Art therapy uses drawing, painting, collage, and other hands-on materials to work through what you are dealing with, guided by a therapist trained to do exactly that. Instead of relying only on conversation, art therapy uses creative activities to help you explore emotions, experiences, and patterns that may be difficult to put into words. For a lot of people, it can help explore experiences that are difficult to express through conversation alone.
Art therapy is a clinical form of treatment that uses the process of making art to support mental health, led by a therapist with specific training in it. It is not an art class, and it has nothing to do with talent or producing something good. What matters is the act of making and what it stirs up, not the result you end up with.
A session usually starts with your therapist offering a direction: a feeling to work with, a moment to represent, or simply an invitation to use whatever materials draw you in. From there you make something, and there is no wrong way to do it. Some people know at once what they want to put down; others start with a color or a mark and follow it. Either way, the making itself is the work.
Art therapy is used across a wide range of concerns, and it tends to help most where words are part of the difficulty. It is often brought in for:
Depression, offering a way to stay engaged on days when talking feels like more than you can manage
Anxiety Disorders, giving restless, anxious energy somewhere to go and something to hold onto
Eating Disorders and body image distress, including Body Dysmorphia, where making images can interrupt the harsh inner narrative that talking about it often reinforces
Grief and major life change, when what you feel is too big or too raw to put into a sentence
If you want a clearer read on whether art therapy fits what you are dealing with, our Online Assessment is a useful first step.
Underneath the materials, art therapy tends to do a few specific things:
Making an image moves something from inside your head onto the page in front of you, where it can be looked at directly instead of just circling around.
When something is too tangled or too old to put into sentences, making art lets you work on it without having to explain it first.
Many people find that repetitive, hands-on creative activities help them slow down and settle enough to stay engaged in therapy.
Putting a hard experience into an image can create just enough room to examine it without being pulled straight back inside it.
Looking at your work with your therapist turns it into something you can understand and use in the rest of your treatment.
Art therapy is one of several approaches we offer, and you can see how they fit together on our Therapy Options page. It rarely works alone; more often it strengthens the talk-based work happening alongside it.
Art therapy tends to suit people who have found that talking only takes them so far. If you have sat in talk therapy sensing there is more underneath but unable to find words for it, working with your hands can sometimes get at what conversation could not.
Art therapy shows up at most levels of our care, though it looks a little different at each:
In residential care, art therapy runs regularly and gives people a hands-on outlet during a stretch when feelings are often hard to talk about.
Within IOP, art therapy usually takes place in a studio group session that sits alongside your other treatment through the week.
Over secure video, art therapy adapts to simple materials you keep at home, so people across Missouri can still take part, even though the in-person studio offers more.
In aftercare, some people continue using art as a personal coping tool between sessions.
In the weeks right after a hospital stay, art therapy is a low-pressure way to start re-engaging when talking still feels like too much.
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Art therapy is usually recommended after a full assessment, so we understand your goals and whether it fits alongside your other care.
From there we sort out scheduling and coverage, and our What to Bring page notes the few practical details worth handling beforehand. Our Admissions Process page sets out the full sequence.
Art therapy is only as good as the person guiding it and the setting it happens in. Here is what you can expect from ours:
What we offer is clinical treatment that happens to use art, not a relaxing activity to fill an afternoon. Every session is steered toward something, whether insight, relief, or a shift you are working on, by a clinician who knows how to get it there. The difference is in the purpose behind the making.
Our campus has a real studio with a range of materials, so you are not limited to a notepad and a pen. Good materials and a dedicated space genuinely change what the work can do. You can see the room for yourself on our Virtual Tour page.
For people who freeze up in ordinary therapy, or who have run out of words for something, art therapy offers a different route to the same work. It reaches feelings that are hard to put into language, which is exactly where a lot of people get stuck. That makes it a real option when talking alone has not been enough.
There is a real skill to running this work well: knowing when to stay quiet, when to ask a question, and how to help you make sense of what appears. Our art therapists are trained specifically for that, so a session moves toward something rather than just producing a picture. The making matters, and so does everything that happens around it.
What comes up in an art session does not stay sealed off in the studio. Your art therapist shares the themes with the clinicians handling the rest of your treatment, so something that surfaces on the page becomes part of your broader plan. Nothing you uncover gets lost between sessions.
People come to our St. Louis studio from across the metro, Affton, Crestwood, Sunset Hills, and Brentwood among them. Through secure video, an adapted version reaches clients farther out in Missouri, in places like Poplar Bluff, Sikeston, and Moberly.
Our Meet the Team page introduces the clinicians who lead art therapy here, and our Treatment Outcomes page is where we report how our care performs.
You do not need to think of yourself as artistic, or even know what you would make, to begin. Art therapy meets you at the blank page and works from there, and the only thing it really asks is a willingness to try.
If cost is on your mind, our Insurance Verification page can tell you what to expect on cost before you begin.
When you feel ready, a call to (314) 237-4435 is enough to get your questions answered, or you can start instead on our Contact Us page.
Not even slightly. Art therapy has nothing to do with skill, talent, or making something that looks good, and the fear that you cannot draw is one of the most common things people say on the way in. Stick figures, scribbles, and messy color all work perfectly well. What counts is the process of making, and your therapist is watching that, not judging the result.
It often does, though the way it works can differ from standard talk therapy. Art therapy is usually delivered as part of a broader treatment program or a therapy session rather than billed on its own, which is generally how it ends up covered. Our Insurance Verification page can look at your specific plan and tell you what to expect.
It belongs to you. Some people keep every piece, some throw it all away, and some ask the therapist to hold onto certain works so they can look back at them later. Whatever you create stays confidential, exactly like anything else you bring to therapy, and no one displays or shares it without your say-so.
Up to a point. The reflective part, making something and then talking it through with your therapist, carries over to secure video well, and you can work with whatever simple materials you have at home. What is harder to replace remotely is the studio itself, with its range of materials and dedicated space, so for some people in-person sessions do noticeably more. It is a real option, especially through our Virtual IOP, but worth going into with clear expectations.
For some people it can, but more often it works best as one part of a wider plan that also includes Individual Therapy or other care. Because it reaches different things than conversation does, it tends to add the most sitting alongside those approaches rather than replacing them. During your assessment, we will give you an honest read on whether it makes sense on its own for you.