Art is the Language of Soul
©Nadja Gruberg 1999
In art therapy the client works with different paints, crayons, pencils, clay, tissue paper and other
material in order to make two or three dimensional images.
Images created during an art therapy session evolve through the creative process, and may also be inspired by dreams, fairytales or myths.
No previous art experience is necessary in order to benefit from art therapy. In fact, being new to the media
but with an urge or longing to explore its possibilities and ones personal expression, will often allow more
freedom to create.
In art therapy both the process and every part of the image is important. The image, complex and multidimensional,
contains the clients past, present and future.
A mixture of conscious and unconscious processes is at work during the art therapy process.
All images and objects
are saved and can be viewed again and also together in series.
Viewed together they may show recurring themes the client is exploring.
Art therapy is done in both individual and in groupsettings.
"The making of a painting is an expression of that aspect of the psyche that changes, transforms,
and constantly creates new life. The psyche is itself restructured in response to the influences of its own creations.
The paintings I make can change my life. Rather than revealing something about who I was when they were created,
the images will sometimes make a statement influencing what I will become. As the images change, I change. I can never
be sure which is having the primary influence on the other. Creation is a collaborative process and an intimate
relationship between artists and their materials in which the participants continiously transform one another.
The skilled painter knows how to "feel into" the emerging image in order to help it form itself in ways that
realize its potential. Even the beginning painters are constantly involved in an effort to shape the picture as
well as possible for its sake and not necessarily for their own."
"Art as Medicine. Creating a Therapy of the Imagination", Shaun McNiff, 1992.
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UniKrea - Studio for Expressive Arts, Fjällgatan 23B, S-11628 Stockholm, Sweden.
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Design and text by Nadja Gruberg. Birdimage ©Nadja Gruberg.
