Art Therapy Research Paper

How Art Therapy Helps Those with Anxiety, Stress, PTSD, and Depression In accordance with art therapy’s role in helping those with Alzheimer’s and Autism, it can also be very useful in the treatment of anxiety, stress, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression. Traci Pedersen (2015) explains how art therapy can help veterans and soldiers with their PTSD who have returned from war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq. Cheryl Miller helped conduct this research on the soldiers. The therapy was offered twice a week in a group setting. Study participants were between the ages of twenty-eight and fifty-six years old. The problems some of them were facing was insomnia, nightmares, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, chronic pain, isolation, …show more content…
However, soldiers are not the only ones that struggle with this mental stigma. Around one in ten Americans are affected by depression at one point in their lifetime, with the diagnosis of depression increasing approximately twenty percent per year. Correspondingly, eighty percent of those who experience symptoms do not receive treatment either. (Healthline, 2012). Nevertheless, with the rates of depression increasing, these limiting negative symptoms can be treated by the use of art therapy. Douglas Mitchell (2012) writes of art therapy as a means to aid and heal those who have depression. Mitchell is a licensed marriage and family therapist. In addition to depression, art therapy can also effectively help those who struggle with anxiety and stress. Mitchell describes art therapy as a way to help others release negative emotions through creativity, and when words may not be enough or someone may not be able to fully express their feelings into words, that is when art therapy plays a key role in improving other’s overall development.
Another claim of Mitchell’s is that art therapy is not only at the center of creative expression, but that it allows the participant to feel again and to turn those feelings into something “tangible”. By doing this, it allows that participant to better acknowledge an emotion by turning their artwork into a physical, cognitive thought that is being expressed onto the canvas. (Mitchell, 2012). Not only does art therapy help with letting go of negative thoughts and depression, but it can actually trigger feelings of love in the brain too. Mitchell explains this by

Show More