In collaboration with the primary therapists, our nationally board-certified art therapist leads weekly art therapy groups and periodic individual and family art therapy sessions. This modality, which integrates visual and verbal processes, allows the students to explore their patterns in a concrete and changeable way. Upper-level students do a comprehensive "art review" where they can visually track their progress over time.
Art therapy consists of creating many different kinds of art and then processing their pieces and sharing with their peers about what the artwork conveys about them as a person and about their treatment process. For example, students have an opportunity to create a mask of their faces that portrays how others see them on the outside and what is real for them on the inside. The artistic medium allows them to share and understand things about themselves that they might otherwise find difficult to express.