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Sandi Wright
MAT, LPAT
License NM 1663

 

Healing process and progress through the creative arts.

  • Personal Growth

  • Depression and Anxiety

  • Grief and Loss

  • Trauma

  • Couple Communication and Intimacy

  • Recovery Issues

  • Codependency

  • Anger Management

  • TBI, Parkinson's, Cerebral Palsy

  • Veteran's Healing

  • PTSD

  • Children, youth, and family

 

 

Contact

  • LOCATION:

  • 2504 Calle de los Niños

  • Santa Fe, NM 87505

  • PHONE:

  • (505) 473-3003

  • sandi@sandi-wright.com

  • *evening appointments available

  • *sliding scale


  • Art Therapy by Sandi Wright, MAT, LPAT



    What is Art Therapy  Art Therapy for Returning Vets   Monitor Article   Journal Articals

    Contact Information



    What is Art Therapy



    Description

    Art therapy is an expressive therapy that uses art materials and art medias, such as paints, markers, clay, sculpture, photography, collage, sand tray, dreams, poetry, drama, dance and other forms of visual art expression combined with traditional psychotherapeutic theories and techniques to improve and maintain mental and emotional health and well being.  It may be used in groups, marriage counseling, individual adult or child therapy.



    Training

    An art therapist is a professionally trained and licensed with a master’s degree specializing in art therapy studies, practicum, and training.  Each candidate for art therapist  has thousands of hours of internship, personal therapy, and schooling in order to qualify for a license and begin individual professional practice.  Art therapists are trained to recognize the nonverbal symbols and metaphors that are communicated within the creative process, what underlying thoughts and feelings are being communicated in the artwork and what it means to them. In this process, with guidance from a trained art therapist, insight and clarity is accessed as clients develop a better understanding of themselves and the way they relate to others around them.



    Purpose of Art Therapy

    The purpose of art therapy is the same end product that traditional therapies strive for in the healing of emotional feelings often as a result of loss, trauma, grief, sorrow as it interferes with an individual’s quality of life in the present.  The advantage of art therapy is that significant material is accessed through the use of symbols, metaphors, and visual images which reveal another part of our experience from the subconscious or hidden side of our psyche.  This valuable content is not sensed in traditional talk therapy and is only reached by the process of creating, drawing, painting how the experience feels or was felt.  The image then takes the main seat in the processing as the client relaxes and lets the image do the talking.  The image is worth the priceless thousand words not always expressed in talking.



    How it Works

    The magical quality of art therapy happens when the body and mind relax to the point that inner wisdom is accessed. The process of creating art is in itself therapeutic as the mind returns to the joy of childhood art creating and calms to allow inner tapping to occur. That body/mind taming results in unconscious material being released.  Past trauma or meaningful memories through this processing can be recalled and reframed with permanent results.  By helping their clients to discover hidden thoughts, feelings, actions, are being communicated in the artwork and what it means to them, it is hoped that clients will not only gain insight, understanding, and judgment, but develop a better understanding of themselves and the way they relate to the people around them.

    The series of pictures created by a client are assessed by use of style, color, perspective, placement, energy in applying the media, pattern, shapes, spaces between the images, etc.  Psychological disturbances and conditions can be  detected in drawings/visual creations by trained therapists.  Drawings often reflect the way an artist feels about him or her self.  What would ordinarily take many hours of talk therapy is revealed in minutes from processing a sketch.  Body posturing in the art production is also noted and used in the therapeutic assessment.



    What is Art Therapy  Art Therapy for Returning Vets   Monitor Article   Journal Articals

    Contact Information



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