Creative Images

From drawings on the walls of caves many thousands of years ago human beings have used images to respond to the world and also to contain fears, wishes and anxieties about real or imagined threats to self or the wider community. Faced with fear and confusion, many people find it hard to think, or find words to express their distress. Creative expression offers another way of communicating, a more individual language. Within the therapeutic relationship, this voice can be heard and understood.

Powerful messages are conveyed through the images, expressing feelings of loss, fear, abandonment, neglect, loneliness and hurt. Somehow feelings of suffering become transformed into expressions of honesty, and, almost by chance, of beauty. This process of transformation signals the beginning of recovery.

Image Permission

For art therapy to begin in any meaningful way, a relationship of trust must be established between client and therapist. An important factor in the formation of trust is confidentiality, about what is told, but also about images from the unspoken communication of art expression. These are rarely seen outside the sessions, but safely stored by the therapist for the duration of therapy. In this way the therapist takes care of the work and holds a tangible record of the journey travelled together.

Creative Therapies have been give permission by the artists to share some of the wonderful images produced in the safe spaces contained by arts therapy sessions. These time-limited engagements often becomes  transformed into magical worlds of stories, images, sound, colour, drama, creatures and spirits, drawn from the imagination.