Helping people communicate what they are unable to think and feel on a normal level is the ultimate goal of art therapy, and art therapy for treatment of schizophrenia has developed its initial stages within Pennsylvania's Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic with the utmost of success. According to Robyn Cruz, director of creative and expressive arts therapies, about 2,500 schizophrenia patients participate in their art therapy program for outpatients with schizophrenia for the past 15 years.
The reason that art therapy for treatment of schizophrenia is successful is because art therapy is a safe and effective tool to use with people who cannot share their thoughts and feelings adequately through the tried-and-true traditional methods of "talk therapy" conversation. And the medications that are normally documented to reduce and control the mental illness of schizophrenia are often discontinued because the side effects are sometimes worse than the disease itself.
If that is the case, art therapy for treatment of schizophrenia offers a non-objective therapy to adults who are faced with such a situation on some level. It has been documented that children over five years of age can develop schizophrenia, but very seldom does it develop before adolescence. It is difficult to accurately distinguish between different types of mental disorder from another, especially when the symptoms of the schizophrenia exhibit elated or depressed mood swings. In this case, it can be schizophrenia, manic-depressive disorders, or even major depressive disorders with similarity in all of them.
If the person cannot be categorized because of this, they are occasionally diagnosed as having a schizoaffective disorder. But on October 19, 2005 scientific research was done on art therapy for treatment of schizophrenia by R Ruddy and D Milnes, titled in "Art Therapy for schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like illnesses," published in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2005, Issue 4.
According to the study, traditional medication is the treatment of choice for patients with schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like illnesses, but five to 15% of the patients still experience the same symptoms. The study explores the benefits of art therapy in addition to medication, but still required more research at the end regarding art therapy for treatment of schizophrenia, in order to make the study more meaningful and to determine the value of the art therapy. In 2005, art therapy was not as accepted as it is within the past year or so, with the emergency of interest in natural healing and alternative methods.
One treatment center for many all types of mental disorders, located at Skyland Trail at Atlanta, Georgia, focuses on expressive arts or art therapy for those diagnosed with schizophrenia. Through art therapy, those with schizophrenia can develop ways to achieve self-expression while simultaneously being able to utilize social skills, new hobbies and personal interests through their creativity.
Art therapy for children is when a Master-level art therapist uses the child's unique and personal drawings in order to better understand the problems the child faces within their hidden subconscious. Used for children, adolescents, and adults--art therapy is used more often with the smaller child as they have much more difficulty in putting their emotions and feelings into words, with artwork used as a form of safe symbolic realism that cannot hurt them.
Also used as a tool for art therapy assessments, the child's artwork assists the art therapist to better understand what the child cannot, paying special attention to the piece of art and what it represents--the theme, sequence, size, different pressure used to draw it, different types of strokes, and the tiniest details of what the child has put into the picture. Art therapy for children shows the child's emotions and feelings they cannot talk about, such as anger, resentment, hidden sexual abuse issues, violence in their homes, chaos in their lives, and many other issues the children are not aware of themselves as they have hidden it to avoid the pain and trauma.
Art therapy for children involve three participants with no influence from anyone else--the therapist, the child, and the artwork with the hidden message the child is secretly revealing subconsciously. To use children's art for the psychotherapeutic purpose of seeing what is uppermost in their minds is actually more genuine and spontaneous in contacting the subconscious, than the traditional talk therapy.
Not all children respond positively to art therapy for children, as some become even more frightened when they see their picture with the fears they have hid so long. Then it is up to the art therapist to keep the child's issues on an impersonal level, keeping the discussion of the child's fears and problems within the picture's metaphor. According to many successful cases, eventually the child will work on some new ideas and concepts that is put in front of them by the art therapist using the art therapy for children program. Over time, they will become comfortable with facing their fears, their new feelings and emotions, and be able to move forward.
Art Therapy for Children faces unique issues when it comes to children with fatal diseases, such as cancer. And it is demonstrated that how the child responds to their illness depends a lot on how their own family talks to them about it, helping them face the fact they have such a disease and what it is about. Unfortunately, the parents of terminally ill children feel that if they do not discuss the disease with the child, the child will not recognize what is going on. In truth, when the child is held in darkness, they will feel more isolated and afraid than if they knew the actual truth.
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