Creative arts are a medium to transform people's development and in doing so, effect changes in behaviour and way of being/relating to others.
As a creative mode, it can facilitate a 'Healthier Adult Self' and modify ways of relating through thoughts, feelings and actions/behaviours. Healthy peer connections shape development but people who experience mental health conditions are faced with challenges that make it difficult to establish healthy relationships.
Creative expression and exploration through art offers a fluid place to explore and grow as a person despite challenges. One can transcend barriers such as cognitive impairment to embrace and consolidate new healthier ways. It lifts the lower natures to a new creative endeavour which respectfully celebrates each other, embraces beauty and sanctifies the landscape of self and beyond.
Art destroys foundations of unhealthy self/relational dynamics to give an embrace away from negative regressions, rational-analytics and rigidity that progressively nurtures the soul and provides a canvas for exploration of the fluid movement and exchange of energy towards positive growth.
Through exploring such healthily in one's art, one takes away from pathological foundations to add a new dimensions of healthy exploration at things like greater healthy sensory/aesthetic, deeper emotional and spiritual levels of connection to self, others and beyond
Art celebrates that the Self is dynamic and creative, there's always room for positive holistic growth. It allows one to "get in touch with the real nature of the Self". Mind and Heart intersect through the creative and one is open to self-exploration, self-expression, communication, understanding and exploration, symbolic thinking, integration and sensory stimulation.
Psychological recovery in mental health is most strongly influenced by self-discovery and self-expression and art therapy fosters increased self-awareness, self-esteem, empowerment and spiritual development.
Creativity leads to spirituality which transcends the physical and emotional. It provides a sense of direction and purpose, orientation to goal and something more powerful to be recognised than the normal understanding of the world around us, eliminating the limits of introspection, communicating directly with the emotions and addressing the human as a whole
The Healing Spectrum of A Woman's Heart
With selfless gentle nurturance, accepting encouragement, empathetic attunement, receptivity and presence
Incubating a fire of Love
Burning away the negative
Inspiring others
Embracing and being beauty in her virtuous living
Strength of Will and speaking from her Heart
Kindling Kindness, Compassion
Transcending limitations and adversity into growth
Empowering in herself and others
The power of Love in Action
She catalyses movement from stagnant mud to Higher Love
Responding to life in a dance of Love.
It offers therapeutic self-expression and developmental growth that is non-threatening and addresses anxiety/depression, low self-esteem, negative things like aggression, cognitive/emotional and mental disturbances and relational difficulties
One can: Learn about self. find/recreate self healthily Become 'other' to create a means to engage in social worlds around them and reflect on themselves Embrace positive experiences such as flow state Reach and express emotion and develop new healthier and positive aspects of Self Put feelings and different aspects of self into the art medium allowing them to be worked through and mirrored back to the person, helping one develop self-image and a positive sense of identity Act out strong emotions in safe and non-threatening appropriate ways Become more self-aware and make better, more conscious choices Encourage socio-emotional and spiritual growth and learning: build empathy and acceptance of differences Encourage imagination and abstract thinking, mentalising etc Provide a means for sensory and emotional regulation
In severe cognitive impairment, staying on track for a simple paintings like these is actually extremely painful. It's a process of mustering all your cognitive resources to stay on track for a goal-directed task and actually extremely challenging and exhausting for the brain. But each time you push through the pain and dysphoria to get a task done, after you get some rest and recovery time, you feel a bit better.
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