Nearly 49.08% are Likely to Consider Art Therapy for Mental Health Support

Mental health issues seem to be ever-growing in today’s society. While there are various ways to tackle it, the most preferred one is art therapy for mental health. Participating in the arts can enable people to deal with a wide range of mental ill-health conditions and psychological distress. It also helps people improve their mental health through creativity. On this basis, Real Research conducted a survey to gauge the public’s reaction.

Highlights:

• 53.78% strongly believe art therapy for mental health is effective.
• 61.10% agree that art therapy for mental health is a better tool than traditional talk therapy.
• Talk therapy is more effective than art therapy, says 21.91%.

Art therapy for mental health:

Art therapy sessions are a form of psychotherapy that uses artistic expression to treat mental health issues. Real Research asked the survey takers if they were aware of this. While 45.76% were completely aware of the practice of art therapy, 44% were vaguely aware, and 10.24% were completely unaware.

Art therapy for mental health can serve as a way to process emotions and facilitate healing. In some cases, victims of war and humanitarian crises are offered art therapy to deal with mental health issues. The online survey app asked the respondents if they believed in its effectiveness. The responses were as follows: “I strongly believe in its effectiveness” (53.78%), “I believe in its effectiveness to some extent” (37.68%), “I am somewhat doubtful about its effectiveness” (5.94%), and “I strongly dispute its effectiveness” (2.60%).

Aspects of art therapy on mental health:

Art therapy is a better tool to treat mental health issues and aims to use creativity for self-expression, leading to personal insight and improved coping skills. The poll takers were asked if they believed art therapy could help with self-expression. While most of them (71.95%) responded “Yes,” a smaller section responded (28.05%) “No.”

Some psychiatrists suggest that art therapy is a better tool to treat mental health issues than traditional talk therapy. It was interesting to find out the public’s stance on this. 61.10% supported this argument, while 38.90% opposed it.

A variety of materials, from crayons to pencil colors, paints, clay, wood, and even nature and its elements, are used in art therapy. When asked how effective the participants thought art therapy was in improving mental health compared to traditional talk therapy, their responses were as such:

• Art therapy can be more effective than talk therapy – 21.93%,
• Art therapy is equally effective as talk therapy – 28.49%,
• Art therapy and talk therapy are equally valuable but serve different purposes – 27.67%,
• Talk therapy is more effective than art therapy – 21.91%.

Participation:

The surveyees were asked if they had ever participated in an art therapy session: 50.66% replied “Yes,” 49.34% replied “No.”.

Finally, Real Research asked the public if they would consider art therapy as a form of mental health support for themselves or someone they know, if required. 37.01% responded  “absolutely,” 49.08% said “probably,” 10.57% replied “probably not,” and 3.34% stated, “absolutely not.”