What to Expect from Art Therapy in Austin, TX
A lot of people wonder what actually happens in art therapy, so it makes sense that you’d be asking the same question if you’re thinking of working with an art therapist to help you transform your anxiety, depression, stress, grief, trauma, or burnout. First of all, make sure you’re looking for someone who’s been authorized by the state of Texas to represent themselves as an art therapist. Next, prepare to be welcomed by an open-minded professional who knows how to put you at ease while you become familiar with your own creative potential for turning your blues into the colors of a sunrise!
Any Level of Familiarity with Art Materials if OK for Working with an Art Therapist in Austin, TX
When you make an appointment with an art therapist in Austin, TX, they might ask you about your current relationship to art materials. Do you know your way around Jerry’s Artarama? Or have you never even heard of this store?
Either way is OK—your answer just gives the art therapist a heads up regarding your comfort level and maybe even training with art materials. Remember that any art material, otherwise known as a medium, serves as a go-between that connects what’s inside you to what’s outside you. So when the art therapist asks about your familiarity with art materials, they’re really trying to get a sense of which ones you might already feel comfortable using as a go-between.
In my work with clients, I encourage the use of nontraditional as well as traditional art media. Nontraditional materials, such as found objects or natural elements, can spark a person’s interest and creativity in ways that traditional materials sometimes can’t. Clients often feel more comfortable and familiar using everyday items in new ways to help them think outside the box.
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Will Attune to Your Needs
The next thing that’ll happen during art therapy in Austin, TX is the development of the therapeutic relationship. While this will occur at a conversational level, it’ll also occur through nonverbal means.
The art therapist will be monitoring your creative output for indications of physical, emotional, and intellectual shifting, and they’ll respond to these shifts by suggesting different media or a different way of using the materials. This is called attunement, where the art therapist is tuning into you and supporting your needs and your growth through therapeutic adjustments that don’t necessarily scream out, “this is a therapeutic adjustment.”
The process of art therapy is bi-level: one level is conscious and easy for you to describe while the other is nonconscious and probably hard for you to recognize. If you’ve never thought about how much of your nervous system is involved when you use your eyes and your hands, you’re likely to miss how much of the art therapy relationship is really happening beneath the radar!
When I provide art therapy in Austin, TX, I take care to manage the nonverbal aspects of the relationship. This is particularly important in online art therapy, as I’m not sitting in the room with the client and can’t literally function as the client’s third hand.
My helping hand instead comes in the form of mirroring and modeling, where the client can see me either reflect their artmaking process back to them or guide their artmaking process toward successful problem solving. Both methods require attunement on my part.
Art Therapy in Austin, TX Will Respect Your Comfort Zone and Pace
Please expect the art therapist to respect you comfort zone and move at a pace that works with you rather than against you. Just because you’re engaging in a bi-level process doesn’t mean the art therapist will suddenly make you become consciously aware of all the things you don’t want to be aware of. That’s why it’s so important to work with someone who’s a legitimate art therapist—they’ve got the education and training to prevent you from being retraumatized or flooded with emotion.
They’ll be helping you select art media and methods that support an optimal exchange between your internal world and your external environment. As you journey through the therapeutic process together, you’ll find that you’re able to work with a broader range of materials and methods; this can translate into increased contentment with a broader range of experiences in your life.
The clients I work with are able to increase mastery over media and methods in a way that makes sense to them. I provide them with a little bit of education about which materials are likely to support emotional containment vs. emotional expression, and we work to balance containment and expression through embodied art methods that progressively encourage the development of personal power. Some people want to tap into that personal power ASAP while others like to get close to it in stages; whatever way is best for the client is the way I promote.
Your Images Will Reveal Internal Shifts During Art Therapy in Austin, TX
You will not find a mind reader lurking within your art therapist. Although art therapy in Austin, TX can be mind bending or mind blowing in terms of its potential for boosting your progress toward your goals (remember those eyes and hands that are active in art therapy?), you’ll have to go elsewhere if you want someone to read your mind.
Your art therapist will be able to read the images you create, but they’re trained to look for indications of internal shifting, not information about what you’re actually thinking. Remember: radiologists can read images too. They look at X-rays and the like to determine the presence or absence of something. But knowing what they’re seeing doesn’t provide them with information about why they’re seeing it.
I encourage clients to be their own mind readers if they’re up to it. Every client creates in a way that is unique to them and reveals a trace of their individuality. Anyone can make sense of their own visual language; all it takes is a few examples for patterns to start to emerge, and then a curious and open mindset can get to work on wondering what these patterns might be about.
An Art Therapist in Austin, TX Can Help You Heal Your Shame
If you negatively judge your artwork, the art therapist will help you understand how normal this is. Many people had a bad art teacher somewhere along the way, and they stopped making art—or they started copying the art of people older than themselves.
This is where stick figures come from! Children don’t naturally draw them until they learn to feel shame about their artistic efforts. An art therapist can help you become comfortable with your own visual language and heal the shame that crept into your life thanks to someone else’s negative judgment of you.
When I provide art therapy in Austin, TX, I’m careful not to issue negative or positive judgments about client artwork. This because both forms of judgment can throw therapy off track; while it’s obvious how a negative comment could do this, many people don’t realize that a positive comment such as “oh, I like that!” can undermine things by prioritizing my own aesthetic preferences at the expense of the client’s experience. Compliments that aren’t about the client’s effort aren’t really compliments after all.
Art Therapy in Austin, TX Leaves You with a Visual Record of Your Success Story
You’ll also be able to look back at your work over time and literally see the changes you’ve been making over the course of art therapy. Certain art products will serve as visual milestones that remind you of who you were when you started art therapy and how you put in effort to create a better outcome for yourself.
This isn’t necessarily reflected in things like “better drawing skills”, as art therapy is not the same thing as art lessons. Instead, you’ll look at your art products and understand how they tell the evolving story of better living skills.
Clients who work with me are encouraged to photograph their art products and send them to me through a secure client portal. This way I can collect and quickly facilitate a review of their work on an as-needed basis, and we can assess how close we are to graduation. After a client has graduated from my services, they can look back at their own images to be reminded of their capacity for creating positive outcomes; this is especially handy when a new challenge comes along and they need reassurance of their ability to rise to the occasion.
Get a Free Therapy Consultation in Austin, TX
Are you ready to create the life you want to live and step out of the shadows into the light? Contact me for a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation. We’ll discuss your goals and how online art therapy can help you transform your vision into reality.
If you’re curious about the rationale for art therapy in general, please see my About page. It’ll help you understand the importance of using your eyes, hands, and physical self in the treatment process to fortify the experience of changing negative or painful pictures in your head. Isn’t it time for you to create a better outcome for yourself?