Is art therapy an evidence-based treatment?

Is art therapy an evidence-based treatment?

Is art therapy evidence based? There’s a growing body of evidence that art therapy works for many mental health conditions, though there aren’t many large-scale randomized control trials. Board-certified art therapists are trained to identify and use evidence-based practice. Art Therapy Is Not for Everyone While high levels of creativity or artistic ability aren’t necessary for art therapy to be successful,10 many adults who believe they are not creative or artistic might be resistant or skeptical of the process. More serious concerns included art therapy causing anxiety,72 increasing pain,72 and resulting in the activation of emotions that were not resolved. In one study,73 a participant was also concerned that art therapy may be harmful if the art therapist was not skilled. There is increasing evidence in rehabilitation medicine and the field of neuroscience that art enhances brain function by impacting brain wave patterns, emotions, and the nervous system. Art can also raise serotonin levels. These benefits don’t just come from making art, they also occur by experiencing art.

How do you know if a therapy is evidence-based?

For therapists to truly engage in evidence-based practice, they must anchor your treatment in the best scientific evidence available and use the techniques and psychological approaches that have scientific support. Rationale, aims and objectives: Four pillars of evidence underpin evidence-based behavioural practice: research evidence, practice evidence, patient evidence and contextual evidence. It is important to emphasize that advances in CBT have been made on the basis of both research and clinical practice. Indeed, CBT is an approach for which there is ample scientific evidence that the methods that have been developed actually produce change. Evidence-based practice (EBP) is the objective, balanced, and responsible use of current research and the best available data to guide policy and practice decisions, such that outcomes for consumers are improved. Since cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the strongest evidence-based therapies out there, it is important to include a book that discusses CBT specifically.

Is art therapy better than normal therapy?

Traditional talk-therapy is also a challenge for individuals who have experienced trauma and have a difficult time verbalizing their experience. As an alternative, art therapy offers the space to explore and process the feelings, memories, and effects of trauma in their creations. Art Therapy as a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy As we have seen art expression helps clients express and understand their emotions and understand their memories and aspects of their psyche that lay just below the unconscious. Art Therapy may be used on its own, or it might also be used as a component of or complement to another mental health treatment. The forms of art used in Art Therapy are usually visual arts including painting, drawing, collage, and sculpture. The important point is this: you don’t lose anything in psychotherapy (at least nothing healthy). Instead, you gain: understanding, self-context, and ultimately outward and inward resilience. The concerns and interests you have as an artist may change in shape and depth, but they never abate.

Which therapy has the most extensive research base?

Today CBT is the most extensively researched of all psychotherapies with several evidence-based treatment protocols. Three aspects of cognition are emphasized: Automatic thoughts. Cognitive distortions. In this paper, we argue that CBT is the gold-standard psychological treatment—as the best standard we have in the field currently available—for the following reasons [see also Hofmann et al. (2)]: (1) CBT is the most researched form of psychotherapy. ART is most similar to eye movement desensitization reprocessing therapy (EMDR). It also draws from other types of therapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychodynamic approaches. According to its creator , ART is more directive, easier to learn, and often administered in a shorter time than EMDR.

Do artists tend to be depressed?

Studies of artists and writers collated in Scientific American confirm that artists and writers are up to 20 times more likely to suffer from bipolar disorder (also called manic depressive illness) and 10 times more likely to suffer from depression. The often highly sensitive nature of artists allows them to find beauty and joy in places that others may not. But the trade-off is that they’re often more vulnerable to darkness and sorrow that goes undetected by the less creative or sensitive person. This can leave them feeling shy, isolated, and prone to depression. Art Therapy Is Not for Everyone While high levels of creativity or artistic ability aren’t necessary for art therapy to be successful,10 many adults who believe they are not creative or artistic might be resistant or skeptical of the process. There is increasing evidence in rehabilitation medicine and the field of neuroscience that art enhances brain function by impacting brain wave patterns, emotions, and the nervous system. Art can also raise serotonin levels. These benefits don’t just come from making art, they also occur by experiencing art.