A major challenge facing people recovering from addiction is finding an outlet to process their emotions that is not tied to an addictive substance. For many, using alcohol and drugs helps them to ignore emotions rather than process and understand them for future growth.
As our clients move towards long-term recovery, one tool that often helps them better understand and deal with their emotions is art therapy, which allows them to share their feelings through visual art and creative expression.
Here are a few ways that art therapy helps our clients heal and recover from addiction.
Art therapy allows you to express yourself in a safe environment.
Art is renowned for being a nonjudgmental medium that allows anyone to share their visual representation of the world. Art therapy taps into this by allowing our clients to truly express themselves, their feelings, their anxieties, and their struggles with addiction in a safe space where there is no “right answer” or pre-set solution. In fact, the more they allow themselves to be creative and explore their feelings, the more visually striking and rewarding the art becomes.
Art therapy helps you explore emotions through creativity.
In our society, it’s often difficult for people to feel free to express themselves emotionally in a group setting. At Recovering Champions, we help push past these barriers to allow our clients to freely explore their emotions through creative expression. If they want to explore emotional challenges they are facing or recent victories in their healing, they can do so equally well through art therapy. Whether their artwork is abstract or figurative, the resulting work represents an opportunity for deeper connection to their emotions beyond the surface level.
Art therapy taps into parts of the brain you don’t access everyday.
Creativity is often said to tap into the unconscious parts of the brain to produce major insights into everyday life. We encourage our clients to think about their art therapy as a way to reach these parts of their brain that they may not use everyday or that may have been dulled or impacted by addiction. By using art as a tool to unlock the full potential of their mind, clients can not only express themselves but reach insights they might not ordinarily access on a regular basis.
If you’d like to learn more about how we incorporate art therapy into our addiction treatment, please contact our recovery team at 1-855-243-2529.
