Art Therapy
Art therapy is all about getting in touch with that which cannot be expressed through words. In this modern world, much of our emotions go unnoticed, unappreciated and misunderstood. Even labelling an emotion with a word is limiting its inherent complexity and nuance. Creating a piece of art is a method of expressing our inner experience in its true essence. This way we can get closer to actually understanding what we feel and why.
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The creative process also opens up certain neural pathways which lead to more creative problem solving. This way when doing art we notice that we randomly come across the answers to our most challenging questions and solutions to our most mind boggling problems.
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The benefits of art therapy are not only psychological. Getting into the creative state is to enter into your innate God and Goddess creator within. From this place we feel more close to our true nature and we can empathize with the creator itself.
Play Therapy
Play therapy is what Grant uses when working with children since the main way that children communicate their inner experience is through play. Children are some of the most emotionally authentic and spontaneous humans on the planet due to their stage of psychological development. This authenticity leads them to not need to conceptualize everything and convert their internal experience into words. Kids simply play out their emotions and thoughts through actions. Grant interprets their actions during play therapy as a kind of clinical language that only therapists know how to understand. Grant then communicates the child's needs to the child in a form of spoken word that the child can understand. This helps children build the skills of communicating their inner experience. This way the kid can learn to communicate with their parents, teachers or peers instead of acting out to get something they need.
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With all that said about how play therapy helps children, That is not to say that adults cannot participate in play therapy as well. Play therapy actually has the opposite effect on adults. Adults have the opposite problem as kids; adults over think their emotions and get stuck in their head. After some time adults forget how to be authentic and spontaneous with their emotional expression and can lose touch with themselves. Play therapy for adults can be awkward at first and then eventually a flow state is established where the adult reconnects to the inner child and from there the flood gates open up and all the emotions come rushing back like hot water into the cold and dry adult heart.