What Art Therapists Do in Austin, TX

Most people have at least some idea of what a therapist does. They listen, they support, and they help others calm the seas of life so they can enjoy smooth sailing and journey ahead toward their dreams. Unfortunately, not nearly as many people understand what an art therapist does.

You Might Laugh if You’ve Never Heard These Things About Art Therapy

I’ve heard some doozies in my career—that art therapists help artists decide how to proceed with a work of art, that art therapists restore very old artwork to its original condition, that art therapists keep people distracted so they forget about their woes, and other erroneous assumptions. The truth is that Austin, TX art therapists do what all other therapists do! They just go about it differently.

Art Therapy in Austin, TX is a Different Way to Work Toward Mental Well-being

What’s so different about art therapy? For one thing, it’s not so reliant on words as a primary source of data.

Art therapists have knowledge and skills in talk therapy, but they also have knowledge and skills in assessment and treatment at the nonverbal level. That means they are listening, supporting, and helping while also looking--looking at a client's artmaking process and resulting art products for clues about how the client makes sense of the world in ways that can’t be put into words; these ways can be used to help calm rough seas.

Art Therapists Make Initial and Ongoing Assessments

The ”looking” part of what an Austin, TX art therapist does is pretty much oriented toward assessment. Assessment is necessary for helping the art therapist figure out how best to approach treatment; it gives direction to everything that comes after assessment. So the art therapist is taking the client’s verbal input, behavioral cues, and art-related data into consideration when making an assessment of where to start treatment, and then of course the art therapist is “looking” all throughout the course of treatment to determine what progress is being made.

I Help Austin, TX Art Therapy Clients Understand What I See in the Assessment Process

I typically involve clients in assessment by explaining how I see things, based on the assessment and treatment framework I use. It’s called the Expressive Therapies Continuum, and although it’s petty much only known about in the art therapy world, it’s a comprehensive model for understanding how a person’s nervous system functions physically, emotionally, and intellectually, and it guides treatment on a very individualized path to integration of the nervous system. An integrated nervous system is a creative and resilient nervous system, and a creative and resilient nervous system is necessary for optimal living and smooth sailing.

Art Therapists Provide Treatment for Many Mental Health Conditions

Next comes treatment. Austin, TX art therapists treat anxiety, depression, stress, burnout, trauma, grief, and more—it all depends on the art therapist’s specialty. Conditions like these create integration problems in the nervous system.

Treatment is specific to the issues a client is having trouble with. The assessment process helps the art therapist work with the client on developing a treatment plan, and that’s where goals are fleshed out. The art therapist will use interventions that target the goals and help build a bridge between where the client is at and where the client wants to be, psychologically speaking.

Progress gets monitored throughout the course of treatment—this ensures that the art therapist and the client are on the right track. Treatment plans can be adjusted when the art therapist and the client agree that something needs to be tweaked for the sake of good outcomes.

I Help Clients Understand How to Make Treatment Last Beyond Austin, TX Art Therapy Sessions

I like to educate the clients I work with about the rationale behind my interventions. That way they can understand things like the medicinal use of art media, where the different somatosensory qualities of the materials help create different internal effects, such as shifting from feeling to thinking and vice versa.

If clients can understand why I suggest the things I do in therapy, they can begin to be less reliant upon me and more reliant upon themselves for recognizing when it’s time to initiate a shift. They can apply this to other areas of their lives outside of art therapy, and that’s what treatment is really all about anyhow—creating positive shifts for smooth sailing in life!

Graduation is the Goal of Art Therapy

After a client has successfully realized their treatment goals and created positive shifts in life, the next thing an Austin, TX art therapist does is help them celebrate and graduate. No one is supposed to be in therapy forever! Graduation is a happy occasion, though it can be a little bittersweet when the client-therapist relationship comes to an end because the client has been successful.

It’s normal to feel sad and anxious, and maybe even resentful, that therapy is coming to an end. But the end of art therapy marks the beginning of a new freedom for the client; there are bigger oceans to explore and adventures to be had, and the client is no longer encumbered by anxiety, depression, stress, burnout, trauma, and grief. The skills learned in art therapy can be used to live life at a whole new level.

I Hold a Graduation Ceremony to Help Austin, TX Art Therapy Clients See How Far They’ve Come

One of the benefits of art therapy is that each session leaves behind a tangible record of the client’s efforts. These tangible records can be reviewed over the course of treatment to reinforce the client’s awareness of progress, and they play an important role in the graduation ceremony.

I like to review a client’s art products with them before they say good-bye to me. Looking at all these tangible records in chronological order helps us both relive the journey we took together and reminisce about the good days as well as any bad ones that may have come up (and let’s face it, bad days are often what drive people to therapy in the first place, though those are often forgotten as rough waters are calmed).

I Make a Slideshow of Client Artwork so People Can Appreciate Their Journey From Rough Waters to Smooth Sailing

The clients I work with through online art therapy in Austin, TX send me digital images of their artwork over the course of treatment, and that’s what lets me create a slideshow for the graduation ceremony. Having this really helps clients grasp the extent to which they created movement in their own lives. It also reminds them that they have what it takes to continue creating movement and sailing smoothly toward future goals.

Austin, TX Art Therapy is an Action-oriented Way to Meet Your Goals

Assessment, treatment, and graduation. These are three core activities of any mental health therapist, and so they are also three core activities of art therapists as well. We don’t fix bad paintings!

Art therapists fix the broken parts of the people who come to us for listening, support, and help, but we do this by empowering them to take action themselves. You can’t get through art therapy without taking action! If you are an action-oriented individual who wants to experience wholeness as you learn to calm the seas of life, art therapy might be for you.

If You’re Ready to Journey from Rough Waters to Smooth Sailing, an Austin, TX Art Therapist is Ready for You

Are you interested in what an Austin, TX art therapist can do for you? To learn more about how I work with people to achieve their goals, see my About page.

And if you want to find out whether my way of listening, supporting, and helping is a good match for the goals you want to achieve, please contact me to schedule a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation. It’s never too late to create a better outcome for yourself!