As anyone who has picked up a paintbrush can attest, art is a process.

Whether worthy of a wall in the Louvre or a spot on the fridge, art requires time, patience and concentration. To be good, you must practice. For all but a select few, its mastery is beyond reach.

Yet art is now gaining strength as a healing outlet for the masses. Art therapy can calm and center the minds of the mentally ill. When delivered by a trained art therapist, it brings comfort to the sick, rejuvenates the depressed and helps people express things they cannot say.

A study recently conducted at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago even found that art therapy can significantly reduce suffering experienced by cancer patients.

The four-month study followed 50 patients ages 19 to 82. After just one hour spent on art projects of their choice (such as drawing, painting or sculpting) and under the guidance of a registered art therapist, the patients reported reductions in depression, anxiety, drowsiness, shortness of breath and pain, among other symptoms.

Judith Paice, Ph.D., R.N., director of the hospital's Cancer Pain Program, helped lead the study.

"Cancer patients are increasingly turning to alternative and complementary therapies to reduce symptoms, improve quality of life and boost their ability to cope with stress," said Paice in a hospital statement.

"We wanted to see if the creative process involved in making art is healing and life-enhancing. Our study provides beginning evidence for the important role art therapy can play in reducing symptoms. Art therapy provides a distraction that allows patients to focus on something positive instead of their health for a time, and it also gives patients something they can control."

"Art therapy is a valuable contribution to the world of psychotherapy," said John Grohol, Psy.D., co-chair of the Mental Health Channel for Revolution Health Group's Medical Advisory Board.

"It's heartening to see empirical research continue to support the use of this artistic, expressive form of therapy to help individuals - not just children - with real reductions in their emotional turmoil," Grohol said.

Who are art therapists?

According to the American Art Therapy Association (AATA), which regulates the profession in the U.S., art therapy, while only recently catching on in mainstream health care, has been used since the early 20th century by psychiatrists looking for a "window into the mind" of the mentally ill. Psychiatrists would ask their patients to express themselves through art and then study their creations.

Art therapy has been a profession in and of itself, reports the AATA, since the 1940s, when it was first determined that art could "reflect developmental, emotional and cognitive abilities and growth." Today, art therapy is used throughout the country and world.

Professional art therapists trained in both art and psychological counseling work in private practices and public institutions. Some work on their own, while others are employed by hospitals, residential treatment centers or schools, as part of a multidisciplinary team consisting of physicians, psychologists, counselors, social workers and/or teachers.

Elenore Lubas, an AATA board-certified art therapist and licensed professional counselor, currently works with adolescents with mental health diagnoses who attend day-treatment programs at the Reading Hospital Center for Mental Health in Reading, Pa.

"What I find most rewarding about the work I do," Lubas said, "is introducing what many may have overlooked as a healthy alternative of expression and healing. I like offering art from another perspective. I enjoy seeing the progress made by the patients, especially how their journey is recorded in their artwork."

Lubas typically sees her patients together, as a group.

"I utilize various media and techniques to assist them in expressing difficult thoughts and feelings via art," she explained. "Often what they will not or cannot verbalize will find a voice in their artwork."

One patient's transformation

Lubas has seen many youth "open up" through art, but one in particular strikes her as memorable. From the outside, she recalled, the young man seemed a typically rebellious teenager, with a slouched posture and a permanent scowl on his face.

"He was quite soft-spoken and made little to no eye contact with adults," she said. "One glance past that exterior, though, and anyone who took the time could see an overwhelmingly depressed and angry young man. His guard was up, understandably. The world, particularly his family, was not kind to him."

The teen uttered one-word answers. On the few occasions he said more than a few syllables, his eyes would tear up. Sometimes, he would all but shut down and refuse to participate in group sessions for the remainder of the day.

After introducing him to art, Lubas had a new person on her hands. "During clay work, in particular, he became physically animated. He would wedge and pound the clay to prepare it for use. He didn't slouch in his chair any longer. He was invested in his creations, even when the directive for the artwork was geared toward emotionally charged topics," she said. "The patient also began speaking more, his eye contact increased and by the time he left treatment, we actually witnessed him smiling from time to time."

Later, the teenager told Lubas that he had become happier and more motivated, even when he wasn't in the program. The time in her class, it seemed, had changed his life.

"Art is born only out of action. Therefore, it immediately juxtaposes the sedentary stance of one suffering from depression," she said. "The tactile nature of art media - clay is a beautiful example of this - is nurturing and comforting. Without being aware of the process, someone who is isolated due to depression is suddenly engaged with something outside of himself - and it feels good."

Adolescents often struggle with the emotional vocabulary they need to effectively express what they're feeling, she said. Art therapy provides a safe place for them to record themselves and to take the time "to explore what comes out."

That one patient, said Lubas, not only experienced success, he also took away concrete evidence of that success with his artwork. And that, she said, is typical - whether it's a young girl or boy with a life of challenges ahead or an elderly cancer patient who is nearing the end of life.

"Art therapy heals," she enthused.

Related links

Drama therapy for Alzheimer's patients

Art therapy reduces pain for some

© 2006 MyDNA.com