Art Therapy

"Art" is always being used in the form of pleasure, expression and communication. It always played with human psychology in order to communicate, entertain, express and satisfy. Art is as useful for a common person as for an artist in creativity.

You can say that art therapy happened by chance somewhere in the mid of last century. The first experiment with art as a form of therapy took place by chance early in the Second World War when the artist Adrian Hill was recovering from tuberculosis in a Sussex sanatorium. He turned to his art as a way of passing the time creatively, and began introducing other patients to painting and drawing to take their minds off their illnesses and traumatic wartime experiences.

Art therapy can be individual activity but is often used very successfully in group situation such as in art studios and in workshops that focus on creativity development. Art therapists work with children, adolescents, and adults and provide services to individuals, couples, families, groups, and communities.


To his surprise, Hill found that not only were they enthusiastic, but that they used their pictures to express their fears and anxieties, and the frightening scenes they had witnessed. Unintentionally, he had become Britain's first art therapist.

Although they worked in very different ways - Hill as an enlightened art teacher and Irene as a psychotherapist - they laid some of the foundations for the profession of art therapy in Britain. As a result of their work and that of followers such as Edward Adamson, the first artist to be employed full time in a psychiatric hospital, the British Association of Art Therapists was established in 1963.

This therapy is not only useful for adults and old people in order to increase cognitive abilities, better relationships with family and friends, able to enjoy the life-affirming pleasures of the creative experience but especially for aggressive children for their better development.