Expressing Life’s Challenges through Art TherapyExpressing Life’s Challenges through Art Therapy
Horizon Heart to Heart
Licensed Creative Arts Therapist Anna McCarthy Schwartz explains how art therapy helps children, adolescents, and adults express emotions and trauma in ways words sometimes cannot. The conversation covers who can benefit, how sessions work (including via telehealth), and simple art practices people can use at home for their mental health.
23:07•18 Mar 2022
Expressing Life’s Challenges with Art: A Conversation on Creative Therapy
Episode Overview
- Art therapy combines talking with creative activities to express feelings and experiences that may be hard to put into words.
- Children, adolescents, and adults, especially those affected by trauma or who struggle in talk therapy, may benefit from this approach.
- Art therapy is flexible and does not require artistic skill; anything from charts to scribbles can be used meaningfully.
- Telehealth art therapy can involve both therapist and client creating separately and then sharing their work to spark conversation.
- A simple daily practice of drawing within a circle in a notebook for two to five minutes can support emotional awareness and create a record of progress.
“"The kind of cliché phrase that a picture is worth a thousand words is so true."”
What remarkable journeys have people faced head-on against addiction? Horizon Heart to Heart adds another piece to that puzzle by looking at how art can carry emotions that words sometimes can’t. This conversation focuses on licensed Creative Arts Therapist Anna McCarthy Schwartz and her work with children, adolescents, and adults through art therapy. Anna explains how art therapy combines traditional talking with drawing, painting, sculpting, or even simple charts and scribbles.
As she puts it, "the kind of cliché phrase that a picture is worth a thousand words is so true," because a single image can hold feelings, memories, and trauma that are hard to say out loud. You’ll hear how this approach can help quiet kids, trauma survivors, and adults who feel stuck in long-term talk therapy. She stresses that you don’t need to be “good at art” to benefit.
Some people like detailed drawings; others prefer lists, blocks, or those famously “underrated” scribbles. What matters is giving emotions a safe outlet and letting the client lead. Art also leaves a visual record of progress – a series of drawings can show how someone’s inner world shifts over time. The episode also touches on how art therapy works over telehealth, with both Anna and the client creating side by side (on separate screens) and then sharing what they’ve made.
For anyone who can’t access formal services yet, she offers a simple home practice: keep a notebook, draw a circle on each page, and spend two to five minutes a day filling it with whatever matches your mood – colours, words, shapes, or chaotic scribbles. If talking feels like “pulling teeth” – for you or your child – could a paintbrush, pencil, or doodle be a gentler way in?
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