Art therapists cannot hope to help develop community cure if we only provide services to a select few who have had to go through crisis and medicalisation for the art therapist to pick up the pieces.
Early intervention and prevention of declining mental health is not being provided by current systems. We need a new model of delivery and access that can at least help us to grow as communities.
This show is not just an advert for art therapy it is more about asking how we create the best possible conditions for the future wealth and health of all. Art therapy can breed hope for individuals and a way to understand themselves better. It is not a utopian ideal we ned a real discussion about what could be possible within the limitations we perceive or accept. We can all grow from where we are.
Art therapists are being trained in greater numbers and increasingly supporting people in high degrees of distress where words are not enough. The main benefit from art therapy gives space and time for people to access and play with those deeper parts of themselves in their unconscious. With the compassionate guiding presence of a therapist the desired change can emerge. This affects the external world in collaboration with other forms of support and care co-ordination. Art therapist do not provide the panacea – we need everyone in society and local communities could offer more care. This may mean a crossing over of local communities to challenge inequality.
Building on the work of James Maskell and ‘The Community Cure’ (2019) art therapy could play a part in changing models of healthcare and needs to be accessible to all sections of society and experience.
That means mixing people who have not experienced adverse childhood experiences with those that have. If we separate people in society, we focus too much on differences. We need to grow care for the stranger. We may pay our taxes or donate to charity and leave the job for others. Increasingly art therapists will need to be activists to take the weight off the NHS and social care organisations and find new ways to grow community cure.
Therapists do not attempt to fix people – they help them grow from where they are. We are all in a different place internally as well as externally and we all have room to grow.
Art therapy is uniquely placed to support people to self soothe, find calm and express themselves, understand what has happened to them and access unconscious strength. One way of making it affordable is a self-funding model where those that are can afford to subsidise others access the therapy themselves ideally as part of a group art therapy alongside 1:1. We need to then lower the base rate by reducing the overheads such as rent-free space. That is where art therapy in people’s homes becomes useful. This links to the idea of residential art spaces. Then everybody gets access to therapy without turning it into this niche that is only wheeled out when all other medical interventions have failed.
Art therapy is beneficial for all human beings. We are all unwell at times and we are all vulnerable and pull up defences that just harm us in the long run. For those that feel lucky and privileged in life don’t have to feel guilt at accessing resources just because they haven’t experienced serious chronic trauma. The aim of art therapy ultimately is to change how people relate to their inner world with so much confidence that they can challenge and influence all other external relationships. If people who access art therapy can continue this practice of GROWTH and share, educate and support strangers to do the same the world will be a more compassionate place to live in for all…
