Art Therapy: A Creative Approach to Overcoming Burnout

What if the thing that's wearing you out can't be explained in words, however many times you try? That's the idea behind a conversation I had with Megan, a board certified registered art therapist and licensed mental health professional who works online with burnt out helping professionals. Her message was simple: we think in images and impressions long before we think in sentences, and burnout leaves a lot of those images trapped inside.

This article pulls together the most useful ideas from that episode of the me&my health up podcast, including what art therapy actually is, why you don't need to be able to draw, and what a session can reveal about how your nervous system is coping.

Art therapy is not talk therapy with a pencil

Megan was quick to clear up a common misunderstanding. Many people picture art therapy as a chat where you draw your feelings and then talk about the drawing. She calls that the "can opener" approach, where art is used to get the client to say more words.

Real art therapy, she explained, works differently. Most of what goes on in our minds isn't conscious, and our nervous systems store life experiences as impressions and imagery rather than neat sentences. In art therapy you can work directly with those mental images, recreating them rather than only describing them. As Megan put it, you're sending a message through your hands (the body's sensory and movement systems) and through your eyes (visual perception, which is linked to memory). You're using far more of what nature gave you than words alone allow.

Her short version: it almost has nothing to do with art. The art is simply the route to where you need to go, so it's not about pretty pictures or aesthetics.

You don't need to be good at art

I admitted on the show that I was hopeless at art at school and actually detested it, so I asked the obvious question: would it work for someone like me? Megan's answer was reassuring. If you disliked art, it may have had more to do with an unsupportive teacher than with you. Art therapy is for everybody, and fear of looking silly is something a therapist can gently work with.

She even said professional artists can be harder to work with, because they're often invested in the finished product and the art becomes a sign of their success. People who are curious and willing to suspend judgement, and who sense there's something inside they'd like to see, tend to be a good fit. A stick figure, torn paper glued back together, or something built from household odds and ends can all do the job.

What a session can look like online

Because Megan works with clients over video, she asks them to supply their own materials, and she encourages them not to go shopping. Look around the house instead: foil, rubber bands, pens, highlighters, paper that's only been used on one side.

There's a reason for that. Burnout leaves you with nothing but shortcuts, she said, the same dinner every night, the same routines, because there's no energy left to think. Getting someone to look around and consider what else could be used starts to expand their capacity for thinking again.

During a session she uses two cameras per person, one on the face and one on the working surface, so she can match what the hands are doing with what the face is showing. She also looks at the materials someone chooses. Do they reach for things that help them express what's inside, or things that help with emotional containment? A healthy balance of both matters.

Six ways the brain processes information

One of the most interesting parts of the conversation was Megan's use of a framework called the expressive therapies continuum. It looks at how a person's brain handles information across six areas:

• Kinesthetic: movement, regulating tension and raising energy when you need to.
• Sensory: self-soothing and sustaining focus and attention.
• Perceptual: how your brain builds an internal map of the outside world, including structure and routine.
• Affective: feelings and mood, and also motivation.
• Cognitive: logical, linear thinking and anticipating consequences.
• Symbolic: personal meaning, insight and self-awareness, including knowing your own strengths.

Her point is that two people can tell exactly the same story, "I'm exhausted, I'm living on coffee and I'm not sleeping", while their nervous systems are doing quite different things. The breakdown could be anywhere along those six areas, which is why she says there's no one-size-fits-all approach. In burnout, she explained, people often end up using only the area they're strongest in while the rest falls by the wayside. The work is to weave the whole picture back together.

If you've read our piece on cognitive overload and why your brain always feels full, you'll notice the overlap: when we're depleted, the brain defaults to what's easiest.

Start where you're strong

Megan's approach is to begin in the area where a person already feels comfortable, because you don't get anywhere by starting where someone is uncomfortable. From there, the materials and methods gradually shift.

She described two kinds of materials. Resistive materials, such as pencils, are ones you can press against and that support you. Fluid materials, such as watercolours and finger paints, run away on you. Someone who loves fluid materials may be gently guided towards resistive ones, and someone who only uses black and white pencil may need to move slowly towards the spontaneity and lack of control that fluid materials bring. Again, it's not about the art. It's about what's happening in the body, the brain and the nervous system.

A visual record of your progress

I liked Megan's observation that in talk therapy the words drift away, whereas art therapy leaves you with something you can look at. Progress can be hard to notice, and it's easy to forget how far you've come. A series of images made over time, with different colours and a different quality of line, can be concrete evidence that something inside is moving. That has nothing to do with whether you can draw better.

It isn't only for burnout

When I asked whether art therapy is only useful for burnout, Megan said it runs across the board, much like talk therapy does. She mentioned a lot of research activity on art therapy in areas such as autism spectrum disorder, Alzheimer's disease and dementia, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, and said it can also be used across the range of neurodiversity. She also noted that difficult images tend to emerge only when you're ready to deal with them, so nobody is forced to look at anything before they're ready. This is general information from the conversation, not advice for any individual situation.

"It is not your fault"

Megan's closing words were aimed at helping professionals who identify with burnout: it is not your fault. Many of them were never taught how to look after the person behind the professional, and the pandemic pushed people who were already perched at the edge of a cliff. There is always hope, she said, and you can always burn bright, though you may need to ask for a little support. Helping professionals, she admitted with a smile, are very bad at asking for help.

If that sounds like your workplace, our workplace mental health workshops cover stress and burnout from a practical, whole-person angle. And if you'd like another example of someone finding their own route through a hard patch, Mike Lea's story of finding meaning in anxiety is a good companion read.

Takeaways to try

You don't have to book anything to borrow the spirit of this conversation. Next time you're stuck for words, try making something with whatever's in the house, tear and glue paper, or sketch a stick figure, and notice what comes up without judging the result. If burnout is weighing on you, consider talking with a qualified health professional about the supports that might suit you.

This article is general information only and isn't a substitute for advice from a doctor or qualified mental health professional.

If you'd like help building sustainable habits around energy, stress and nutrition, you can book a free 15-minute clarity call with me&my wellness. And you can listen to more episodes of the Health Up podcast on the me&my wellness podcasts page.