Grief is one of the most difficult emotional terrains in humanity. No matter what a person does, they can’t reverse a death. As people take that roller coaster ride through sadness, anger, disbelief, bargaining, and acceptance, they are often looking for an outlet for all of those mixed up emotions. Sometimes words simply can’t express the moment. Grief counselors who use art as therapy are often very successful at helping people get past some of the really tough transitions they’ll experience in their time of loss.
Art therapy is not only for adults. It is also used in children’s grief camps. In both cases, the goal is to get the individual to talk about what is going on in their mind while they are creating their art. Sometimes, the art can be as simple as coloring an intricate pattern from a child’s coloring book. Choosing the colors to coincide with the patterns can be very relaxing and emotionally dilating. As people do this, they often open up and start to express thoughts and fears. Other successful art strategies are to ask people to draw what they are feeling, or ask them to create a poem. The project may be more craft oriented, too.
Group art projects can work for a grief support group. Counselors can ask the group to create quilts or collages or mandalas. They can create art that is permanent or art that can be brushed away like the emotions they feel. If the grief counselor does not have an arts background, he or she may benefit from finding an artist with teaching experience or even counseling experience. Art therapy is fairly widely used, so even though grief counseling is a specialized discipline, it is something that an art therapist can really find rewarding.