Art Therapy

At Harborview on one of our education days, we spent some time doing some mindful painting while listening to this gorgeous hand pan music. (I have listened to it while grading papers and writing my final exam for CPE, and it's magic.)  

The prompt was to use acrylic paints without a brush and to create a design only using gravity. The experience was so powerful and we decided to do it last week with Lucy and Liv after dinner. 

Our class at Harborview also did a collaborative art piece the last week of May, and it was such a great metaphor to our learning together since January: 

I read a book a few weeks ago called Your Brain on Art and found it so compelling. 

I've been so grateful for some of the ways I've been playing around with art with some of the patients I've visited at Harborview. 

Insights from Your Brain on Art

While people have been debating the definition of art for centuries, for our purposes we’re going to cast a wide net. In fact, we’re going to take a cue from the Irish poet John O’Donohue who said, “Art is the essence of awareness.”  Summary: Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen

“But my tuning forks, they're a C and a G, which is known to be potentially the sound that's at the center of the Earth's core. And you strike them on a hockey puck and hold each one to each ear and circulate it, and immediately you feel your entire blood pressure, your nervous system just absolutely relax.” -Ivy Ross

“And at the center of those is this sort of peak experience. And so I think that the arts and aesthetics probably are one of the most personalized medicines that we can have because it really does reflect us individually. And I love that. And I'll just give one other example that I think illustrates this.

There's so many great anecdotal reports around autobiographical music and dementia or Alzheimer's where people just light up and they wake up. It's as much of an awakening for that time. But it's different music based on where you come from, what you know, what you've experienced.” -interview with Susan Magsamen

-Using mandalas – just 20 minutes of coloring mandalas resulted in significantly lower anxiety levels, more than free-form drawing on a blank piece of paper (page 43)

-Three drawing technique- The first drawing is of yourself. The second is “you with your biggest problem. The third is you with your problem solved. Now you may find that the last one impossible to imagine before you draw. But, don’t worry, this is not a logical list of possibilities. You’re not asking your rational, cognitive brain to be in charge. Quite the opposite. You’re marshaling other parts of your brain to be of service. It’s a reminder that the arts are passively active… This technique has engendered hope, awareness, and discussion among people from refugee camps and war-torn Gaza Strip to clients struggling through divorce or grief…. Programs that incorporate drawings as an early intervention reduced PTSD by more than 80 percent (page 74)  

- Creating something with your hands, whether it’s a pencil-and-paper drawing or a small clay sculpture, is its own reward. A study at Drexel University found that people can lower their levels of the stress hormone cortisol by spending just 45 minutes making art. They also pointed out that it didn’t matter how artistically skilled or adept they were. Making art is calming at a physiological level. 

-But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There have been thousands of studies in the past few decades relating to art therapy. The results show that making art in a judgment-free environment can also improve your immune functions, your cardiovascular reactivity, and your psychological state.

-In fact, you don’t even need to make art to experience some benefit from it. A 2020 study at University College London found that those who attend cultural events at least once a year were found to have lower mental distress and improved quality of life – no matter their socioeconomic level.