What is it that makes art therapy effective?
Using art, we communicate with a different part of you than we would with words.
The left and right hemisphere of the brain specialise in verbal and visual brain function.
Implicit memories (memory excluded from consciousness) are sensory , NOT verbal. They are stored in the right parietal lobe and lack a coherent narrative. When we learn to put words to non-verbal memories we integrate the brain and transfer the memory to the left hemisphere. But in doing so, we lose much of the detail in a memory.
For example: imagine picking up a banana, before this act becomes a verbal memory we sense the width of the banana, the colour, the smell, the room we are in, any sounds we may be hearing etc. But once this is stored in the left brain, this once sensory rich experience passes through laws and logic to become words. It is now just “a banana you pick up”.
By using art, we get to communicate of this sensory part of your brain. We are able to have stronger contact with what’s going on deeper down before all the thought has to pass through to become words
In having to produce verbally and visually, there is minimal censorship as one creates spontaneously and unselfconsciously. When we use art whilst verbally expressing ourselves we are also integrating our brain function. The same message from both hemispheres reinforces each other..