Artistic Therapies

The purpose of art therapy is much the same as in any other psychotherapeutic modality: to improve or maintain mental health and emotional well-being.  According to the American Art Therapy Association, art therapy is based on the belief that the creative process of art is both healing and life-enhancing.

Art therapy uses the creative process of art making to improve and enhance the physical, mental and emotional well-being of individuals of all ages. It is based on the belief that the creative process involved in artistic self-expression helps children to resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, manage behavior, reduce stress, increase self-esteem and self-awareness, cope with symptoms, and traumatic experiences; enhance cognitive abilities, achieve insight; and enjoy the life-affirming pleasures of making art. 

It is Heartland's goal to provide the children with visual and musical artistic therapies. Beginning Summer of 2008, we will have arts & crafts workshops where the children can learn self expressionism through their creativity.

 

In today's educational system many children today are being wrongfully labeled, diagnosed & medicated for A.D.D & A.D.H.D., Oppositional Defiance, and even some forms of Autism yet many of these children are simply more right-brained wired and learn on a more creatively expressive level. Sadly, thanks to government cutbacks in education, there is an ever increasing lack of classes teaching the arts in schools.

Please check out the following video regarding this issue...A must-see for every parent and teacher. Education guru Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. Sir Ken Robinson is author of "Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative," and a leading expert on innovation in education and business.



It is our hope that in providing this type of therapy and nurturing the more right brained activities that we will one day see some, if not all of the children who participate, grow to become the famous artists and creative geniuses of their time.