You Don't Have to Be an Artist to Heal: What Art Therapy Actually Is (And Isn't)

By Kristin Riding, LPC, ATR | Painted Willow Healing | Telehealth Therapy across Pennsylvania

If you've ever Googled "art therapy" and walked away more confused than when you started, you're not alone. Most people picture a kindergarten classroom or a paint-by-numbers kit or perhaps those cute coloring books that are uber popular. In fact, the Today Show had an art therapy segment several years ago - but it was about coloring books. Most mainstream media (and even perhaps healthcare professionals) miss the point. Art therapy isn’t just coloring books and paint-by-number kits- this would be an art-making activity or art as therapy. Art therapy is much more than that. What’s missing in the picture is a master's-level mental health professional helping a trauma survivor finally access a memory that words could never touch.

So let's clear things up because art therapy is one of the most misunderstood and underestimated healing modalities available today.

What Art Therapy Is Not

Art therapy is not art class. It is not about creating something beautiful or finished. It is not reserved for people who can draw. And it is absolutely not something a regular therapist can offer simply because they keep markers in their office.

I say this gently but clearly: a licensed therapist cannot call themselves an art therapist without the specific graduate-level training of an art therapist. The distinction matters. Art therapy is its own mental health profession and deserves to take up space in the mental health world.

So What Is Art Therapy?

Art therapy is a master's-level mental health profession that uses the creative process, drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, and more, alongside psychological theory and the therapeutic relationship to support healing. It is evidence-based, clinically grounded, and increasingly in demand.

I like to think of it this way: art therapy is a process for when words are too heavy to speak.

There are experiences like trauma, grief, chronic shame, things that happened before you had language for them; that talking alone cannot always reach. When Bessel van der Kolk discovered that Broca's area of the brain (responsible for speech) actually shuts down during traumatic events, it changed how we think about healing. It means that for some experiences, words are not just hard to find, they are neurologically unavailable.

Art gives us another way in.

What Happens in an Art Therapy Session

I often tell new clients: trust your hands. Your brain already knows what it needs to do. It's your eyes that will tell you later when we pause to look.

In an art therapy session, I might invite you to draw something not because the finished image matters, but because the process of making it will tell us both something important. I watch your body language as you create. I notice when your breathing shifts. I observe what materials you gravitate toward and which ones you avoid. The art becomes a conversation between you and the parts of yourself that don't have words yet.

We don't rush to finish. We pause. We look. We wonder together about what you made and what it might mean.

Art therapy can:

• Improve cognitive and sensory functioning

• Build emotional resilience

• Boost self-esteem

• Help process traumatic experiences in a safer, more contained way

• Offer a language when words aren't enough

• Activate both hemispheres of the brain simultaneously — the analytical and the intuitive — in a way that talk therapy alone cannot

Do You Have to Be "Good at Art"?

No. Truly, no.

The question of artistic skill is one of the most common things people ask me, and my answer is always the same: you are already good at art. Art therapy is about the process, the language art provides, and the opportunity to express what's inside you. Whatever you create is meaningful not because it looks a certain way, but because it came from you.

Some of the most powerful art therapy moments I've witnessed have come from a scribble on a piece of paper, a collage made from magazine clippings, or a single color chosen because it "just felt right."

Who Benefits from Art Therapy?

Everyone. But in particular, art therapy tends to be deeply effective for people who:

• Have experienced trauma, complex PTSD, or childhood wounds

• Find that traditional talk therapy leaves something feeling unfinished

• Carry things in their body — tension, anxiety, shutdown — that words haven't been able to touch

• Feel like they don't have the right words for what they've been through

• Are drawn to healing that honors intuition, creativity, and the non-verbal parts of themselves

Art Therapy at Painted Willow Healing

I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and Registered Art Therapist serving clients throughout Pennsylvania via telehealth. I completed my Master's in Art Therapy with a Specialization in Counseling from Seton Hill University, and I have spent years working with trauma survivors, using art as one of many tools to help people access healing that goes deeper than symptom management.

At Painted Willow Healing, art therapy is woven into a larger integrative approach that also includes EMDR, somatic work, and trauma-informed care. You don't have to do art in every session but when words aren't enough, the option is there.

If you're curious about what art therapy might look like for you, I'd love to connect. I offer a free consultation for new clients, and I accept most major insurance plans.

Ready to start? Reach out at kristin@paintedwillowhealing.com or call (724) 315-7805.

Kristin Riding, LPC, ATR, is a trauma therapist and registered art therapist offering telehealth therapy throughout Pennsylvania. She specializes in trauma, PTSD, anxiety, burnout, and integrative healing at Painted Willow Healing.