As children and young people are naturally creative, expressing themselves through art can be less confronting than using their words to articulate their thoughts. Using a symbolic language, art therapy empowers young people by tapping into their personal strengths and abilities to face challenging issues that the cancer journey often entails.
Creating artwork can help to ease the stress and anxiety that may accompany this diagnosis. In addition to self-expression, there are a wide variety of benefits that art therapy provides such as enhancing a sense of self and developing healthy coping strategies. Participants in art therapy have also noted that it is an effective technique for pain management.
Caryn, our art therapist at the time, generously created a three-part Art Therapy Video Series for the Challenge community. Each component is thoughtfully designed to cater to specific age groups: the first for children, the second for adolescents, and the third for parents.
If you would like to access any or all parts of this series, simply click one of the buttons below.
