In my experience, art is tremendously under-utilized as a source of healing. Trauma needs to be worked through emotionally and non-verbally; talk therapy — particularly cognitive therapy — is extremely inadequate for deeper wounds. Here is one of the better websites about Art and Healing:
“Healing Art is being born as we speak. The concept is catching fire, is awakening in people’s spirits…Artists, musicians and dancers are realizing their imagery has meaning….that their imagery heals them, others, their neighborhood, or the earth.”
Michael Samuels, from his book Creative Healing
“Art opens the closets, airs out the cellars and attics. It brings healing.”
Julia Cameron from her book The Artist’s Way
“At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity.“
Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, author of Kitchen Table Wisdom
“I think artists can go to a level of vision that can often save us from a situation which seems to have no solution whatsoever.”
Susan Griffin, from the New Dimensions program “The Power of Story in Social Change”
“Creativity healed me. I don’t know that I could think of any word that I get more inspired by than the word healing.”<br/>
SARK from “Succulent Creativity Can Heal Your Life”
“Making art is like giving a gift: evidence of your spirit and that you are here.”
Patty Mitchell, founder and director of Passionworks Studio in Ohio
“Art is our one true global language. It knows no nation, it favors no race, and it acknowledges no class. It speaks to our need to reveal, heal, and transform. It transcends our ordinary lives and lets us imagine what is possible.”
Richard Kamler, artist and creator of the Seeing Peace Project
“It is your ability as a creative person to envision positive change that will make a difference.“
Patricia Johanson, environmental artist
“Art is not a part of life, it is not an addition to life, it is the essence of those pieces of us that make us fulfilled. That give us hope. That give us dreams and provide the world a view very different than what it would have been without us.”
Hasan Davis, artist, attorney, and activist
“Art is a wound turned into light.“
Georges Braque, artist
“The portal of healing and creativity always takes us into the realm of the spirit.“
Angeles Arrien, author of The Nine Muses: A Mythological Path to Creativity
