Don’t do life's challenges alone
(480) 389-6971 info@drsherlin.com

Expressive Arts

The focus of expressive arts therapy is on the therapeutic effect of the creative experience. You don’t always have to talk about your challenges to resolve them. Expressive arts highlights your capacity to transform thoughts, emotions, and experiences into tangible results.

Expressive Arts Therapy

Expressive arts therapy combines psychology and the creative process to promote emotional growth and healing. This multi-arts, or intermodal, approach to psychotherapy or counseling uses our inborn desire to create—be it music, theater, poetry, dance, or other artistic form—as a therapeutic tool to help initiate change. Expressive arts therapy is used with children and adults, as individuals or in groups, to nurture deep personal growth and transformation. For instance, expressive arts therapy for children with behavioral issues might include music, movement, or finger painting. I observe the child’s processes, behavior, and impulses, and then encourages the child to talk about the experience. Journaling, storytelling, reading literature and poetry, and making life maps, videos, and memory books are all forms of expressive art therapy that can help older clients review and make meaning of their lives, and to tell their life story, as well as help them engage with family and other significant people in their lives.

In expressive arts therapy, you use multiple senses to explore your inner and outer world through the experience and creation of different art forms. Your therapist or counselor helps you communicate your feelings about the process and accomplishment of art making, and together, you use the creative process to highlight and analyze your problems and issues. Since the therapeutic work is based on the creative process, not on the final result, it is not necessary to have a background or training in the arts to benefit from expressive arts therapy. Throughout the process, you learn new and different ways to use the mostly nonverbal language of creativity to communicate inner feelings that were not previously available to you by simply thinking or talking about them.

Reasons for Expressive Arts

Stress & Anxiety

Personal Development

Developmental Disabilities

Learning Disabilities

Attention Disorders

Social Challenges

mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Addictive Disorders

Depression

Cognitive Decline

Obsessive Compulsive

Post Traumatic Stress

Getting Started is Easy

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Free 15 Min Chat

You can learn more about your specific situation by scheduling a free initial call or by sending a message.

Book Appointment

Booking appointments is easy and convenient with a wide range of days and times available.

1st Session!

Together we establish goals and a plan to tackle whatever life has thrown at you getting on the path to a more fulfilling tomorrow.

Contact Me

Ask a question or book an appointment below. For emergencies call 911 or visit your nearest hospital

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(480) 389-6971

6730 E. McDowell Rd, Suite 139 Scottsdale, AZ 85257

14050 N. 83rd Ave, Suite 290
Peoria, AZ 85381

info@drsherlin.com