What It’s Like to Be an Art Therapist in Austin, TX
There’s more than meets the eye to being an art therapist. Lots of people secretly want to crawl into the headspace of mental health professionals to find out how their minds work when life goes dark, so if that’s you, you’re part of a much larger crowd than you realize.
Mental health professionals have their act together, right? Mental health professionals never succumb to the effects of societal tragedies like the school shooting in Uvalde, right? I provide art therapy in Austin, TX and can help you understand what life is like from the angle of someone who supports others through their darkest hours.
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Is a Regular Person Just Like You
Sadly, mental health professionals (and movie stars) fall prey to the same tragic waves that affect the waters of your own emotional world. Yeah, I mean you and what’s going on inside you right now due to the things happening in your life and the things happening around you.
Therapists of all kinds grow up in families that are more or less glued together by some kind of dysfunction, which makes us kinda average. And we go through life facing losses, just like you. We’re exposed to the same newsfeed you are.
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX is a Regular Person with Specific Education and Training
The difference is that all therapists go to school and learn a lot about the interface between the inner world and the outer world, and we study how to repair ruptures between the two. Then we receive supervision as we go from scholar to apprentice to master, transforming textbook knowledge into therapeutic skills while helping others make repairs in their own lives.
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Has to Deal with the Dark Side of Both Personal and Professional Life
However, we still face losses in our personal lives and are exposed to whatever’s in the news. And then there are the effects of the disturbing stories we hear as we help others make repairs. This definitely calls for our own therapy and/or continued supervision to make sure we’re not losing our sense of objectivity or our ability to connect and attune during sessions with the people we serve.
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Has to Deal with Unsettling Images Too
Now add in images. Yup—an art therapist in Austin, TX not only faces personal losses, is exposed to the news, and hears disturbing stories, they see unsettling images too. It’s not like you haven’t seen some unsettling things as well; just turn on the tv or look at some of the streaming footage about events like the Uvalde school shooting, and you know what I’m talking about.
But unlike other mental health professionals, art therapists also see client images made out of terror, anguish, and rage. Because the brain absorbs images much faster than it absorbs words, it’s hard to get these unsettling images out of one’s mind. If you were to crawl into the headspace of an art therapist in Austin, TX, you might see some of these client-made images too, and you would either resonate with them based on your own life circumstances or else you’d run.
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Knows What It’s Like to Be Marginalized
It doesn’t help that traditional talk therapists have historically looked down on an art therapist’s knowledge base and skill set. I have a lot of personal experience with being pre-judged in the workplace based on other people’s limited information and lack of willingness to replace their assumptions with facts. I’ve been denied career opportunities and given tasks that are beneath my level of capability.
That’s called marginalization, and the tools of this “othering” come in the form of microaggressions that have a detrimental effect on the nervous system. Perhaps you can relate based on your own life experience?
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Uses Creative Mental Activity to Transform the Effects of Their Dark Experiences
So when a mental health professional who’s been marginalized in the line of duty also is exposed to unsettling images in the line of duty (that those who are doing the marginalizing don’t see), it means they have to dive deep into their creativity to survive the impact upon their nervous system and thrive in the face of dark experiences. An art therapist in Austin, TX is able to do this because they know that creativity is about mental activity rather than pretty pictures and that sort of thing.
Creative mental activity harnesses large-scale brain networks and influences brainwaves to shift a person’s thoughts, feelings, and physiology from point A to point B. Art therapists get through the lows of their lives and their work by remaining committed not only to personal therapy and/or professional supervision, but also to their own creative process.
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Can Help You Use Creative Mental Activity to Repair the Ruptures in Your Life
In the wake of personal hardship or communal tragedies such as the Uvalde school shooting, Austin, TX art therapists and their art therapy colleagues throughout Texas are able to offer a reparation process that relies on creative mental activity to ground, support, and transform intense emotional experiences as well as emotional emptiness. This is not about drawing for the purpose of distraction; it’s about invoking nonverbal processes to address and heal the nonverbal aspects of trauma (and most of trauma’s aspects are nonverbal).
Specific education, training, and credentialing are required to do this kind of work, and if you crawled into the headspace of an Austin, TX art therapist, you’d be amazed at how their mind works when they’re using their knowledge and skills to help others repair the ruptures in their lives. There’s more than meets the eye.
Get a Free Therapy Consultation in Austin, TX
Are you ready to set yourself free from the grayscale, constricted, rigid images that are in your head as a result of living a life that doesn’t fit you well? Contact me for a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation. We’ll explore the outcomes you want to create and the ways online art therapy can help you achieve them.
It’s important to find the right plan and the right therapist! Working your way out of anxiety, depression, and stress is going to take some creativity on your part, and I’d love to support you in figuring out how. See my About page to learn more about online art therapy for bringing your body into the healing process so your whole self can burn bright again. Isn’t it about time for you to shine?