Art Therapy and its benefits for communities by A M Ridley
A defining aspect of our humanity is our creativity. We all have imaginative and expressive individual and shared responses to the world and our communities. We express thoughts and feelings in music and dance, with art making and poetry, in drama and storytelling and through a million other creative practices. Art and image making in different forms has been central to indigenous and global cultures for millennia. Finding expression through creative media can help us reimagine ourselves and our place in the world and help to alleviate distress and isolation and artmaking with others can bring a sense of belonging, self-fulfilment and self-awareness.
Art therapy draws on this creative potential and is currently used to support the well-being of communities across the world. In the UK, art therapy as a recognised therapeutic practice was developed and integrated into public health and social care systems after the Second World War. Early pioneers of art therapy discovered that creative expression in an empathic and supportive therapeutic environment, can support a wide variety of physical and mental health needs that can emerge in modern day living.
As well as art therapy for individuals, group art therapy has proved to be particularly beneficial for a wide variety of people from different, often marginalised and oppressed communities. As well as group art therapy helping to foster ‘a sense of community for those participating…it can improve confidence and resilience and give many people a sense of purpose…[artmaking with others can also] create an outlet to share inner experiences and complex emotions, that might sometimes be difficult to verbally express.’*
As an art therapist working and living in East London for many years, I have facilitated art therapy groups in different health and social care settings and communities, with people facing a variety of personal struggles and emotional challenges, and I have seen the benefits that group art therapy can bring. An open group model of therapy can provide both a personal and collective creative outlet and a shared and individual sense of purpose for those involved. This sense of purpose might be expressed and oriented politically or culturally, and/or facilitate personal growth and wellbeing. I have seen how artmaking in group therapy can give voice to previously unspoken and unimagined potential for fruitful and enhanced social engagement and empowerment.
Art therapy, therefore, sits in a similar tradition to the Poplar Union Art Centre – a tradition of creative and cultural engagement and enhanced community health and well-being. In East London we have the privilege of experiencing many different cultures and expressive art forms, as expressed at the Art Centre. At a time when resources to help facilitate such expressive art forms are under threat of underfunding and political attack, it seems to me even more important that we reaffirm the importance of realising our humanity and togetherness through creative practises and artmaking. And as with art therapy, give voice and creative expression to our personal and collective struggle to maintain our humanity.
