Many people find that being creative makes them feel better. Painting, drawing, making music, dancing, writing or working with clay can provide a sense of enjoyment, absorption and achievement. Creative activities can help us express ourselves, explore ideas and see things differently.
But creative activity and Creative Arts Therapy are not quite the same thing.
Creative Arts Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses creative processes as part of therapeutic work. The creativity isn’t there simply to produce something beautiful or learn a particular skill. It provides another way of exploring experience, emotions, relationships and aspects of ourselves that may be difficult to access through conversation alone.
What are Creative Arts Therapies?
Creative Arts Therapies include several different professions. In the UK, these include:
- Art Therapy
- Dramatherapy
- Music Therapy
- Dance Movement Psychotherapy
Each has its own professional training, traditions and ways of working, but they share an understanding that creative and embodied experience can be part of psychological therapy.
As a Dance Movement Psychotherapist, I work primarily with movement and the body, but creative approaches can take many forms within therapy.
Sometimes we might use drawing, images, objects, writing or other creative materials alongside movement and conversation. The particular approach depends on the person, what they bring to therapy and what feels useful at the time.
Is creativity itself therapeutic?
It can be.
There is something inherently satisfying about making, imagining and creating. Creative activities can provide opportunities for expression, concentration, playfulness and connection. They can also help us step outside familiar ways of thinking.
But this doesn’t automatically make a creative activity therapy.
You might find painting deeply therapeutic, for example, but that doesn’t mean you are receiving Art Therapy simply because you are painting.
The difference is important.
Creativity and therapy are different things
A creative activity might help you:
- relax
- express yourself
- learn something new
- experience a sense of achievement
- connect with other people
- enjoy being absorbed in the moment
These can all contribute to wellbeing.
Creative Arts Therapy goes further by bringing the creative process into a therapeutic relationship with a trained professional.
The focus isn’t primarily on the finished painting, movement or piece of music. It is on what happens for you through the process.
It’s about the process, not the product
Imagine being invited to make a drawing in therapy.
You don’t need to be able to draw.
There isn’t a correct picture to produce, and your therapist isn’t judging whether it is good. The drawing might become a way of exploring something that is difficult to put into words.
Perhaps you notice that you keep choosing a particular colour. Perhaps the process brings up a memory. Perhaps something unexpected emerges. Perhaps you simply notice how it feels to make marks on paper without worrying about the outcome.
The therapist can help you become curious about what you’re experiencing.
The same principle applies to movement, music or drama.
The creative process is the means, not the end.
You don’t need to be artistic
One of the most common misconceptions about Creative Arts Therapy is that you need to be creative or have some artistic ability.
You don’t.
You don’t need to be able to draw, dance, sing, act or play an instrument.
There is no audition and no expectation that you will produce something impressive.
In therapy, creativity isn’t about talent.
It is about exploration.
Sometimes a very simple gesture, mark, sound or image can communicate something that a page of words cannot.
Why can creative approaches be helpful?
We don’t always experience ourselves through language.
Some experiences are difficult to describe. Others may be felt physically or emotionally before we understand them consciously.
Creative processes can offer another route into those experiences.
They can allow us to:
- explore feelings that are difficult to name
- look at familiar situations from a different perspective
- express something indirectly
- experiment with different possibilities
- notice patterns in ourselves and our relationships
- connect thoughts, feelings and bodily experience
- develop greater self-awareness
- find forms of expression that feel more natural than talking
This doesn’t mean that creativity has a hidden meaning that the therapist needs to decode.
Your experience belongs to you.
I won’t look at something you’ve created and tell you what it means. Instead, we can explore what it means to you.
The therapeutic relationship matters
Creative Arts Therapy is still psychotherapy.
The relationship between therapist and client is fundamental.
The therapist provides a safe and confidential space in which you can explore your experience, while bringing professional knowledge of both therapeutic processes and the particular creative discipline.
This matters because creative work can sometimes bring unexpected feelings to the surface.
A trained therapist understands that the creative process isn’t always comfortable or predictable. They can help you slow down, make sense of what is happening and decide what feels appropriate to explore.
The aim isn’t to push you towards a particular emotional response.
It is to create enough safety and curiosity for you to discover what is meaningful for you.
Dance Movement Psychotherapy
Dance Movement Psychotherapy is one of the Creative Arts Therapies, although the name can sometimes make it sound more complicated — or more dance-focused — than it is.
DMP uses movement and embodied experience within psychotherapy.
Movement might be expressive and expansive, but it can also be very small. It might involve posture, gesture, rhythm, breathing, stillness or simply noticing a physical sensation.
You don’t need to dance.
The creative aspect of DMP isn’t about choreography or performance. It is about using movement and embodied awareness as another way of experiencing and exploring yourself.
You can read more about this in What Is Dance Movement Psychotherapy?.
Creative Arts Therapy and everyday creativity
I think there is an important distinction between encouraging people to be creative and offering Creative Arts Therapy.
We don’t need a therapist every time we pick up a paintbrush or dance around the kitchen.
Everyday creativity can be a wonderful part of wellbeing.
It can give us opportunities to play, experiment, express ourselves and experience something beyond the demands of everyday life.
And sometimes those experiences may help us understand ourselves.
But therapy involves something more: a purposeful therapeutic process within a professional relationship.
That distinction protects the value of both.
Creativity doesn’t need to be labelled therapy in order to be valuable.
Creativity as another way of knowing ourselves
For me, one of the most interesting aspects of creative and embodied psychotherapy is that it can move us beyond the question:
“What do I think about this?”
towards other questions:
“What do I notice?”
“What does this feel like?”
“What happens when I approach it differently?”
“What else might be possible?”
Sometimes the answers emerge through words.
Sometimes they emerge through movement, an image, a sound, a colour or simply a change in how we experience ourselves.
We don’t have to choose between talking and creativity. They can inform one another.
You don’t have to be creative to benefit from creativity
Creative Arts Therapy isn’t about producing art.
It’s about creating space for another way of experiencing, expressing and understanding yourself.
For some people, that might involve movement. For others, art, music or drama may offer a more natural way in.
And sometimes creativity simply becomes another doorway into a conversation.
There is no right way to create, just as there is no single right way to experience therapy.
If you’re curious about whether an embodied or creative approach might suit you, you can read more about my approach to psychotherapy or get in touch to talk about what you’re looking for.