Running head: Art as Therapy

Improving ones life using visual arts as an expressive therapy

Sara Nader AlKhonaizi
Senior Project
Dhahran Ahliyya Schools
March 2015

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Abstract

This paper discusses one very critical discipline regarding humans mental and psychological health
which is art therapy. Art therapy is a recently discovered science that grabbed a global attention.
Due to the many benefits of art that researches including neuroscientists discovered and examined,
it is not strange that it has been used therapeutically in clinics, seriously treating patients. For
example, there are a lot of art therapy clinics all around the world that are dedicated to autistics.
Some of art benefits observed included enhancing relaxation, developing a persons creative
abilities, relieving stress, improving ones self esteem, increasing attention span and concentration
and managing anger. It was also observed to have a direct affect on school grades and high GPAs.

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Art as Therapy

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), the most remarkable artist of the 20th century once said, Art washes
away from the soul the dust of everyday life (Famous Pablo, 2009). Although art was used by
human beings as a medium of communication since the beginning of human history, it was only few
decades ago that researchers discovered the significant effects of it, the ones that Picasso alerted to
in the quote above.
Throughout the 20th century, the worlds view of art works has changed, for they are no longer
looked at as ordinary objects but as products of different life experiences. Art became more than
just a subject, it was observed to have more connections to our human body and soul than what we
initially thought.
Along with the discovery of art benefits came art therapy which is the therapeutic use of art
making within a professional relationship, by people who experience illness, trauma or challenges
in living and people who seek personal development (Art Therapy, retrieved 2014). Art therapy is
considered a new very important profession in the field of psychological health. For that reason, it is
now being taught as an independent major in the universities of the developed countries.
In most countries, an art therapist would have to be licensed or registered in order to find a job and
start working. For example, In Canada, one has to take a bachelor degree in arts before he/she can
join any of the art therapy programs offered in colleges. They also recommend a person to take
further art and psychology courses. While in America, taking a masters degree in art therapy is
required to take the certifying examination. Then, students in art therapy must complete 1000 hours
of supervised fieldwork with patients before they can apply for art therapy certification. Either
ways, an art therapist would be considered to be working legally.
An art therapist would at first ask his/her patients few questions about their problems and illnesses.
Then, the art therapist would be able to design and formulate a suitable programme that fits the

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patients needs such as the number of therapies and the length of each session. On an average scale,
a productive session would last from 30 to 60 minutes.
Most importantly, An art therapist would encourage a person to express his/her emotions towards a
certain subject by providing them guidance but without teaching them how to draw, paint or sculpt.
Art therapists would also be able to work with people from different ages and backgrounds in
diverse settings that include hospitals, special education centres, prisons, palliative care centres,
nursing homes, some schools and even community service agencies (AGCAS editors, 2014) (Start
your, retrieved 2015) (What Training, retrieved 2015).
To resume, the healing powers of art gave it numerous therapeutic applications. For that reason,
introduction of art therapy in Saudi Arabia will help in improving peoples mental and emotional
health along with improving the countrys economy.
A study has been conducted by the department of education in West Virginia (WVDE) to prove that
art education is associated with good academic performance, high IQ level and increased
productivity. The study found out that students with more arts education including visual arts have
been able to do better in certain subjects such as mathematics and language. Considering this, these
same students were able to do better in different standardised tests including the ACT PLAN, which
is an educational assessment exam that tests the students abilities in English, Math, Reading and
Science (ACT Plan, retrieved 2014) and the WESTEST which is also a custom-designed
assessment that tests the academic strengths and weaknesses of West Virginia students only
(Martirano.M.J & Manchin.G.C, retrieved 2014).
"Students who earn 2 or more arts credits during high school were about 1.3 to 1.6 times more
likely to score at proficient levels for mathematics and reading/language arts," the study states. Thus
a person who has a wide curriculum that is rich in art gets affected in a positive way leading
him/her to achieve a direct higher achievement (Hixson.N & Whisman.A, 2012).

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Even though this research focuses on high school students, officials strongly believe that the same
results would apply to all the students at any age. This means that as a persons participation in arts
increases, his/her achievement increases.
The same thing happens when a person attends art therapy sessions, as the mental abilities of that
person will surely increase making his/her chances of getting higher graders bigger. A live evidence
of the effectiveness of art therapy in improving academic performance is what happened to a twelve
year old American female after her parents got a divorce. Her academic performance started
decreasing since then, until she was enrolled in an art therapy treatment. Her course of treatment
focused on problem solving and self-esteem as a means of improving school performance. Results
shows evident rise of self-esteem and educational practices (Rosal.M, retrieved 2014).
The science of art is not new. As a matter of fact, books about art therapy were first published
during the 1940s (Anderson.F.E & Landgarten.H, 1972). Yet, some people are still not familiar
with it, including some artists who only began giving it enough attention in the late 90s. In 2009, a
group of professionals spoke in an event called Learning, Arts and the brain about how confident
they are towards the relationship between art and attention building. They spoke about the
spectacular changes that art does to the human brain according to previous researches that were
done by the Dana Organisation. The means of their study was to prove that practising art affects
mental domains. The event took place at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore and it
was hosted by John Hopkins University School of Education and sponsored by the Dana
Foundation (Mehta.A, 2009).
Accordingly, not only art therapy enhances mental abilities as mentioned before, but it also helps
people who were born with mental diseases such as autistics. Autism is a lifelong developmental
disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people. It also affects
how people make sense of the world around them (What is.., 2014).

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Since autistics are deprived from mind organising, concentration, sensory integration and much
more, intervention of art therapy can truly can help them by strengthening their attention and
preciseness directly allowing them to cope with and overcome some of these spectrum of disorders
( Backos.A & Betts.D & Bermudez.D & Collie.K & Deaver.S & Gerber.N.., 2014).
Art therapists can analyse the drawings of autistics that often shows their constancy, improvement
and development, and the forming of their inside world. They can also evaluate their relationship
with different objects that might be of a great importance to them (Dales.L, 2010).
Most of the autistics treatments include symbol formation and communication, socialisation and
sensory regulation. In this case, paintings become a symbol that speaks for autistics and reveal some
of the things that go on their minds.
Art therapy is something that everyone can find enjoyable regardless of their age and their academic
qualification. Not having to know how to draw or paint in order to practice art therapy makes it
applicable to a very large number of people including those who wish to recover from a trauma. It is
not surprising that researchers believe art can treat numerous psychological illness such as trauma.
For people often practiced art as a way to escape their sorrowful reality (Bazi, 2014).
Trauma is a dispiriting event that most likely happens unexpectedly, repeatedly or in childhood.
Traumatic people often feel powerless in preventing the traumatic event leading them to deal with
deep pain, fear, confusion and stress. Ofttimes, mental and emotional health professionals must
intervene to support traumatic people and help to get them healed and recovered (Robinson, Smith,
M.A, and Segal, 2014) .
Dr Annie Sparrow, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health and Deputy Director
of the human rights programme had done many voluntary work in many countries such as Haiti,
Afghanistan and Sudan. Besides that, she worked as a director of UNICEFs malaria program in
Somalia. Before Sparrow traveled to the border of Chad and Sudan in 2005 with the purpose of
examining the consequences of sexual violence, the services and protection provided for refugees in
Darfur, Sudan. Sparrow got the idea of taking crayons and papers to the children of Darfur because

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she didnt have an idea whether she would have been able to speak or engage with them or not.
When she first went there, she gave them papers and crayons and she left them with no instructions
as she went and spoke with their parents (Smallest witnesses, 2007).
The results of the drawing were shocking. She and the other human rights watch researcher, Olivier
Bercault, observed that most of the drawings contained signs of violence, war and rape. Some of the
signs were bombs, fire, blood and warplanes. My hut burning after being hit by a bomb and Its a
woman. She is dead. is what Leila, a nine year old kid answered when Sparrow and Bercault asked
her about what is going on in the picture that she drew.
Whereas the thirteen year old Mahmoud drew men taking women and girls and forcing them to be
wife (Sparrow.A, retrieved 2014) (Darfur drawn, retrieved 2015).
The answers of both Leila and Mahmoud showcases their feelings towards what they encountered
and what other kids in Darfur are still going through because of this never-ending conflict. More
importantly, This act displayed how art can indicate trauma in kids who live in destabilised
environments which is considered to be the first step of treatment.
Cathy Malchiodi, a research psychologist, a writer, an educator in the field of art therapy and the
founder of Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Therapy Institute, claims that traumatic
events are usually difficult to express in words because words use high cognitive areas. For that
reasons, victims of trauma might be uncommunicative and aloof at some times and contentious and
aggressive at other times. Therefore, she uses the method of calming her patients down and getting
them more creative using the lower cognitive areas before she tries to engage them in storytelling
activities that use higher cognitive areas.
This is because if the lower brains instincts become over activated, an individuals capacity to
perform higher cognitive functions might be repressed until they start healing from trauma. Teens
who are stressed may have difficulty answering questions about their drug use, or about making

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goals and plans for the future, Malchiodi says. However, she and different scientists discovered
these effects to be reversed with therapies that rebuild the brain from the beginning.
While Nancy Gerber, the Director of the PhD Program in Creative Arts Therapies at Drexel
University, believes that expressive arts in general support trauma recovery, especially for victims
who were traumatized and/or who are looking for a treatment at a young age. This is because they
use the parts of the brain that grow prior in life. A lot of kids in adolescence struggle with
language, she says. They know how to talk but they dont always know how to talk with emotional
intelligence. The idea [of arts therapy] is that images are a form of cognition, a way of knowing.
They develop very early in our lives: little kids point at things before they have a word for them.
These images provide a history for the early life, and when we grow up we dont have a word for
that.
In Gerbers previous work at a psychiatric hospital, mostly dealing with adults, she incorporated
drawing in each patients intake process. Then, she shared the drawings with the rest of the staff
when they would meet to decide on a treatment program. This method was found to be notably
effective for those young people who couldnt comfortably express their encounters in words (Calm
Through, retrieved 2015).
In the twenty first century, the understating of the many sided relationship between the numerous
types of health disorders and the personal encountering of emotions, stress, attitudes and beliefs is
constantly developing.
Modern societies are becoming more aware of the different types of tools and methods that can be
intervened into the various types of therapeutic applications.
Art therapy is one of these methods that empowers individuals and allow them to bring the best out
of them (why it, retrieved 2015). As art therapy allows people to relief stress and anxiety, it lets
them cope with work pressure whether it was associated with the nature and the environment of the

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work or the personal characteristics of a person represented in his/her mental, emotional and
physical qualities.
Art therapy helped me cope with workplace stress. I used to paint in my lunch breaks when
working in corporate environment. Rather than holding onto comments customers or colleagues had
made, I used to release it through my artwork. Says Piers Cross, the founder of Stress relief
choices, an online resource for stress management and well-being (Cross.P, retrieved 2015).
Bringing art therapy in Saudi Arabia will not only help people deal with workplace pressure but it
will also offer the youth of Saudi Arabia a new innovative major to consider. According to Teens in
Saudi Arabia by Nicki Yackley-Franken, the lack of available jobs has resulted in a huge number of
teenagers who are dissatisfied with their limited options and doubtful future (Yackley-Franken.N,
2007). Therefore, importing art therapy as a major in Saudi universities will be contributing in
providing wider career options for the Saudi youth especially for those who are driven by art, giving
them a chance to develop and grow their interest and turn it into a career profession.
Not to mention its direct impact in increasing the value of the services produced and provided in
this country.
In conclusion, art is one of the essential ways people communicate and express themselves through.
It is the language that all people speak and the tool that makes people cross racial, cultural and
social barriers (Dickinson.D, 1993). It gives people space to express themselves in a safe
environment. Since all artistic activities like drawing or sculpting can soothe the brain, release
tension, comfort anxiety, increase attention span, improve sleeping patterns and much more, art can
offer human beings many benefits that vary from academic and emotional growth to the
development of the countrys economy (key benefits, 2014). Art therapy is just one very effective
expressive therapy that promotes an enhances psychological wellbeing, facilitating expression and
supporting the process of overcoming trauma and grief for individuals (Washington.B, 2014).
Instead of focusing on conventional ways of therapy, Saudi Arabia should focus on bringing the

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latest most-developed and creative ones. While the traditional therapies such as the different types
of talk therapies are accessible in all parts of the world, it still does not suit all types of people
especially those who dont find it comfortable talking to a stranger and who need a really long time
to open up to their therapists. Thus, expressive therapies such as art therapy is a better solution for
almost every individual.

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