What Happens During Sessions of Art Therapy in Austin, TX?

It’s true: visual images trigger brain activity more quickly than words can.  So you’ve decided that working with your own images in art therapy might be the way to help you move beyond anxiety, depression, stress, grief, overwhelm, trauma, and burnout…but now that you’re interested in reaching out to an Austin, TX art therapist, you find yourself wondering what really goes on in art therapy sessions.  How does the time get spent?

Will it be constant toggling between creating and then talking about what you’ve created, so the art is just a can opener for words?  Is the art therapist going to look at your images and tell you what’s wrong with you?  Are you going to be using art as a way to distract yourself from your troubles? 

You deserve to know how you’ll spend your time during Austin, TX art therapy sessions!  Preparing your mind for the sessions ahead will help ease you into the experience and recognize the pattern of processes that are there to guide you to emotional well-being and resilience.

Three Things That Won’t Happen During an Austin, TX Art Therapy Session

First, recognize that toggling between creating and talking is usually the hallmark of a talk therapist who uses creativity in their sessions.  They don’t have the education and training to use art media and methods for creating subtle but solid internal shifts that are impactful without the need for words.

It’s not that art therapists don’t talk during sessions—that would be weird if they didn’t.  But a real Austin, TX art therapist will not be using your art experiences merely to help you find words.  Art therapy goes where words can’t and works its magic in those places.

Second, know that a legitimate art therapist isn’t going to use your images to analyze you.  While they’re trained to read visual language, they can’t use your images to read your mind or tell you all about your personal psychology.

Neither of these things would be therapeutic anyway.  They’re not realistic expectations of an art therapist, and they don’t empower you to take action in your own healing process.

Third, understand that art therapy is not a polite way to pass the time and temporarily chase the blues away.  That’s not therapeutic; avoiding your healing process through pleasant distractions is probably something you’ve already tried, and you know where it got you. 

The First Few Sessions of Art Therapy in Austin, TX are About Assessment and Treatment Planning

To get started in the right direction, the art therapist will spend time getting to know you via verbal and nonverbal means.  They’ll collect info from you through your spoken words as well as through your artmaking process and products.  These latter two help the art therapist see—literally—how the world looks through your eyes and nervous system.

Think about it: your signature is an indicator of far more than your name.  Your art products are also about much more than their overt content, and that’s because you engage your nervous system while creating them.  The art therapist will assess your nervous system as it relates to the way you take what’s invisible and make it visible.

When I’m working with a new client, I consider the first 3-5 artmaking experiences and resulting art products (as well as verbal responses to these) and look for patterns in the way the client’s nervous system processes information in the following categories: kinesthetic, sensory, perceptual, affective, cognitive, and symbolic.  Patterns reveal areas of strength and areas of challenge, and it is the disconnect between these areas that tend to be accompanied by psychological discomfort.

My job in these first few sessions is to collaboratively develop a treatment plan with the client in a way that utilizes the strengths-and-challenges pattern for organizing and orchestrating individualized services.  One size does not fit all.

Art Therapy in Austin, TX Uses an Individualized Approach During Sessions

On that one-size-does-not-fit-all note, your Austin art therapist will not be introducing you to cookie-cutter treatment techniques they just used on the client before you.  Someone who is appropriately educated and trained to hold themselves out as an art therapist in Texas knows that one-hit wonder techniques fall short of competent practice.  Instead, your art therapist will be guiding you through a therapeutic process that is uniquely tailored to you every step of the way.

Need help with regulating your energy and tension levels?  Improving your focus and attention?  Increasing your interactions with the external environment?  Attuning to the emotional cues of self and others?  Enhancing your problem-solving skills?  Resolving internal struggles? Fulfilling your potential?

All these goals require a different approach, and you could need help with each of them over the course of therapy.  This would involve a seamless transition from one approach to the next; cookie-cutter techniques lack this capacity for seamlessness.

I help clients understand my rationale for transitions, whether they’re about art media, art methods, or anything else.  Once clients learn to think of art media and methods as medicine, they’re better able to detect the overarching process of therapy and initiate art experiences that bolster progress toward their goals, creating their own seamless transitions.

Reviewing Images from Previous Sessions Illuminates Progress Made in Austin, TX Art Therapy

You’ll also be learning about your own visual language as you occasionally review your art products with your Austin, TX art therapist.  This will help you monitor your growth, not in terms of artistic development, but in terms of personal development.  These reviews pack a powerful punch and remind you of the progress you’ve made, which is easy to lose track of as you get further and further away from the beginning of your therapeutic journey.

I have reviews with clients periodically to see how things inside are shifting and how their images reflect this.  Sometimes a client will re-work an old image after realizing its significance during a review, and this re-working helps them come to completion with some aspect of the healing process.

At graduation, clients look back through their portfolio of art products to see an illustrated version of their progress.  After graduation, they can still reflect upon these images and continue to benefit from connecting with the invisible parts of themselves; nurturing this connection is essential for maintaining resilience in the face of future life storms.                 

Get a Free Therapy Consultation in Austin, TX

Are you ready to explore whether online art therapy sessions are just the thing to help you create an exit from anxiety, depression, and stress? Contact me for a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation. I’d be happy to learn about your goals and explore how they can be transformed from vision to reality.

Finding the right plan and the right therapist is important! To understand how I support others in creating a better outcome for themselves, see my About page. And to understand how I can support you, let’s talk! There’s no time like today for building your tomorrow.