Therapy that works for you: Art Therapy

The American artist Georgia O’Keefe summed up the power of art therapy when she said  “I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way—things I had no words for.”

At Retreat South we offer specialised, tailor-made programmes for individual treatment. We offer a range therapies which are delivered by expert practitioners.

At Retreat South we design a treatment program that works for you. To do this we assemble a variety of treatment approaches. These include psychotherapy and counselling, art therapy, hypnotherapy, the equine therapy and yoga and meditation. These therapies can be combined to form your daily treatment.

Over the next few weeks we will post about these various treatments beginning with Art Therapy.

Art has played an important part in psychotherapy over the last half century. Recent studies have shown that it is beneficial in helping clients to focus on the present and clarify emotions.

By using art to make emotions visible, people find it easier to further investigate their feelings and thoughts during treatment. Many thoughts and emotions can be assembled in a single image too, something which is difficult to achieve by only using words.

People using art in therapy even say that it helps them find ways to eventually put their feelings into words. Art therapy is not about about striving to make ‘good art’. Some people do not even make ‘pictures’ and focus instead on colours and shapes to give expression to their thoughts. It the process of expressing yourself using art materials and then reflecting on the product made with them that is important.

Art therapy is just one of the therapies we have at Retreat South that can be combined with other therapies to help you achieve real change and help you on your path to recovery and wellness.