- By Amal Shahid, Tayyaba Jawed, Ayesha Ahmed, Areeba Fatima Rao
FIND YOUR VOICE, FIND YOUR HEALTH
A Look At Art Therapy
By Amal Shahid, Tayyaba Jawed, Ayesha Ahmed, Areeba Fatima Rao
Mental illness usually aligns with psychiatric sessions and medications. What if someone told you that there are more creative ways to cure someone’s anxiety and depression? Would you believe it? Art therapy is a newfound gateway to curing mental illnesses.
Anyone’s imagination, thoughts, or feelings can be expressed via art, giving them a safe place to express their emotions and decompress on paper or a canvas. By overviewing the impacts and positive effects of art on people’s lives, doctors are researching and finding various potent or joyful strategies to treat some mental illnesses like anxiety or depression by providing people with “art therapy.” Art therapy is like opening the doors of the healing world without medications and tests. It’s just the canvas; you brush against the whole world and try your best to use your paintbrush like an eraser by erasing all the obstacles and challenges in your way.
Image Courtesy: Therapeuart
In today’s noisy world, finding inner peace can be challenging. But what if you could paint your way to tranquility? Art therapy, the creative cousin of psychotherapy, provides a unique avenue for expressing emotions that words often can’t capture. It’s not about the result but the therapeutic dance with the creation process.
Fatema Siddiki, the founder of Therapeut, turned to painting as a form of therapy when lupus (systemic lupus erythematosus) disrupted her life. She found comfort and relief in painting, which allowed her to express her emotions and find peace amidst her health struggles. “Art helped me channel my emotions and find peace”, she said.
Art therapy is powerful for regulating emotions, reducing stress, and exploring self-expression. Each session at TherapeuArt is a sanctuary of creativity and emotional release. Participants transform their innermost feelings into visually poetic masterpieces, a testament to the transformative power of art in fostering emotional wellness.
The famous painter Vincent van Gogh is a prime example of how art can reflect our emotional states. Known for his expressive brushstrokes and vibrant colors, Van Gogh’s work reveals his inner struggles and passions. Inspired by this, TherapeuArt workshops—which provide a structured environment for art therapy—invite participants to bring their highest and lowest lows to the canvas, transforming pain into beauty and chaos into harmony.
Take the first step towards your emotional wellness. Don’t wait. Don’t think. Just create. Engage in art therapy to release your emotions and experience catharsis through art. Discover how each brushstroke can turn stress into serenity and uncertainty into empowerment. Let your creativity soar, and find your inner peace with art.
To explore the dynamics of wellness when it comes to art therapy, we have approached a few well-known art therapist in Pakistan who have a huge amount of dynamic ideas or experience in their field.
People are now well aware of mental health in the twenty-first century, where they are all aware of the state of the world and the significance of preserving wellbeing and peace of mind. Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy. If you are having a mental problem and you visit a psychologist, will you provide counseling, or will a psychiatrist provide you with medication? However, if you visit an art therapist, they will use various art techniques to help with your anxiety or other problems. Being a doctor, Ali Murtaza has a very strong belief in healing through art, and he is working on it very passionately, which results in many of his patients growing well in their lives.
”Art therapy has no age brand, no age limit, and it also has no side effects.”
Dr. Ali Murtaza
People have different stories, traumas, and problems. Not everyone can take therapies, counseling, or medications. Ali Murtaza is one of those art therapists who strongly believes in art therapy’s ability to heal and help people grow. Through his trust and courage, many of his patients are doing well in their lives. He discussed many of his successful patients’ stories. He also shared that he plays a song to comfort his patients, “Zindagi Mubarak,” which soothes the environment.
Ali Murtaza offers art therapy workshops that give participants a creative and therapeutic outlet. In his sessions, he focuses on the use of artistic expression to support emotional and mental recovery. Ali hopes to help others discover their inner selves and enhance their general quality of life by leading these sessions.
Image Courtesy: Therapeuart
If you have trouble expressing your problems, a psychologist might suggest art therapy to help you convey your emotions. Art therapy involves activities like painting or splashing colors on a canvas or wall, with therapists interpreting your work to provide treatment. It’s a misconception that art therapy is only for those talented in art; it benefits individuals with special needs, trauma, or difficulty communicating. Engaging with and creating art can bring happiness or serenity, enhancing mental presence. The main challenge in art therapy is building trust, as patients might find it hard to discuss their traumas directly. Using expressive mediums like drawing helps convey emotions nonverbally. As per Ali Murtaza:
“It’s important to own your downfall and enjoy it, because stability is death.”
People think that art therapy and art classes are similar, but that is not true. Art class is where you learn the techniques to do art, whereas, in art therapy, you focus on the strategies of art to hear your inner self. In art therapy, the therapist will never dictate to his patient what to do but rather give him the grid to experience on its own.
Moreover, there is a concept called color psychology that cannot be applied to everyone. Yellow is not a happy color for everyone; different colors evoke different emotions in different people. Just as black is associated with achievement in graduation ceremonies and white is considered a color of peace, these colors can hold different meanings for different individuals. Elizabeth Brown aptly puts it:
“Art is not always about pretty things. It’s about who we are, what happened to us, and how our lives are affected.”
