Art-therapy is a tool that facilitates the communication, expression of feelings and resolution of inner conflicts through arts: painting, theatre, sculpture, music, photography, etc. It can be applied in individual sessions or with groups, but always under the supervision of an art-therapist.
The relation between art and mental illness has been studied several times; it is worthy to mention for instance the art brut described for first time by Jean Dubuffet. Art-therapy workshops have been implemented in different countries over time. Art started to be implemented within the psychiatry during the 80’s: in 1983, Thomas Schwarm and Andrea Bernzen started working as the first art-therapists in the Alexianer clinic in Münster, Germany, and the role of the art-therapist was then considered in the job market.
In INTRAS we have already applied art as a therapy several times: we implemented the projects ARTERY (Lifelong Learning Programme, 2010-2011), SUVOT (LLP, 2010-2014) and HORGANIC (LLP, 2012-2015) that used the theatre and socio-drama as a tool to recover or improve social skills. The OUTART (Youth in action, 2013-2014) and the ETRA project (LLP, 2011—2013), used photography and art as a communication and rehabilitation tool. Feedback from all these experiences has been very positive, so we firmly believe that arts can be really helpful in the process of recovery from a mental illness, mainly to promote and facilitate the relationship with other people.
OUTART international photo exhibition in Germany (2014)
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