What Exactly Does an Art Therapist Do? An Austin, TX Art Therapist Explains
Many people have heard of art therapy within the last several decades, but they’re still not sure who’s at the helm of art therapy and what this person DOES. It helps to know this info if you’re thinking of enlisting the support of an art therapist to overcome anxiety, depression, and host of other emotional experiences.
It’s also helpful to know what an art therapist does if you’re thinking of becoming one!
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Can Work in Many Settings
I started out assuming that art therapists operate in a private practice setting, and here I am, operating in an online private practice! But before my private practice, I worked in behavioral health, correctional, educational, medical, and social services settings, providing art therapy and learning more about the human condition as I made a difference in the lives of others.
An Art Therapist Has to Learn What to Do in Many Settings
So what did I DO in those places (and what do I do in my private practice)? Well, no two art therapists are alike, but we all go through a graduate (and in some cases a post-graduate) art therapy educational program to ensure that we’ve learned the basics of providing mental health and wellness services through verbal and visual means and have received supervision for our efforts to use these methods in clinical settings with different client populations so we can provide art therapy in Austin, TX and elsewhere.
That means we all share the same general knowledge base and skill set for applying art therapy in our work as mental health professionals.
An Art Therapist Has to Learn How to Assess a Client’s Strengths and Challenges
We all have to learn something about verbal and visual assessment. Why? Because everything about treatment via art therapy in Austin, TX grows from assessment, which is a way to capture data about a person in terms of their strengths and their challenges.
Some art therapists will lean heavily on the verbal side of assessment, because it can be quicker and may be preferred by the employer (most employers aren’t art therapists). However, art-based assessment can reveal strengths-and-challenges patterns that aren’t evident in verbal assessment results.
An Art Therapist Assesses What Happens When a Client Interacts with Their Environment
It’s shocking what information gets overlooked when art-based assessment is minimal or missing altogether, as it is in talk therapy. The visual information can portray dynamics related to what happens when a person interacts with their environment, as interacting with art media requires this in Austin, TX art therapy.
Is the person willing to take risks, or do they stay in their comfort zone? Do they respond to boundaries and limits, or do they disregard these? Do they let themselves take up space, or do they shrink? Are they connected to themself, or are they disconnected?
An Art Therapist Uses Assessment Data to Help a Client Create New Neural Connections
Answers to the questions above are important for the art therapist in Austin, TX to know about. Learning these at the beginning of the therapeutic relationship can help the therapist understand how to best work with the client and get a sense of how to use their strengths to build a bridge for overcoming challenges.
This is important for emotional work; psychotherapy—and art therapy—is all about creating new neural connections to build bridges between emotional struggles and emotional wellness.
An Art Therapist Develops a Treatment Plan
Once the art therapist in Austin, TX has figured out how to best go about working with a client, they’ll usually create a treatment plan together. That makes sure the client understands how treatment is going to move forward—and how engagement with art media and methods will be a part of this.
If the client isn’t able to make use of a conversation about the treatment plan, the art therapist will likely skip a discussion about it. For example, when I worked in the schools, many of the clients I served were too young to make sense of such a conversation.
An Art Therapist Has Conversations About the Treatment Plan
In the case above, I shared that conversation with the adults in lives of the students I served through art therapy in Austin, TX. And when I worked in the prison, I facilitated group therapy and couldn’t have treatment plan conversations with the individual inmates. Those conversations were for the treatment team.
An Art Therapist Customizes Treatment
The treatment plan is the blueprint for how treatment is going to go. Since most clients aren’t identical, treatment via art therapy is likely going to be customized per individual. That’s how I do things.
Different people require different art media and methods in Austin, TX art therapy. I use a framework called the Expressive Therapies Continuum to guide me through the treatment process, as it champions clients. That means it allows me to follow the client as they demonstrate subtle shifts in the way they balance inner and outer worlds in search of the physical, emotional, and intellectual integration needed for optimal functioning.
An Art Therapist Is Guided by Client Output
Simply put, the client’s artmaking process, art products, and spontaneous verbalizations about these things can give me information about what the next steps should be.
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Monitors Client Progress
Most art therapists will monitor treatment—this is usually a requirement in any setting to ensure that treatment is on course for success and not wandering off into the weeds. I have quarterly progress reviews with clients to look at how far we’ve come together and get a sense of whether any changes need to be made to the treatment plan or the therapeutic relationship.
Sometimes one or the other will need tweaking. That’s normal. When was the last time you had a plan or were in a relationship that didn’t need adjusting?
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Helps Clients Understand Where They’re at in the Treatment Process
Progress monitoring will make sure the client is aware of where they’re at in the treatment process. A wise therapist once told me, “When you’re in therapy, you’re always in the middle.” This is true; therapy has a beginning and an ending, but it’s mostly about what happens in the middle.
Some clients stay in the middle longer than others. This depends on a lot of things, like the client’s commitment to therapy, the issues they want to work on, and outside forces that give them more issues to work on.
Clients Arrive at the End of Treatment in Austin, TX Art Therapy
Sometimes clients get into therapy and eventually realize that the things they thought they wanted to work on are only the tip of the iceberg; there are more things to address. But no matter how long someone is in the middle, everyone graduates at some point!
An Art Therapist Helps Clients Prepare for Graduation from Treatment
Graduation is a celebration. Or at least it should be—can you imagine celebrating graduation from therapy in prison? That never happened. But in other settings celebrating is the norm. The Austin, TX art therapist and client will prepare for graduation and know that it’s coming.
There are no sudden drop-offs, unless the client quits coming to therapy. That can happen in the graduation phase. Some people can’t handle goodbyes, though the graduation phase is the perfect time to address this.
An Art Therapist Reviews the Therapeutic Journey with Clients
Ultimately, the art therapist in Austin, TX will probably collaborate with the client to review their artwork. This gives the client a sense of accomplishment as they look through their images and realize how the images reflect an internal journey.
A client’s artwork is documentation of neurological activity; seeing the artwork evolve over time can help the client understand that art therapy helped them change from the outside in. The outside in?
Yes--the art media and methods were outside agents that made their way inside the client’s nervous system via somatosensory processing (touch) and visual perception (sight).
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Works Together with Clients to Create Better Outcomes
And that’s what an art therapist does! Of course, there are many tasks that go along with being an art therapist, but assessment, treatment planning, intervention, and progress monitoring are the big ones—same as in talk therapy.
In the end, art therapy and talk therapy share the same goals but have different means of getting there. Which one is right for you?
Do You Need a Free Consultation with an Art Therapist in Austin, TX?
If you know you need to use your eyes and hands and body in pursuit of emotional wellness, contact me to learn more about online art therapy in Austin, online art therapy in Texas, online art therapy in Indiana, and online art therapy in Arizona. I customize treatment to ensure a good fit for the people I work with, and I’d be happy to give you a free consultation.
No two therapists are alike, and no two art therapists are alike—make sure you choose someone who can help you!
Selecting the Best Art Therapist in Austin, TX for You is Important
Need more info about how to make that choice? I’ve written this guide to give you ideas for sifting through your options and deciding who’s right for you. I’d love to be that someone! In the meantime, you can read about how I help others at my About page; I offer online art therapy for anxiety and depression, and I specialize in people who give a lot to others and feel guilty for just wanting to fulfill their own needs for a change.