Art Therapy
"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."
Maya Angelou
Art Therapy for Trauma, Anxiety, and Burnout
You may be like a lot of my clients. You're the one everyone else leans on. The friend who always has it together. The one who remembers everyone's birthday but can't remember the last time you felt truly rested. You are who I support. The caregivers, therapists, highly sensitive people, women who've spent so long taking care of everyone and keeping it all together.
You might be carrying old trauma and anxiety, feeling burnt out, or having distressing relationship patterns that you can't seem to shake, even after years of understanding your patterns. Art therapy may be a refreshing approach for you, especially if talk therapy has taken you far, but just not quite far enough.
"I don't believe in forcing people into a therapy model. I believe in finding the approach that fits the person sitting in front of me."
I love that I can use visual art as one of many evidence-based therapeutic tools to help you reconnect with yourself, regulate your nervous system, and process difficult experiences.
Angela Luna, LMFT #86029
- Expressive Arts Therapist
- 15+ years of clinical experience
- Integrates Brainspotting, EMDR
- Parts Work (IFS-informed)
- Somatic Therapy
- SoulCollage®
- Nature-based practices
- Mindfulness trainer
- In person therapy in San Pablo
- Telehealth: throughout Berkeley, Lafayette, Fair Oaks, CACalifornia
What Is Art Therapy?
There are moments in therapy when someone knows exactly what happened but still can't find language for what they're carrying. Trauma, grief, anxiety, shame, and overwhelming experiences are often stored in ways that are difficult to explain.
The creative process helps us express those things that are hard to put into words.
What's the Difference Between Art Therapy and Expressive Arts Therapy?
People often ask about the difference between art therapy and Expressive Arts Therapy.
While both use creativity to support emotional processing, art therapy focuses specifically on visual art-making, including drawing, painting, collage, symbols, imagery, and other visual expressions.
Expressive Arts Therapy is broader and may also incorporate writing, movement, music, poetry, storytelling, mindfulness, and nature-based practices.
I wrote an in-depth blog about the differences that you can read HERE.
You can also read more about Expressive Arts Therapy here.
What Brings People to Art Therapy?
Many of the people I work with have done years of personal growth. They've been to therapy, read the books, and listened to the podcasts. They've journaled and spent years trying to understand why they struggle.
Yet something still feels unfinished.
This is more common than you might think. If most of your emotional work has happened through talking, you may have reached a point where insight alone isn't creating the change you're looking for. Healing from trauma or a complex childhood often requires more than understanding what happened. It often involves helping your nervous system, emotions, and body experience something different.
It’s also common for clients to come to me feeling stuck in cycles of anxiety, burnout, or overthinking. Others want to address the tendency to care of everyone else and lose touch with themselves. So in essence, they are ready to come home to themselves.
Why Do I Feel Overly Responsible for Everyone? An Art Therapy Approach to Hyper-Responsibility
You know that feeling when someone you love is off and something in you immediately starts calculating how to fix it? When the mood in the room shifts and your nervous system shifts with it? That's not just empathy. For a lot of us, it's something deeper. It's...
Art Therapy for PTSD: How Creativity Supports Healing
Understanding Trauma Beyond WordsPTSD doesn't live in your mind. It takes up space in your body as the tightness in your shoulders you can't seem to shake, the sleep that won't come, the way you jump at sounds that don't startle anyone else. It's that invisible wall...
Art Therapy for Trauma Healing and Nervous System Regulation
Can Art Therapy Help Me Heal Trauma? A Nervous System Regulation ApproachYes. Art therapy is one of the most effective ways to support nervous system regulation and help the body process trauma that words alone couldn't reach. When trauma lives in the body, talking...
2 Art Therapy Ideas to Manage Your Anxiety Right Now
Art therapy can help manage anxiety, and no, you don't have to be "good" at art to see benefits. These two art projects can be done by anyone, with minimal materials. The Truth About Anxiety Anxiety doesn’t feel good. I get it. Heart palpitations, worry thoughts, a...
Is Art Therapy Right for Me?
Art therapy may be especially helpful if you are:
- Healing from trauma or childhood trauma
- Living with anxiety or chronic stress
- Feeling emotionally overwhelmed or burned out
- Struggling with perfectionism or people-pleasing
- Feeling disconnected from yourself or your body
- Carrying a harsh inner critic
- Feeling responsible for everyone else's emotions
- Navigating grief, loss, or a major life transition
- A Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) who feels things more intensely than most people around you
- Looking for a more holistic approach than talk therapy alone
- Drawn to creativity, even if you haven't created anything in years
Art therapy can help you reach those places.
How Trauma Lives Beneath Language
Trauma isn't stored the way "normal" day-to-day memories are. It's often held in fragments, images, body sensations, a flash of color, a physical tightness.
This is part of why talk therapy alone can hit a wall. You can know the facts of what happened and still feel stuck, because the nervous system encoded the experience in a form language wasn't built to hold. Art gives that fragment somewhere to go. A drawing, a shape, a color choice can hold what a sentence can't, and once it's outside of you, on paper, we can work with it together, at a pace your nervous system can tolerate.
This Is Why I Don't Follow a Formula
Every person arrives with a different story. That's why I don't believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to therapy.
Some people naturally connect through drawing or painting. Others prefer collage, clay, or simple mindful art exercises. Some sessions involve more conversation. Others invite more creative exploration. Most include both.
Art therapy is one of many ways we may work together. Depending on your goals, personality, and nervous system, we may integrate Brainspotting, EMDR, Parts Work, Somatic Therapy, Expressive Arts Therapy, SoulCollage®, mindfulness, or nature-based practices. It’s totally up to you and your soul's calling. We co-create your path together.
Why Art Can Help to Get “It” Out of Your Head
One of the unique gifts of art therapy is something therapists often call externalization. It simply means placing your experience outside yourself, where you and I can gently explore it together.
For example, instead of saying, “I feel anxious,” you might draw what anxiety looks like. Perhaps it appears as tangled black lines. A heavy storm cloud. A tight knot. A cage. Or maybe it surprises you completely.
The artwork doesn't tell us what to think, it gives us something to become curious about. Many people tell me they feel relief just seeing their experience outside themselves for the first time. Instead of feeling consumed by it, they can begin relating to it with greater compassion and understanding.
Art Can Help You See Things You Didn't Know Were There
Sometimes we don't recognize our patterns until we can see them on paper. Over the years, I've watched clients discover recurring themes they never consciously noticed before. Perhaps the same colors keep appearing. The same symbols. The same distance between people in every drawing. Or the same tiny figure standing alone.
These aren't things I “analyze” or assign meaning to. Instead, we explore them together. I may ask questions like:
- What stands out to you?
- Which part of the image keeps drawing your attention?
- If this image could speak, what might it say?
- What surprises you about what you've created?
Often the meaning unfolds naturally as we become curious together. The deepest insights don't come from my interpretation. They come from yours.
Giving Yourself Permission to Slow Down
Many of us spend our lives moving quickly. Thinking. Planning. Solving problems. Taking care of everyone else.
Art naturally creates a space to do something different. It helps us to slow down. We start to notice what's there. We become more present.
I've watched people surprise themselves doing something as simple as spending a few minutes paying attention instead of performing.
Art Therapy Is Never About Making “Good Art”
This is something I want every client to know before we ever meet.
Art therapy is not an art class. I'm not evaluating your artistic ability. I'm not looking for hidden meanings in every color or symbol. And I'm certainly not expecting you to create something worthy of hanging in a gallery.
What matters is whether the creative process helps you understand yourself a little more deeply.
What If I Don't Know What to Draw?
You don't have to.
One of the beautiful things about art therapy is that we'll discover the process together. Sometimes I'll offer a gentle prompt. Sometimes we'll begin with colors, shapes, or simple marks. Other times we'll create a collage using magazine images.
There is never pressure. The goal isn't to force creativity. It's to create a safe space where your own inner wisdom has room to emerge.
What Does an Art Therapy Session Look Like?
Every session looks different because every person is different. We might start with a short mindful art exercise just to help you get grounded. From there, it depends on what comes up. If a part of you shows up, we might put that part on paper or work with it in clay and start a dialogue with it. Other times, we'll do more mapping, working through a relationship, a pattern, or a goal you're trying to get clear on.
If you're working through emotions, the session might look completely different than if you're working on setting a goal. There's a lot of variation and you have options.
What Might We Create Together?
Depending on your goals, we might explore:
- Drawing
- Water Painting
- Collage
- Art journaling
- Clay
- Color exploration
- Symbol work
- Visual timelines
- Masks
- Mandalas
- Found objects from nature
Sometimes we'll spend twenty minutes creating. Sometimes only five. Sometimes we won't use art at all. The creative process is always an invitation, not an expectation.
No Two Sessions Look Exactly the Same
One of the things I value most is that therapy shouldn't feel like following someone else's formula.
Perhaps you're working through a part of yourself, maybe the part that's overly responsible, or the part that won't let you rest. We might start with a short, body-and-breath mindful art exercise to help you settle in. Then we'll externalize that part and put it on paper with color and shape, or shape it in clay. Once it's outside of you, we can talk to it. What is it trying to protect you from? What does it need you to know?
That's one example. Someone working on a goal, or sitting with grief, or untangling a relationship pattern, needs something completely different. I don't walk in with a plan for what today's session should look like. I follow what's here.
Rather than asking, "Which therapy is best?" I ask, "What does this person need today?" That's the question that guides my work.
Why I Don't Believe in Just One Method
Every person brings a different story, different strengths, different challenges, and a different nervous system into therapy. That’s why I use a holistic approach.
Art therapy is one of the ways we may work together. Depending on what's most supportive, our sessions may also include Brainspotting, EMDR, Parts Work (IFS-informed), Somatic Therapy, Expressive Arts Therapy, mindfulness, nature-based practices, or SoulCollage®.
One thing I've learned over the years is that therapy isn't about fitting people into a particular model. It's about listening, staying curious, and choosing the approach that best meets the person sitting in front of me.
Throughout my blog, you'll also find articles exploring how art therapy can be integrated with other trauma-informed approaches and how it can support recovery for concerns such as trauma, anxiety, burnout, childhood trauma, people-pleasing, perfectionism, and Highly Sensitive People (HSP).
Frequently Asked Questions About Art Therapy
Do I need to have artistic talent?
Absolutely not. This is by far the question I hear most often, and the answer is always the same: no artistic experience is required. Many people come into their first session apologizing for their drawing ability or telling me they haven't made art since elementary school. Others say they're “not creative” or worry they'll do it “wrong.”
Art therapy isn't about artistic talent. It's about expression. There are no grades. No artistic expectations. No right or wrong way to create. Often the most meaningful artwork created in therapy is surprisingly simple.
Is art therapy evidence-based?
Yes. Art therapy is an established form of psychotherapy supported by a growing body of research. Research suggests that creative expression can support emotional regulation, reduce stress, increase self-awareness, and complement treatment for trauma, anxiety, depression, grief, and many other emotional challenges.
At the same time, I don't believe healing comes from one technique alone. Research is important, but so is finding an approach that fits you. That's why every session is individualized.
Can art therapy help with trauma?
For many people, yes. Trauma often affects far more than our thoughts. It can influence how safe we feel, how we relate to others, how we respond to stress, and how we experience our own bodies.
Sometimes talking about trauma is incredibly healing. Other times, visual expression offers another pathway into experiences that feel difficult to describe with words alone. We'll always move at a pace that feels respectful of your nervous system, helping you build safety and resilience.
What happens during an art therapy session?
Every session looks a little different. Some sessions involve mostly conversation. Others include drawing, collage, painting, journaling, or another visual exercise. Many combine both.
Together we'll decide what feels most supportive based on your goals, comfort level, and where you are right now. Therapy is collaborative. You don't have to know what to draw. You don't have to “do it right.” You just show up as yourself.
Is art therapy available online?
Yes. I offer art therapy both in person in San Pablo, Lafayette, and Fair Oaks, CA, and through telehealth throughout California, including for Berkeley clients. Many people are surprised by how well art therapy adapts to online sessions. Simple materials like paper, colored pencils, markers, magazines, or even objects you already have at home are often all that's needed.
How long does art therapy take?
Every person heals at a different pace. Some people come with one specific goal they'd like support with. Others choose longer-term therapy to explore deeper patterns and create lasting change. During our first few sessions we'll talk together about your goals and determine what feels most supportive for you.
Can art therapy be combined with other therapies?
Absolutely. One of the strengths of my practice is that therapy is never one-size-fits-all. Depending on your needs, art therapy may become one part of a personalized treatment approach that also includes Brainspotting, EMDR, Expressive Arts Therapy, Parts Work, Somatic Therapy, SoulCollage®, mindfulness, or nature-based practices.
We work together to discover what combination best supports you.
Curious About Whether Art Therapy Could Help?
I believe every person has an innate capacity to heal. Whether you've loved making art your entire life or haven't picked up a paintbrush since childhood, you are welcome here.
If you're ready to heal from trauma, anxiety, burnout, childhood wounds, perfectionism, people-pleasing, or to reconnect with yourself in a deeper way, I'd be honored to support you.
Angela Luna, LMFT #86029 | Expressive Arts Therapist & Trauma Specialist | San Pablo, Lafayette & Fair Oaks, CA | Bilingual English/Spanish | Telehealth available throughout California
Explore Related Therapy Approaches
Expressive Arts Therapy • Trauma Therapy • EMDR • Brainspotting • Somatic Therapy • Nervous System Regulation • Nature-Based Therapy • Parts Work • Inner Child Healing • Highly Sensitive People • SoulCollage®