I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Anthony Hartcher of the me&my health up podcast, and he was very excited to talk to an art therapist! He’d never met one before, and he asked a lot of questions that a lot of people have in their minds when it comes to this embodied, experiential, implicit, and integrative form of psychotherapy (that means it takes precedence over verbal ways of knowing and weaves together aspects of our lives that can’t be described or summarized in words).

He essentially wanted to know “what is art therapy and how does it help people find their way through struggle and conflict?” Skip to the end of this article to listen to the podcast interview and hear the answer!

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 and can help you understand what life is like from the angle of someone who supports others through their darkest hours.

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 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 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.

Get the scoop! Art therapy is not the drippy, soft, sugary version of mental health treatment you might have heard it is. Take a closer look at the facts and decide for yourself if contacting an art therapist in Austin is what’s needed to help you transform the pictures in your head that have been put there by anxiety, depression, stress, trauma, grief, and burnout.

As someone who provides art therapy in Austin, I’ve heard all kinds of strange takes on what people think art therapy is and how it can or can’t help. That means I’ve had to do a good deal of myth-busting in my time. Before you entertain any more of those fairy tales yourself, you might want to read on if you’re sitting on the fence about working with an art therapist to help you through anxiety, depression, stress, grief, trauma, or burnout.

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!

So you’ve heard of art therapy, but you wonder exactly what it is and how exactly it can help you. Given that the profession of art therapy is still pretty young compared to the profession of traditional talk therapy, it’s normal to have questions about it.

Just to be clear, art therapy doesn’t fix bad art, art therapy doesn’t restore old masterpieces to their original condition, art therapy doesn’t help artists finish incomplete work, art therapy isn’t just for artists, and art therapy isn’t just for guys named Art! (Yeah, I’ve heard all those erroneous assumptions.)

Let’s read on to learn more about what art therapy REALLY is and how it can help you with anxiety, depression, stress, grief, trauma, and burnout. I provide art therapy in Austin, Texas, and am happy to help you decide whether art therapy is right for you!

So you’re shopping for a therapist in Austin and have narrowed down the field to a few picks who work creatively with their clients and claim to be art therapists. What’s next?

For one thing, you want to make sure that these people really are art therapists. But once you’ve confirmed that the clinicians you’re considering are legally able to hold themselves out as art therapists in Texas, then what? You get to interview them!

Creatives are on every corner in Austin! And on every other corner you’ll find someone who claims to offer services to creatives, or someone who offers creative services to the general public. It’s all a little hard to take in when the term “creative” gets used so often!

And if you’re looking for a therapist in Austin, it can be even more confusing when so many therapists say they work creatively. Is there a safeguard in place for this creative work???

You’ll be relieved to know that if you want creative but legit support in becoming the person you were meant to be—no longer dominated by anxiety, depression, stress, grief, and burnout—yes, there is a safeguard in place to help you select a therapist who isn’t just throwing artistic experiences into sessions and underestimating the need for formal education and supervision to back what they’re doing. It’s all in the therapist’s credentials!

In this day and age, misinformation travels faster than information, which travels about the same speed as a vehicle on northbound IH-35 the Friday afternoon before the Red River Rivalry game between UT and OU. It makes you wonder how much information never reaches its destination or gets there too late.

When it comes to the subject of therapy in Austin, information that’s caught in a traffic jam can make the difference between someone reaching out to find a therapist vs. choosing not to and hoping things won’t get worse. It can be really hard to separate fact from fiction if you’ve never been in therapy before.

Maybe you’ve looked at a few therapist directories online and wondered about some of the profiles you read… But something’s missing—your sense of assurance that therapy, and one of these therapists, will help you get from point A to point B.

So as someone who provides therapy in Austin, I’m stepping in to give you a little info from an insider’s perspective. Read on if you need clarity about therapy; as they say, the truth will set you free!