PECULIARITIES OF APPLYING ART THERAPY IN WORK WITH CHILDREN
Authors:   Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Danilyuk Ivan , Burkalo Natalia ,   Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Published: February 2023

The article is devoted to the coverage of the peculiarities of the application of art therapy in working with children, in particular, the disclosure of the characteristics of child development and consideration of the main art-therapeutic directions in working with children. The study of foreign and domestic literature on the study showed that art therapy is widely used in working with children, namely in psychodiagnostic, psychocorrectional and psychotherapeutic work, as it is the mildest method of working with various psychological problems and promotes creative development of cognitive and creative abilities of the child. establishing harmonious relations with the environment. Childhood is an important period of a child's development, during this period the child's cognitive mental processes and creative activity begin to develop rapidly, this is manifested in artistic creativity and constructive games. Summarizing the practical experience of psychologists working with children, it can be noted that among the variety of areas of art therapy in working with children are widely used: isotherapy, fairy tale therapy, puppet therapy and sand therapy. It was found that isotherapy - therapy with fine arts, namely drawing, is used in the process of psychological correction in working with children to harmonize the emotional state of the child, the development of interpersonal skills, the disclosure of creative abilities of the child. Drawing is an effective tool, because thanks to it the child can freely express their thoughts, feelings and experiences through the language of images, symbols and colors, as well as get rid of negative experiences and express their attitude to the surrounding reality. An effective way of psychological work with children is fairy tale therapy, namely fairy tale therapy, which uses a metaphor to create connections between fairy tale events and behavior in real life, as well as the process of transferring fairy tale meanings into reality. It should be noted that fairy tale therapy is used for therapeutic purposes, helps the child to actualize and realize his problems and see ways to solve them, promotes the development of imagination and creative thinking of the child. A fairy tale for a child is a special reality that allows you to expand the boundaries of ordinary life, to meet with complex phenomena and feelings in a form understandable to the child. Fairy tales teach children moral principles, norms of behavior, show the true values ​​of life. Puppet therapy is a therapeutic direction that uses as a main method of corrective action a doll, which is an intermediate object in the interaction of a child and an adult. In turn, puppet therapy as a method is based on the processes of identifying a child with a favorite cartoon character, fairy tale and favorite toy. The child, knowing the real world, its social connections and relationships, actively projects the perceived experience into a specific game situation. The main object of such a social projection for a long time are dolls. In puppet therapy different variants of dolls are used: puppet dolls, finger dolls, shadow dolls, rope dolls, plane dolls, glove dolls. Puppet therapy promotes the development of cognitive processes and improves children's social adaptation and communication skills. At the same time, sand therapy is a type of therapy associated with the use of natural materials, namely sand for psychotherapeutic purposes. Sand therapy is widely used in correctional, developmental and educational work with children. Sand games are one of the forms of a child's natural activity, interacting with which the child's creative abilities, imagination, spontaneity and originality of the child's worldview develop. In the course of sand therapy, a free and protected space is created, where the child can explore his own inner world, turning his own experiences and experiences into images that he understands. In addition, sand therapy helps to harmonize the inner state of the child and improve his social skills. Therefore, the use of art therapy is an effective way to work with children, which contributes to the comprehensive development and self-expression of the child.