Therapeutic sculpting uses clay, modeling paste, plaster, and other three-dimensional materials as care mediators. The tactile and sensory dimension of working with matter offers direct access to the body and emotions, particularly effective for body schema disorders and trauma.
Therapeutic painting uses pictorial media — watercolor, gouache, acrylic, ink — as vehicles for emotional expression and psychic transformation. From gestural painting to contemplative watercolor, each technique offers a unique expressive register suited to the patient's needs.
Therapeutic collage is a particularly accessible art therapy technique that uses cutting and assembling images, texts, and various materials to promote self-expression and identity reconstruction. Requiring no prior artistic skill, it opens art therapy to all audiences.
Visual arts therapy uses the creative process — drawing, painting, sculpting, collage — as a therapeutic mediation. Based on the patient/artwork/therapist triangle, it enables symbolic expression of internal conflicts and promotes psychic transformation through creation.
The mandala, a sacred circle from Buddhist and Hindu traditions, has become a major therapeutic tool in art therapy since Carl Jung's work on individuation. Drawn, painted, or colored, it promotes psychic recentering, stress reduction, and self-exploration through a containing circular form.