The Impact of Art Therapy

To understand the impact of art therapy, one must take a dive into the mechanics of the

brain. With two hemispheres, that have two distinct roles, understanding how they work

together can illuminate how impactful art therapy can be for a client.

We have two hemispheres, right and left. Each hemisphere plays a unique role in the

emotional experience of a person. The left hemisphere is responsible for future

thinking, past recall, and significantly, language. The right hemisphere is responsible for

in the moment processing, all senses, taste, touch, sound, sight, smell, and significantly

the emotional experience.

It’s easy then, to understand why, at times, it can be so difficult to express an emotion

with words. A complex process must occur, to get the information from the right

hemisphere to the left hemisphere where words can be formulated. The more complex

an emotion is the more challenging it is for the emotion to get transferred across

hemispheres. An analogy for this would be like trying to get an electron to settle enough

to pass through a small tube. The more complex the emotion, the more energetic the

electron, the harder it is to capture an electron, or an emotion, and articulate.

Art allows us to shortcut this information transfer. A person can, instead, create an

image the represents the emotion, and then describe the art they have created, and

suddenly they have been able to put words to the emotion. Or in a nonverbal client,

they are able to express the emotion, even if unable to put the emotion into words.

The expression of an emotion is referred to as externalization in one theory of

phycology, called narrative therapy. Externalization allows the emotion to exist outside

of a person, meaning the person is then able to increase their sense of agency around

the experience of the emotion. Agency is the sense we each have to be able to have

control over our life and experiences. The more clearly we “see” the emotion, and

externalize the emotion, the less control that emotion has on the daily lives of the

individual.

Although art can provide this externalization, it is only with a classically trained art

therapist that the art can be used to continue to transform the emotion from the current

state to the preferred state. This separates an “art therapy” experience from an “art in

therapy” experience. Art in therapy, is purely externalization of an emotion using art.

With an art therapist, a client is able to dive deeper into their sense of understanding of

the emotion, with the support of a classically trained art therapist, and sublimate the

emotion into a positive outcome.