Aberdeen Art Psychotherapy Department

Art is not about art. Art is about life.

The following statement comes from "Insider Art."


Image 'language' comes before verbal language. Play, metaphoric and symbolic thinking are universal human behaviours, and have a powerful adaptive advantage as problem solving strategies. Art making helps people tell their stories, express themselves, contain feelings, improve self esteem, and find new solutions to old problems, in other words to improve the 'Autobiographical Competence' and 'Affective Processing' identified as the aims of psychotherapy . Making images means moving between being very involved with them and standing back. This can help people find new ways of dealing with feelings. Emotional intelligence is about neither having to deny our feelings, nor to be overwhelmed by them. Therapeutic art making develops and models this process of emotional regulation. There is sometimes a fear that introducing psychotherapeutic thinking somehow undermines creative processes. In reality artists often find that their work is enriched, deepened and liberated by this approach. As veteran international artist Louise Bourgeois said: 'Art is not about art. Art is about life.