With new-age technology arising, one of the new methods of working with Art Therapy clients is through virtual means. Of course, virtual work has its limits. You aren’t in person which helps to promote the therapeutic relationship. As a telehealth Art Therapist, it is a must to make your surroundings a pleasant and peaceful environment. The benefit of working as a telehealth Art Therapist is that it’s more convenient as neither you nor your client must travel to see each other.
As a virtual Art Therapist, most of the sessions are psychotherapy and talk therapy. Each Art Therapist uses their therapeutic styles, including person-centered, gestalt, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I use multiple therapeutic techniques depending on each case. Talk therapy, in combination with Art Therapy, can accomplish more. Therapeutic change can even be stronger when combining talk therapy with Art Therapy.
Although art supplies might be limited during virtual Art Therapy, I utilize techniques that work with almost all clients. Even pencil and paper can become excellent tools while working remotely. Luckily, most clients have this handy. As an Art Therapist, I create and design art projects that are helpful for my clients’ healing and don’t use that many art materials. In other words, I am adaptive. Some very interesting and useful art projects to promote distraction and fun are
- dream catchers simply made from paper and scissors,
- paper collages made from regular 8” x 11” sized paper, scissors, and
- inside/outside masks.
I also facilitate chair yoga/meditation which relaxes my clients and gets them open to self-exploration..
Virtual Art Therapy is quite effective in both an individual and group manner for most diagnoses. There’s a lot of benefits (despite some of the shortcomings.) Virtual Art Therapy has become one of the most effective forms of treatment. For more information and schedule an appointment, please book an appointment here.