Expressing Life’s Challenges through Art TherapyExpressing Life’s Challenges through Art Therapy
Horizon Heart to Heart
Creative Arts Therapist Anna McCarthy Schwartz explains how art therapy helps children and adults express difficult emotions, trauma, and stuckness in new ways. The conversation offers concrete ideas for using simple daily art practices and shows how this approach fits alongside talk therapy and telehealth options.
23:07•18 Mar 2022
Expressing Tough Emotions with Art Therapy: A Creative Route to Healing
Episode Overview
- Art therapy combines talking with creative activities like drawing, painting, or sculpting to express feelings and experiences.
- It can be especially helpful for trauma, quiet children, and anyone who feels stuck or overly defended in traditional talk therapy.
- Adults as well as children can benefit, even if they don’t see themselves as artistic; the focus is on expression, not skill.
- Telehealth art therapy can work by both therapist and client creating separately, then sharing and discussing their artwork on screen.
- A simple daily practice—drawing a circle in a notebook and filling it for two to five minutes—can help track emotions and support mental health.
“We can be with a therapist for years and not really get to the root of something, and that might be an opportunity to try something different.”
How do different strategies aid in addiction recovery and mental health? This chat on Horizon’s **Heart to Heart** zooms in on art therapy as a creative option for children, adolescents, and adults who struggle to put their feelings into words. Host **Christina Pearl** talks with licensed Creative Arts Therapist **Anna McCarthy Schwartz** from Horizon Health Services about how art can support people living with mental health and substance use issues.
Anna explains that art therapy blends traditional talking with drawing, painting, sculpting, or even charts and lists. As she puts it, *“a picture is worth a thousand words,”* and artwork can show layers of emotion and experience that speech keeps tightly guarded. You’ll hear how art therapy can help those who feel stuck in talk therapy, quiet kids who suddenly seem different, and adults who are tired of “spinning their wheels” in conversation.
Anna highlights how images bypass the defences we build with language and create a sense of safety and control, especially for anyone who has experienced trauma. The episode also breaks down what sessions can look like over telehealth, with Anna and her clients sometimes creating pieces at the same time and then sharing them on screen.
For anyone who can’t access an art therapist yet, she suggests a very practical daily exercise: draw a simple circle in a notebook and spend two to five minutes filling it with colours, words, or even scribbles that match how the day feels. That small ritual can become a visual record of moods, hopes, and hard moments.
Christina and Anna keep the tone relaxed and encouraging, making art therapy feel less like an intimidating “special skill” and more like a very human way to express what’s going on inside. Could a few minutes with a pen, some colours, and a blank page be the next tool in your recovery toolkit?
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