Christine Kerr, assistant professor of clinical art therapy at Post, finds that creating artwork keeps clients from being overwhelmed by their feelings. They know they feel depressed. They draw the overwhelming feelings in a safe environment, and they can step back and more easily talk about their feelings and see their feelings clearly in the drawings. If clients aren't used to art materials, she will take images from magazines and sayings from newspapers and have them make collages, because the process of making the art is more important than how professional it looks. Another aspect of creating art that Joan Bloomgarden finds compelling is that clients have a permanent visual representation of what they're expressing that can be used weeks later.
Patients enjoy looking back, because it helps their understanding of what they're going through.
It helps them integrate all that's been said and done. Bloomgarden, assistant professor in the creative art therapy program at Hofstra University, believes it is especially important for people to understand the role of the art therapist. People mistake art therapists for people who can look at a piece of art and analyze the pictures to tell the client what's going on, when in fact the art therapist is concerned with enabling the patients to discover their own symbols and express themselves using art materials. We are trying to help them read and understand their own communication of their internal world. Several colleges on Long Island offer introductory courses.