Arts Practices to Improve Our Everyday Wellbeing | Interview with Natalie Carlton

By Maddie Pivonka

As part of my inquiry into arts practices to improve our daily wellbeing, I wanted to gain insight into art therapy from a certified therapist. 

Natalie Carlton is both the Director and faculty member at Drexel University for the Arts Therapy and Counseling Program, which is within the College of Nursing and Health Professions. She has her PHD in Expressive Therapies and a Masters Degree in Creative Arts Therapy with a concentration in visual art therapy. She has been a therapist for over 20 years and lived in Philadelphia and New Mexico, connecting with a variety of clients. 

To say she is an experienced art therapist is a major understatement. I had the honor of interviewing her this past week to discuss visual arts therapies and the impact they have had so far in the hopes of seeing how we can integrate them into our daily lives. 

Defining Art Therapy 

I began our discussion by asking the question, “If you were to define art therapy to someone who had no connection to the arts, how would you?” In her words, art therapy, “engages creative processes in the center of therapy…[it] looks to create processes around visual arts in assisting clients…with goals of therapy.” These goals are unique to each individual, but are usually centered around finding relief or coping with physical and mental pain. This can be in varying degrees from occasional anxiety to chronic pain and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Art therapy is definitely something one must be trained in as we can see from Natalie’s intense education. As she puts it, it is not something to try on casually. There are definitely different routes to take in art therapy education such as certifications, which can lead to success. However, art therapists are a distinct profession, like marriage and family counselors, who follow codes and ethics that pertain to their work. 

It is very important to differentiate art therapy facilitation with a client or clients versus the therapeutic application of art materials that can create certain "releases" of emotion, cognitions, and physical movements. Both will be touched on throughout my inquiry, but it is important to mention in order to avoid prescriptive statements and possible harm to the client. Natalie has “seen some disasters,” and provided the example of the analysis of a drawing done by a young child featuring guns and explosions without the presence of an art therapist. True analysis is something a therapist is capable of versus mere opinions from others. Because of this mix of perceptions, people can then begin to assume the pathology of the child leading to harm to the person…harm to the drawing…it’s in general a light treatment of something very serious. This is an example of how directly and deeply people could be affected by art therapy assessment or image analysis if not completed with art therapy training and ethical considerations. 

My appreciation for art therapists work was already twice as much as it was before speaking to Natalie, who brought up another example of willow trees, which are assumed to “always mean death.” But what we must consider is, “Symbols move, they are not universal to everybody. They move across cultures, peoples, sensory experiences, climate, geography…” Of course, it is okay to have opinions about art, but when those are shared to critique or diagnose a person, it can cause serious, possible harm. Her explanation of the harm that can be brought by only having a superficial view of arts therapy increased my awareness of the profession and the impact of its work. 

This created a shift in my research and understanding because I now saw how important it was for art therapists to facilitate this work. I was viewing “therapy” as a light term, but it does connect to a profession and needs to be treated with such gravity. However, there is still so much to learn from this application of art for therapy, and it is something more people should be aware of when looking to enhance their well being. 

Who can Become Involved?

Moving on as to what impacts visual arts enacts on each of us, Natalie and I began discussing art in our current day and what it means to be an “artist.” A main point we came to was “artists and art therapists don't own art” and although both groups and persons “use art materials and processes things specifically,” art does not simply belong to any person or group who centers it in their work. 

Art is important to a wide variety of people, it is part of our human nature to create individually, in communities, in groups…it is obviously important. However, we cannot forget those with possible learning or physical differences, who may feel “small and ashamed” when placed in an 'art as performance' situation where a certain outcome or skill level is expected or evaluated externally and internally. For these situations in art therapy, it is especially important to tune in to individual needs and preferences to find the medium different persons are most comfortable with and can manipulate how they wish - rather than forcing any learning or media experience. It is a hard pill to swallow, but dispensing art is not always joyous, and it’s not as straightforward and easy and accessible as we imagine. 

We will touch more on access to the arts later, but it is both important and interesting to ponder how easy or difficult it can be to become involved in visual arts therapy. 

The Impact of Visual Arts Therapy 

There was much to learn when I asked Natalie what overall effects she had seen on her clients in visual arts therapy. This therapy ignites almost every sense from the touch, taste, smell, the tools, all of it. There is also exploration, curiosity, fine and major motor skill development…relaxation, pleasure, a sense of connection between the materials and self as well as the feeling of  “I did that,” which are all a part of wellness. 

Although Natalie mainly witnesses the creation of art, sometimes what is needed is the destruction of an individual’s art. Then there is the possibility for someone else to create from the rubble, which is a cool full circle moment to witness. Natalie mentions how there can also be wellness in frustration, conflict, and being overwhelmed. That then being resolved can bring a sense of wellness. Just being in a space is therapeutic for some who create rapport with their therapist and feel heard, witnessed, and attended to. 

There are also educational aspects available to the clients that they may not have anticipated. In the realm of psychological education and those with trauma, Natalie sees light bulbs go off when people realize the connection between trauma and their anxiety. Therapy can help those people who are made to feel like idiots normalize their feelings and understand this is a human experience that comes with those types of struggles. 

People with depression, anxiety, and other disorders may begin to feel categorized by their diagnosis so the treatment needs to be personalized to them. Art therapists are constantly thinking, “How does it impact them, how does it impact their life?” and they try to point out that there are more rights than wrongs to be pointed out to their clients. No matter what category a client's diagnosis puts them in, the different art mediums serve all these needs. It creates different pathways and thought processes for each individual. 

Natalie provides the example of one student with autism and former trauma who grabs a certain medium on different days, clay being for angry days. He is someone who, because of his past experiences, cannot trust verbal communication. Art therapy became his pathway to expression. People in similar situations don't get to resource each other, they feel so isolated, which is why this type of therapy needs to be accessible to people of all different backgrounds and experiences. I could feel how connected Natalie was to work when she said, “it's a powerful thing to watch…I feel like the physical world is so metaphysical. When people start to use materials to soothe, to interact, to spend time with, it's kind of magical.”

Finding Your Medium 

Now having a further understanding of visual arts in a therapeutic form, we discussed how to find this artistic release on a daily basis. What it boils down to is finding your medium. This lies on a matrix because some days it's putting things together or taking things apart, and we sometimes don't know what we truly need till we are in the moment. Recently, Natalie has felt the need to come home, take her scissors, and cut up small pieces for her compost. She found herself craving the activity after doing it for two hours on one occasion. For her, the simple act of cutting and doing something with her hands brought her the stillness she desired after a long, tiring day. She then mentioned a colleague of hers who enjoys dance and pilates as her therapeutic outlets; “it helps her sleep better, it helps her focus more.” Her colleague needs to take her body or instrument and use it in a different way. 

Each medium included in the wide space that is the arts has a time and season. When we have achieved what we set out to with one medium, we move on to another or find a way to enhance our last practice. As Natalie points out, “the process is crucial. The process doesn’t always result in a product.. It's not always about being productive in our self care. It's about the sensory experience taking place and how that can help them rewire their mental state. 

For some, it could simply be getting over the fear of their bodies. As we have moved into more and more virtual communication and connection, we have truncated our ability and desire to seek real, sensory experiences. It is more likely to get overwhelmed by the experience, which narrows our entertainment to things like drugs and alcohol. There is a push and pull in terms of the morality of technology and its effects on our creative pursuits because some people do use social media among other things to display their art. It’s a topic that could be discussed in immense detail, but Natalie makes a good point that technology has impacted our capacity for creative interactions. 

The Future of Wellness 

To round out our conversation on art therapy, I wanted to know her opinion on the future impact and growth of this field. She remarked that wellness, resilience, and self care have all bloomed. There’s a growing energy that is becoming a carriage for therapy. However, even with this possessive increase, corporate control is making therapy more and more prescriptive, which doesn't leave a lot of room for clients and therapists to find each other. Luckily, art therapy and other therapies are branching into their own chain of care. Deeper consent is being created, stereotypes around therapy are being broken, and accessibility is being prioritized for the most part. 

Some schools are on the right track, but some are being monetized. They see art as something that should happen at home, which puts all the responsibility on the caretakers to facilitate such activities while also making a living. These are not easy things to juggle, and art is not something that should be pushed to the wayside at that prime age. We are on the right path to making the arts more accessible, and it is people like Natalie whose practices will create a chain reaction in healthcare everywhere. 

Final Thoughts 

I wanted to share a few last thoughts of Natalie’s, which have stuck with me since our conversation. Although it is easier to see what needs to be worked on in this field, I am hopeful knowing there are so many places where creativity can be enhanced in our society for all ages. The possibilities are endless for this field of care and they will continue to be essential to us all, whether we have realized it yet or not. “Creativity is not simply an additive like salt or pepper but more the air we breathe,” and I am excited to see what impact art therapy can have by connecting more and more people to their creative abilities. 

I am so thankful for the opportunity to speak with Natalie about visual arts and art therapy, and I hope our conversation has sparked a fire in you to look more into the immense potential this field of work has.