Expressive Art Therapy is the use of creative arts as a form of therapy and is a field that has proven to work wonders in many people’s lives. Have you ever noticed how much music, dance or doing any activity like drawing, story writing and story telling relaxes you after a long day. That is because it is very therapeutic. Colouring, even for adults has tremendous benefits. A person is not required to have any kind of artistic ability/talent in any art form to benefit from it. The therapist will work with you to dive into the underlying messages communicated through your art which will aid in the healing process. It is through this process that the individual really begins to see the effects of art therapy and the discoveries that can be made.
Art Therapy helps the individual explore his inner self in a way that may provide him with a deeper understanding of himself/herself. Facilitated by the Art Therapist, the individual explores his feelings, reconciles emotional conflicts, foster self awareness, manage behavior and addiction, develop social skills and improve reality orientation. It can also be used for pediatric trauma patients, disaster relief, depression and an approach to problem solving. Anyone can use Art Therapy – children, adult males and females of any age group.
Padmaja does a psychological analysis of her students art works and gives the feedback to the parents. She also guides and helps them during the time of distress or any kind of mental disturbances. She conducts Art Therapy sessions for relaxation aiming at children and adults. The participants have given a very positive feedback on these sessions and started recommending the same to others too. Though she is not a certified Art Therapist she utilizes her Arts and Psychology knowledge to help the people around her. She conducts group or individual sessions based on the need. Padmaja also helps the children with learning disabilities, autism, ADHD, slow learners through the medium of art. She believes that colouring/simple doodling/drawing has a lot of positive impact on the mind, helps in rejuvenation, problem solving and better thinking abilities. Hence her motto is to spread the awareness of Art Therapy to the society so that more and more people reap the benefits.
She utilizes these sessions as fund raising activities, thus serving the society in a dual way. The funds are donated to various social organizations, hospitals, NGOs, orphanages to improve on the well being of the children. She personally does not charge anything from her clients who undergo the Art therapy sessions.
Padmaja has successfully structured an Art Therapy syllabus for the children with learning disabilities of Bhavani Child Development Centre – NGO based in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
To spread the awareness about the benefits of art therapy, she delivers lectures/speeches. One of such speeches has been at the invitation of Sri Potti Sreeramulu Memorial Society, Mylapore, Chennai on 16th of October ’16. It was a one and half hour speech and interactive session that was delivered, explaining the positive effects of colouring and drawing on the minds of the individuals. The lecture was received very well by the audience and articles were published in various Telugu local newspapers like Eenadu, Saakshi and Andhra Jyoti.
Below are the telugu newspaper articles about Art Therapy which got published during the month of October 2016:
If you are interested to take up Art Therapy sessions, you may mail your details to shekpad4@gmail.com