What Do They Do in Art Therapy in Austin TX?

If you’ve been curious about art therapy as a form of mental health treatment for anxiety, depression and other uncomfortable emotional experiences, then read on to learn more!  Art therapy is actually the name of a regulated mental health profession—not a modality—so that means different art therapists are likely to practice in different ways.

In short, what art therapists do and what art therapy clients do will vary according to the art therapist’s training and the client’s needs.

Assessment in Austin TX Art Therapy Reveals Balance Problems in Life

Generally speaking, the first thing an art therapy and a client will do together is an assessment.  The assessment will help the art therapist determine the client’s preferred art materials, the way the client interacts with the materials, predominant visual elements of the client’s art products, and the client’s verbal patterns.

All four areas provide information about how the client regulates the balance between internal needs and external demands, and most clients seek treatment because of difficulty maintaining this balance.

Austin TX Art Therapy Treatment Plans Are a Blueprint for Meeting Goals

After assessment comes the treatment plan.  Data from the assessment helps the art therapist create a timebound blueprint for moving toward treatment goals that are specific to the client.

Need support with managing energy and tension levels?  What about focus, attention, and self-soothing?  Interpersonal boundaries?  Mood and motivation?  Problem solving and decision making?  Or internal conflict?

Different People with Different Goals Need Different Treatment Plans for Art Therapy in Austin TX

The treatment plan for each client should be individualized, and in many cases the art therapist will collaborate with the client (I do) to develop a treatment plan that suits the client and makes sense in light of their desired outcomes.

The Intervention Phase Is Based on Individual Needs

Next is intervention!  Intervention via art therapy in Austin TX can last a while.  I monitor the client’s perception of progress in each session, and I also find it helpful to stage quarterly progress reviews to ensure that treatment goals are being met—this way the client and I can tweak the treatment plan if need be.

There’s no cookie-cutter standard for how long intervention lasts.  One client might graduate after five months of treatment, and at the other end of the spectrum is a client who’s been in treatment for over two years.

The Client Influences the Length of Treatment

The duration of the intervention phase depends on how the client approaches art therapy in Austin TX (investing in it wholeheartedly vs. half-heartedly) and what problems the client works on (the ones the client came to therapy for vs. the ones the client came to therapy for plus additional life issues that may arise over the course of treatment).

Art Therapy Is an Embodied Way to Create Change

Art therapy interventions are tailored to meet the client where they’re at and support them in shifting toward an embodied achievement of treatment goals.  Embodied?  Yes, art therapy is one of psychotherapy’s original embodied professions—it specifically makes use of the client’s eyes and hands to create internal changes.

Those internal changes lead to changes in the way the client engages with the external world and its demands.  It’s a very back-and-forth balancing act between the inner and the outer, and so Austin TX art therapy interventions will likely shift in terms of their level of complexity, their degree of structure, and the physical properties of the art materials used as the client demonstrates readiness for these kinds of adjustments.

I Use a Framework to Guide What I Do with Clients

It’s impossible to say how any one art therapist will provide intervention for any one client!  All I can do is speak for myself, and I was trained to use a framework called the Expressive Therapies Continuum to guide what I’m doing with clients.

This framework lets me shape interventions and track the progression of treatment as the client moves through various ways of balancing inner and outer worlds during art therapy in Austin TX.  Sometimes those ways are more physical, sometimes they’re more emotional, and sometimes they’re more intellectual.

I Respond to a Client’s Verbal and Visual Shifts

At all times I am supporting the client’s lead as they demonstrate readiness for new ways of creating change; this readiness can be indicated through the client’s words as well as through the client’s artmaking behavior and art products.

Graduation is the End Goal of Art Therapy in Austin TX

Eventually art therapy results in graduation.  Graduation happens when the client has met their treatment goals and feels different about the problems that first brought them to art therapy—either the problems aren’t problems anymore or the client has figured out how to make themselves bigger and the problems smaller.

The art therapist and client review the journey through therapy, which is easy thanks to the art products that serve as documentation of therapeutic progress (in talk therapy there aren’t any visual images left behind to remind clients of the changes they’ve made).

An Austin TX Art Therapist Can Help Clients Learn to Say Goodbye and Still Be OK

Graduation is a BIG deal—some clients get anxious or angry about it, and the art therapist’s final gift for the client is helping them learn how to say goodbye without caving in to unpleasant emotions.  The art therapist may work with a client to create art products they can both keep to remind them of this relationship.

Looking back at the artwork made in art therapy will help the client long after graduation has happened—it’ll connect them to their own capacity for creating positive change and better life outcomes.

Create Balance in Your Life Through Art Therapy in Austin TX

Are you looking for an art therapist to help you create the changes you want to see in your life?  Contact me for a complimentary consultation and find out more about how I work with the specific balancing act you’re struggling to achieve.

I specialize in providing online art therapy in Texas, online art therapy in Indiana, and online art therapy in Arizona.  Let’s talk about what we can do for you in art therapy!