Art using physical art helps with portraying emotions

In the modern day there are many things to be wary of, the rising cost of necessities, global warming causing cataclysmic storms, the pandemic that ravaged the world, several genocides, and a general feeling of loneliness expressed by most teens and young adults.  In an article published by The National Library of Medicine, it highlights the correlation between social media usage and it’s negative impact on medical students during the 2020 pandemic. Social media perpetuates the need for better mental health management due to the nature of the content being shown, from my experience I can see a cute video about a show I liked as a child and in the next few seconds I could also be shown the horrors of war torn Gaza and Palestine. The same was true during the pandemic, racial tensions rose with the Murder of George Floyd and Beranna Taylor as rallying for defunding the police due to the sheer frequency the police murdered Black people. That mixed with the rising deaths to an unprecedented virus that had no vaccine at the time, would make the perfect recipe for disaster, this doesn’t even take into account the closing of several institutions such as schools so many of these students wouldn’t be able to see their friends.  This makes the perfect recipe for more people to seek therapy. And a time where expressing emotions may be uncomfortable to different people using physical art rather than digital art to portray these emotions may be the most beneficial to the modern day person as digital media has already taken up a large part of modern life. Physical art is also more immersive which can be beneficial when trying to work through emotions or situations. 

Art therapy as defined by the National library of medicine, explains that art therapy is most commonly used to assist those with mental illness and cognitive decline for its ability to assist with “quality of life”. And through that it was found that artistic expression would be helpful to explore as a supplement to traditional therapy. This can be helpful as it allows for someone to put their complicated feelings into something someone else may be able to understand. Trying to explain systemic racism and how it affects those it seeks to demonize may be hard to understand if the person has never experienced it themselves, though it may be a bit easier through either an image or another art form. It’s a more tangible form of expression and takes the abstract concept of hurting someone emotionally and puts it into a realistic context. It puts that emotion or feeling into something someone might be able to more readily understand and come to terms with. 

Using textile art forms may be more beneficial to a person seeking art therapy than non digital media. This takes from the benefits and drawback of art making in general. Using traditional art is helpful in improving different techniques due to the permanent nature of the medium. If you make the incorrect cut while making a dress or the wrong brush stroke while painting then you either start over or improvise a different idea for the project. This can also be beneficial in therapy to show the person seeking therapy that while their choices have consequences there is still room to work around it or to start anew. While with digital media those mistakes can be completely erased, and so could give someone a warped perspective of their mistakes or choices and consequences. Though there are several more reasons that physical media is more beneficial than digital media

Digital media has risen rapidly in the 21st century and this may be due to it’s affordability. In a study done by Front Psychology, found under the National Library of Medicine, it was found that using digital media may be beneficial when the patient has special needs.  The results of the experiment, where special needs children in their sophomore year in highschool, states “In particular, digital art therapy induces a holistic sensory experience by mobilizing visual images that could represent various expressions, emotions felt in music and tactile senses that made texts for people with intellectual disabilities with difficulty in verbal communication.” Though digital art was used for this experiment due to the availability and propensity of people using phones and computers, this does not mean that traditional art also couldn’t be used for the experiment. Teaching these special needs highschoolers how to express themselves with traditional media including clay and painting wouldn’t be all that difficult. Though there would potentially be a significant price involved. That is a small price to pay for tactile sensations and a better chance to immerse themselves in their feelings and potentially the feelings of others. Always being on one’s devices may lead to a lapse in reality and with the addition of a learning disability like the children in the experiment this could cause an even bigger lapse in development when doing art therapy. 

There are several benefits to traditional art therapy, a great example of this comes from the act of finger painting as it has been proven to enhance feelings of mindfulness and attention, both of which would be highly beneficial for therapy(Kaczmarek). When a person is mindful of their process and decisions when creating it can push the piece to be a more genuine work of art, this translates to the work being a more accurate expression of a person’s experience. 

Digital media may be important for getting baseline ideas and information down, though a more holistic experience can be achieved through traditional art when dealing with art therapy. Traditional art media creates sensations that can encourage mindfulness and can immerse one deeper into the creative process and therapy experience. Also with the overabundance of digital experiences it can be a nice change of pace to be encouraged to take a step back and create with a licensed therapist. 

References

Kim, J., & Chung, Y. J. (2023). A case study of group art therapy using digital media for adolescents with intellectual disabilities. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, 1172079. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1172079

Raaina Mahevish, Khan, A., Mahmood, H., Qazi, S., Fakhoury, H., & Hani Tamim. (2023). The Impact of Social Media on the Physical and Mental Well-Being of Medical Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44197-023-00164-7

Shukla, A., Choudhari, S. G., Gaidhane, A. M., & Quazi Syed, Z. (2022). Role of Art Therapy in the Promotion of Mental Health: a Critical Review. Cureus, 14(8). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9472646/

Stanko-Kaczmarek, M., & Kaczmarek, L. D. (2016). Effects of Tactile Sensations during Finger Painting on Mindfulness, Emotions, and Scope of Attention. Creativity Research Journal, 28(3), 283–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2016.1189769