All You Need To Know About Expressive Arts Therapy

When you hear the word ‘therapy’, the first thing that probably comes to your mind is a one-on-one conversational session with a psychologist or psychiatrist. But what if we tell you to picture a therapy session where you are dancing, painting or engaging in some other creative activity. Sounds like a fever dream, right? But trust us when we say this – these creative activities also count as therapy. It falls under a mental health approach called expressive arts therapy (EXA). If you want to know more about it, then read this article.

To get a better understanding of this concept, the editorial team of OnlyMyHealth reached out to Snigdha Sood, Counselling Psychologist, Expressive Arts Therapist, Consulting Psychologist at Everbloom Healthcare Pvt Ltd.

What Is Expressive Arts Therapy?

First, let us begin by understanding what expressive arts therapy is. “EXA is a holistic mental health approach that uses art, movement, music, drama, and writing to help people express experiences that may be hard to verbalise. Since emotions and trauma are often stored beyond language, EXA encourages ‘creating’ rather than only talking,” shares Sood.

She adds, “The therapy involves various materials and different activities to engage the senses, the body, and the mind. The method is very effective with children, trauma survivors, and neurodivergent individuals, as well as those who are going through an illness or are grieving. By engaging in creative activities, clients become more resilient, learn to manage their emotional state, and find innovative ways of ‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌recovery.”

Types Of Expressive Arts Therapy

The expert mentions that expressive arts therapy is not a single technique, but an umbrella of creative modalities, each engaging different psychological processes. Sood lists down its types for you. Let’s take a look at them:

• Visual art therapy uses drawing, painting, collage, and clay to explore feelings and symbols.
• Music therapy involves rhythm, listening, improvisation, and songwriting for emotional expression and regulation.
• Dance/movement therapy uses body movement to release stored emotions.
• Drama therapy works through role-play and storytelling to externalise inner conflicts.
• Expressive writing helps with reflection and meaning-making.

“Multimodal‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌ EXA moves through these different modes, like movement to art to writing, to help the integration be deeper. Therapists decide on the modalities depending on the needs and the comfort of the client,” shares the expert.

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What Can Expressive Arts Therapy Help With?

Expressive arts therapy has multiple benefits. “It helps with trauma, anxiety, depression, stress, behavioural issues, and chronic illness. Because traumatic experiences are often stored in the body, kinesthetic and sensory activities like movement, clay work, or body mapping allow safe release and grounding,” explains Sood.

The expert continues, “EXA‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌ is a great tool for children who have difficulty expressing their thoughts through words. Besides, it is a source of joy and comfort to older adults suffering from dementia, Parkinson’s, grief, or loneliness by stimulating memory, elevating mood, and facilitating movement. In this case, group-based activities become a means of communication and socialisation, thus alleviating the feeling of loneliness. By coupling creativity with emotional processing, EXA enables the development of psychological resilience and ‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌integration.”

Benefits Of Expressive Arts Therapy

On this note, Sood jots down some of the benefits of expressive‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌ arts therapy. Let’s take a look at them:

• It can provide a wide range of diagnostic and screening details through the observation of the client's use of materials – the way they get frustrated, and how they arrange their visual space.
• It is a medium for the release of stored tension and the experience of repressed emotions by involving the body through senses and movement.
• It is a process that connects to the body memory via bottom-up processing.
• The use of mandalas, body mapping, and narrative collage helps in going deeper into the symbols and their ‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌integration.
• EXA also strengthens resource building, improving self-regulation, emotional vocabulary, and problem-solving.
• Because it does not rely only on language, it supports children, trauma survivors, neurodivergent individuals, and those with illness or communication barriers, helping build internal stability and resilience.

Techniques Used By Expressive Arts Therapists

Sood shares that expressive arts therapists use techniques drawn from the Expressive Therapies Continuum.

“At the Kinesthetic and Sensory levels, they work with scribble drawings, large-body movements, finger painting, clay, and sand textures to support grounding and emotional release. At the Perceptual and Affective levels, they introduce painting to music, colour-based expression, mood artwork, and body mapping to help identify and express emotions. At the Cognitive and Symbolic levels, therapists use collage, timelines, mandalas, dream imagery, and personal stories to build insight. Integrative processes weave movement, art-making, and reflective writing to promote emotional clarity and psychological integration,” concludes Sood.

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The Final Word

Expressive arts therapy is a holistic mental health approach which uses art, movement, music, drama, and writing. It helps people express experiences that may be hard to verbalise. Since emotions and trauma are often stored beyond language, EXA encourages ‘creating’ rather than only talking.