Creativity doesn’t belong to a single therapeutic discipline. It belongs to everyone. The literature highlights the universality of creativity:
Westwood & Low assert that it “is not a function of exceptional cognitive capabilities but is inherent in the normal generative capacities of everyone’s cognitive processes.”
Winnicott states, “It is true that a creation can be a picture or a house or a garden or a costume or a hairstyle or a symphony or a sculpture [or] a meal cooked at home…The creativity that concerns me here is a universal, it belongs to being alive.”
Sachs adds that aesthetics- the search for creativity, for beauty- is universal for every human being, “If we look around…we see people everywhere snatching bits of beauty, feeling that their life would become intolerable without it, like the prisoner’s life without the one beam of sunlight in his cell.”
Winnicott adds that creativity can be exemplified in everything that we do, “[Creativity] is present as much in the moment-by-moment living of a…child who is enjoying breathing as it is in the inspiration of an architect who suddenly knows what it is that he wishes to construct.”
Although creativity is universally important, most of us work in systems that are deeply rooted in the medical model. The medical model prioritizes outcomes, efficiency, and replicability. These practices often clash with creative processes.
Expressive arts therapies provide a welcome respite from rigid treatment protocols and therapies that rely heavily on language. The intensive training and education that expressive arts therapists undergo allow them to offer nuanced supports to clients. But it is important for everyone—creative arts therapists included— to remember that no discipline owns an art form. Creativity belongs to everyone.
Does this mean that the education and training of expressive arts therapists is obsolete? No. Music therapists, art therapists, dance and movement therapists, and other expressive arts therapy providers offer invaluable services to individuals, families, groups, and communities. Their specialized training allows them to use the arts to diagnose, assess, and treat clients.
But other providers can incorporate creativity into their work too. Social workers, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists can harness the power of creativity in the support they provide to clients as long as they remain within their scopes of practice.
If you are interested in integrating arts-based strategies into your work but are unsure about where to start, I encourage you to consider the following recommendations:
- Work collaboratively with your client/community to identify an appropriate art form.
- Experiment with the art form before introducing it to your client. This will help you anticipate the potential challenges and opportunities inherent in the medium. Is the art form you are choosing messy or controlled? Calming or anxiety-provoking?
- Provide a supportive holding environment for your client in which they can make discoveries and mistakes.
- Emphasize process over product.
- Don’t be so eager to interpret your client’s art that you rob them of the opportunity to make their own discoveries.
- Remember that art is not always pretty. The work that your client creates does not have to be pretty to be therapeutic.
- Adopt an attitude of curiosity and interest. Don’t ask, “What’s that!?!” Instead use “tell me about…” or “I wonder” statements.
- Sometimes traumatized clients don’t have the words to express their experiences. In these moments, their art speaks for them. It’s okay if your clients don’t have the words to fully articulate the meaning of their creations.
- Sometimes our clients’ art will cause us to feel surprised, alarmed, or uncomfortable. Stay grounded. Adopt an attitude of curiosity, support, and empathy.
Resources
- Corrado, M., Wolf, D., & Bills, L. (2022). Trauma Triptych: Inviting cross disciplinary collaboration in art therapy, social work, and psychiatry. International Journal of Art Therapy.
Bibliography
- Sachs, H. (1951). The creative unconscious: Studies in the psychoanalysis of art. Cambridge: SCI-Art Publishers.
- Westwood, R. & Low, D. (2003). The multicultural muse: Culture, creativity, and innovation. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 3, 235-259.
- Winnicott, DW. (1971). Playing and reality. London: Routledge.
