A common challenge for clients struggling with mental health is expressing, or even identifying, their thoughts and emotions. While some clients can verbalize their thoughts, emotions, and experiences, others may not have the words to describe them or know how to tap into them. Art therapy is a holistic approach used by licensed professionals with clients of varying ages, symptoms, and backgrounds to help with this. Keep reading to discover 8+ Art Therapy techniques and interventions you can use with clients in sessions.
Art therapists work in a range of settings, including medical treatment facilities, community centers, the VA, and in school settings. Research has found that art therapy can help reduce anxiety and depressive symptoms among those struggling with medical conditions and among veterans who are experiencing trauma-related symptoms or PTSD.
A common misconception that clients have about art therapy is that they need to be good at art to use it. This is a subjective thought that fails to recognize the diverse range of techniques and interventions that art therapists have at their disposal. As trained professionals, art therapists can select interventions and techniques appropriate to clients based on their age, developmental stage, and current symptoms. You may find yourself using art therapy in addition to traditional psychotherapy options like group and individual counseling.
For more valuable resources, view our Art Therapy Tools and Resources hub
5 Art Therapy Techniques
Art therapy techniques are structured, creative activities that fit within the framework of evidence-based approaches like CBT, DBT, and trauma-informed therapies. Art techniques can help clients increase their emotional awareness and regulation while they work to communicate their thoughts and feelings in new ways.
1) Guided Coloring
Guided coloring is a simple technique that can be used with clients of varying ages and backgrounds. Clients who respond well to this activity may benefit from using coloring activities as a coping strategy.
What It Is: Guided coloring often involves coloring repetitive patterns, like what you would find in a Mandala.
How It Helps Clients: Guided coloring can help calm clients’ nervous systems, reduce anxiety symptoms, and improve their focus.
How To Do It: You can provide your client with a mandala or pattern, along with coloring utensils like colored pencils, markers, or crayons. You can invite your client to slowly color their picture while asking them to be mindful of their breathing patterns and bodily sensations.
2) Emotion Drawing
Emotion drawing is a technique that can help clients visualize emotions they have difficulty verbalizing.
What It Is: Emotion drawing is a technique in which your client assigns colors, shapes, or other imagery to represent their emotions or moods.
How It Helps Clients: This activity focuses on identifying and expressing emotions. It promotes awareness and insights into their emotions, which is a common challenge for clients struggling with trauma and depression.
How To Do It: After providing your client with the necessary materials, you will ask them to match their emotions to colors and draw freely. You can use gentle questions to explore their choices, bringing more awareness to their thought process.
3) Visual Drawing
Visual drawing is a creative form of expression that can open the door for processing thoughts, emotions, and experiences.
What It Is: For this, your client would use a journal to draw, write, or use symbols to record their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
How It Helps Clients: This technique can increase clients’ awareness of emotional patterns between sessions and help them track their progress.
How To Do It: You can provide your client with prompts such as “draw your mood at the end of the day” or “draw a challenge that you experienced today.” It may be helpful to provide several prompts and ask your client to choose one each day.
4) Symbol Drawing
Symbol drawing is a technique that can help clients explore challenging or complex experiences through imagery.
What It Is: You will ask your clients to draw symbols or use metaphors that represent their emotions, challenges, and strengths. This technique moves away from focusing on literal events.
How It Helps Clients: Symbolic expression can help clients create some distance, allowing them to explore their experiences in a way that feels safe.
How To Do It: Begin by asking your clients to draw a symbol for a feeling or experience. You can then dive into the meaning behind this symbol and how it pertains to their symptoms.
5) Body Mapping
Body mapping is a technique that can increase awareness of how your clients experience emotions in their bodies.
What It Is: Body mapping uses an outline of the body where clients can track where they feel their emotions.
How It Helps Clients: Body mapping can strengthen mind-body connections and improve their awareness of stress responses within the body. This can be combined with trauma-informed therapies.
How To Do It: You can begin by providing a template of the body and writing materials. Walk through various emotions and ask them to mark where they feel sensations, such as tension. Emotions to review can include sadness, anger, and anxiety.
3 Art Therapy Interventions to Use in Sessions
Art therapy interventions are structured treatments that use art within a therapeutic context, rather than a supplemental activity. Interventions are led by trained and experienced clinicians who can use them to address mental health symptoms safely and appropriately. With interventions, artwork can become a catalyst for exploring, communicating, and implementing changes. This can be helpful with clients who have struggled in traditional talk therapy sessions.
1) Trauma-Focused Art Intervention
Trauma-focused art interventions can be used to safely process traumatic experiences in a manner that is more comfortable for your client.
What It Is: This is an art process that can help clients express trauma-related memories, emotions, and bodily sensations without focusing on verbal communication. Artwork can take various forms, such as abstract.
How It Helps Clients: This intervention can be helpful for clients who are struggling with trauma-related disorders, such as PTSD. It can reduce the risk of clients feeling overwhelmed, dissociating, or being re-traumatized. Clients can externalize their internal processes, thereby regaining control.
How To Do It: For this intervention, start with a grounding practice and ensure you and your client have created a safety plan in case they feel overwhelmed. You can begin by introducing an art task to your client and allowing them to set the pace. As an example, they could create a drawing that symbolizes safety or strength. Ensure that you have time to process and regulate after this intervention.
2) Emotion Regulation Intervention
Emotion regulation intervention can help stabilize emotional responses and introduce distress tolerance skills.
What It Is: Emotion regulation interventions focus on promoting emotion regulation and calming the nervous system. These activities may be repetitive and are clear.
How It Helps Clients: Emotion regulation interventions can increase emotional awareness, reduce impulsiveness, and help those struggling with mood swings and anxiety. These interventions are common in early stages of treatment and in crises.
How To Do It: These interventions tend to use simple materials with clear instructions. This can include limited color choices and repetitive patterns. You can monitor your clients’ emotions during these activities and use grounding strategies if needed.
3) Identity-Focused Interventions
Identity-focused interventions can help clients explore their values, sense of meaning, and other self-concepts.
What It Is: These are guided art processes that focus on identity, strengths, roles, and a client’s self-perception. You may ask for artwork to reflect their history, current identity, or future aspirations.
How It Helps Clients: Identity-focused interventions can help clarify values, improve self-esteem, and reduce shame. These interventions can be helpful with clients struggling with depression, life transitions, and identity confusion.
How To Do It: You can begin by using prompts like “what shapes me” or “who I am becoming.” Spend time reflecting on their use of imagery, colors, and symbols. Maintain a non-judgmental environment that focuses on developing more insight.
Other Helpful Art Therapy Resources
TherapyByPro is a leading resource for mental health professionals. With a diverse range of evidence-based and customizable resources, you’ll have access to worksheets, treatment plans, and other tools that can enhance your clinical work. You can explore resources for a specific mental health disorder or therapeutic approach. Examples of popular resources for art therapy include:
- Creating an Art Therapy Treatment Plan
- 74 Art Therapy Questions to Ask Clients in Therapy
- 18 Art Therapy Activities & Exercises
- Art Therapy Worksheets
Frequently Asked Clinical Questions
Below are FAQs clinicians are asking:
How does a clinician differentiate between standard creative expression and a client’s avoidant intellectualization through artwork?
Observe whether the creative process allows for active somatic connection and emotional processing or if it serves as a detached, purely technical narrative. Genuine creative expression bridges the gap between unconscious affect and conscious integration, whereas avoidant intellectualization presents as an overly rigid, hyper-detailed, or purely decorative piece where the client discusses the technical aesthetics of the art to actively bypass the vulnerability of the underlying emotional themes.
What is the recommended clinical protocol if a trauma-focused art intervention triggers severe emotional flooding or acute dissociation mid-session?
Cease the expressive art creation immediately, remove the triggering materials from the client’s direct line of sight, and transition into structured grounding practices. Avoid pushing the client to complete or analyze the artwork while they are operating outside their window of tolerance; instead, utilize deep sensory tracking, physical stabilization, or soothing rhythm breathing to re-establish safety and co-regulation within the room.
How should a therapist handle an adult client who exhibits intense performance anxiety or completely refuses to participate due to feeling unartistic?
De-escalate the performance pressure by introducing low-barrier, highly structured techniques like guided coloring or basic abstract shape mapping. Shift the clinical rationale away from artistic skill or aesthetic judgment during the psychoeducation phase, emphasizing that the therapeutic purpose of the medium relies on raw emotional externalization and self-exploration rather than creating a refined visual product.
When is it clinically appropriate to transition a client from structured emotion regulation art tasks to deeper identity-focused interventions?
Prioritize highly directive, repetitive, and structured emotion regulation interventions until the client demonstrates a stabilized autonomic nervous system and adequate distress tolerance capacity. Attempting to initiate complex identity-focused explorations or deep trauma-focused processing before the client has built a reliable somatic baseline of internal safeness risks triggering severe psychological defensiveness and premature treatment dropout.
Can advanced body mapping techniques be safely implemented with individuals presenting with acute, severe body dysmorphia or active somatic delusions?
No, explicit body mapping and direct somatic visualization exercises must be carefully delayed until foundational stabilization and cognitive grounding strategies establish adequate psychological containment. Forcing an individual into direct, uncontained confrontational visual tracking of their physical form when they are experiencing acute distortion can severely escalate panic, reinforce the delusion, and damage the essential therapeutic alliance.
Final Thoughts on Using Art Therapy in Sessions
Art therapy techniques and interventions can provide you with flexible and meaningful ways to support your client in their mental health journey. You may use these interventions or techniques as a standalone treatment or as a complementary tool with psychotherapy. Art therapy can help clients tap into new emotions, regulate distress, and explore experiences that they have struggled to talk about in traditional ways.
Art therapy interventions and techniques are tailored to each client, ensuring that they’re appropriate for a client’s age, symptoms, and treatment goals. If you are interested in learning more about how to implement art therapy into your sessions, we encourage you to explore continuing education and training opportunities. As with other therapies, it is important that you have received proper training and practice to use these interventions and techniques effectively.
TherapyByPro is a trusted resource for mental health professionals worldwide. Our therapy tools are designed with one mission in mind: to save you time and help you focus on what truly matters-your clients. Every worksheet, counseling script, and therapy poster in our shop is professionally crafted to simplify your workflow, enhance your sessions, reduce stress, and most of all, help your clients.
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References:
- What is art therapy?. American Art Therapy Association. (2024c, January 17). https://arttherapy.org/what-is-art-therapy/