You can’t even put the past two years into words. You made it through the holidays. The disappointments, the stress, the grief. While you may or may not be looking forward to the New Year, you may be wondering if it’s time to address your anxiety. Perhaps you’ve been riding the waves up and down for a while. 

According to the data collected and reported by the Centers for Disease Control, U.S. adults are struggling with increased rates of anxiety and depression. Reportedly the recent rates are nearly 4 times higher than in 2019.  They noted that parents with children in the home were a group that experienced some of the greatest increases. I don’t think anyone was shocked by this report. If you are a parent with children at home, you’ve been living it. Maybe you’ve noticed you’re less patient with your children, more tired but still struggling to fall asleep at night. What you’re experiencing may be difficult to put into words.

Treating anxiety with Art Therapy involves expressing yourself…with fewer words.

Lots of people have found themselves grappling with anxiety for the first time during the uncertainty of recent years. We have all been dealing with a lot. You thought the anxiety would have gone away by now, but it just keeps returning.  Now you think it may be time to talk to someone.  That’s just it. You’re not sure you can put into words exactly why you feel the way you feel. Art Therapy focuses less on talking about your anxiety and emphasizes creative processes that increase awareness of patterns that keep you stuck.

Art Therapy sessions are facilitated by a licensed mental health provider.

When you start therapy with an Art Therapist, it looks similar to coming to sessions with a talk therapist where there may be a brief check-in at the beginning of sessions. In an Art Therapy session, the focus then shifts to spending time creating art. Sometimes with direction from the Art Therapist, and sometimes clients work in a more self-directed manner. Typically, the latter part of a session is spent providing clients an opportunity to share what was created.  Many people find the aspect of creating images and symbolic representations helpful to identify, better understand, and express all types of feelings not just anxiety. To learn more about “What is Art Therapy?” click here.

I can’t draw. How does Art Therapy work for someone like me?

Most adults are not in the regular practice of drawing. It may feel unfamiliar and awkward at first. However, Art Therapists are trained to work with adults who worry about their ability to draw and who feel out of their comfort zone.  It’s actually a gentle, guided approach. Additionally, you may not be drawing. You may choose to enjoy clay, create collages from cutout magazine photos, or focus on abstract designs make with pastels.

Over time, many people report enhanced inner relaxation during Art Therapy sessions. To learn more about what an art therapy session is like, you can click here to read an earlier blog: “What’s an Art Therapy session like?”

If you’ve struggled with anxiety for a while now, resolve to get help in the New Year while your children are at school.

If over this past year, you have been searching for effective ways to cope with your anxiety, and it continues to interfere with your life, working with a therapist can help. You may not know why you feel anxious. That’s okay. Art Therapy can uniquely help in treating your anxiety because you don’t have to have words to explain why you feel the way you feel.

If you’re interested in Art Therapy for anxiety treatment, please seek out an art therapist credentialed through the Art Therapy Credential Board (ATCB). As a national credentialing board, the ATCB ensures the educational and professional standards needed to be a qualified art therapist are met and maintained.  This is essential in any mental health field to provide an ethical standard of care and improve treatment outcomes. 

Free consultation for Art Therapy in San Diego North County

If you are looking for an Art Therapist in San Diego North County providing anxiety treatment for adults, click here to visit my contact page where you can book a free, phone consultation. If you would like to learn more about how I help with art therapy, click here.

To learn more about Art Therapy click on the links below to access other blogs I have written about the topic.

• How an Art Therapist can help you creatively cope with your anxiety.

• Is Art Therapy the same as Art Classes?

• Three common misconceptions people have about Art Therapy

• How an art therapist can help you make friends with your parenting-anxiety

Thank you for visiting my website. I hope you found this blog helpful. Take care and be well.

Tami