Art Therapy Activity for Depression

Today, I'll show you how to make art when you're feeling depressed or down.

This exercise will help activate more energy yet ground you at the same time and understand more about what's underneath depression.

And of course, everyone is different in terms of where they are in their healing journey, so if this exercise doesn't feel right for you you can always tweak it or skip this whenever you want to. The most important thing is listen to your intuition and do what feels good for you. If you are experiencing clinical depression, please consult a psychiatrist or therapist.

My name is Youhjung and I helping people make therapeutic art. If you want to see the video showing you how I do the activity step by step, click the link below.

WATCH HERE

Whenever you’re ready, let’s get started!

Art Materials You Need

The materials you need are:

2 pages of multimedia/watercolor paper
bleeding tissue paper
a brush
a cup with water
modpodge (optional)
scissors

Mindfulness and Intention

Remember, there is no right or wrong way to do this! Practice gentle compassion as you approach this therapeutic art exercise. ♥︎

The Art Therapy Prompt

Now that you have the materials, here are the steps for this two-part activity:

For the first part, use the tissue paper to create an image of a strength you have, or a part of yourself that you like.
Then, create an image of an aspect of yourself that you consider is a weakness.

This therapeutic art activity involves our kinesthetic experience, and the movement that we make during this art-making releases tension, stimulating energy and discharging stress through movement.

We want to activate that energy, and rise above the low energy, the stuckness, or hopelessness. When we feel depressed, there's a lot of emotions involved. And many of them are around fears and limitations we take on from others and put on ourselves.

Exploring our views/beliefs around ourselves will help us to get to the root of how we feel and why we feel depressed.

Reflective Writing

After you are finished with the work, let's reflect on this artwork and this art experience to go deeper into it.

Bring a journal and a pen. Write down the answers to this question:

Imagine having a conversation with these two sides of ourselves - with you weakness and your strength. What do they have to tell you?
What thoughts or feelings have come up?

If you worked on this activity, please share your artwork - you can hashtag it #thirstyforart on Instagram or just send me an email. Let’s create a healing community!

Thanks for reading/watching. Taking this action to tend to your wellbeing means that you’re already on the path of healing.

P.S. If you want more therapeutic art exercises you can try, check out my Therapeutic Art Library Vault. It’s a calm, cozy space filled with over 300 therapeutic art prompts, journaling exercises, creative reflections, and recorded artmaking sessions. TheVault is your forever-access resource for slowing down, creating art for your own self-care, and reconnecting with yourself in a creative way. Check it out here.♥︎

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