ART THERAPY MELBOURNE
Expressive therapy, over a cup of tea.
Art therapy is a form of expressive therapy that uses the creative process of making art to improve a person's physical, mental, and emotional well-being. The physical and metaphorical idea of a cup of tea, draws in the therapeutic knowledge of the East and The West. Bringing mindfulness, calming qualities and warmth acheived by community connection based therapeutic strategies to bring balance to the clinical and individualistic models of disability and mental health. The creative process involved in expressing one's self artistically, can help people to resolve challenges. This also helps develop and manage one's behaviours and feelings. Reducing stress, and improving self-esteem and awareness are some of the benefits.
Our therapists take a empathetic, humanistic and person centred approach which can derive from psychoanalytical or existential art making. Using polyvagal theory and evidence based approach to deal with trauma, the creative arts becomes a tool to process past and current experiences in order to connect more with the bodily senses. We provide support to clients of all ages with a wide range of presentations e.g. Anxiety, Depression, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Eating Disorders, Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD, ADHD, OCD, Autism (verbal and non-verbal), Intellectual Disability, Cerebral Palsy, Cancer to bring about a change through their mental health using the creative arts therapies.
Art Tearapy Evidence Based Modalities:
- Object Relations (Evans & Dubowski, 2001)
- Developmental Approaches (Emery, 2004)
- Developmental/Behavioural Approaches (Martin, 2009)
- Psychotherapy (Henley, 2001; Stack, 1998).
- Mindfulness Based Art Therapy
- Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
- Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
- Therapeutic Community Approach
- Attachment Based Family Therapy
- Trauma Informed Practice
- Polyvagal Theory
- Structural and Strategic Family Therapy
- Contextual Therapy
- Solution Focused Therapy
- Narrative Therapy
"You don't need to be talented nor an artist to receive the benefits of art therapy. There are professionals that can work with you to dive into the underlying messages communicated through your art, which will aid the healing process. Art therapy can achieve different things for different people. It can be used for counselling by therapists, healing, treatment, rehabilitation, psychotherapy, and in the broad sense of the term, it can be used to massage one's inner-self in a way that may provide the individual with a deeper understanding of oneself."
