos.