ART HEALS
Lesley Andrew 
5 ways to improve mental health using art
ART HEALS- Focus-5 Framework
5 WAYS TO IMPROVE MENTAL HEALTH USING ART
1) Activate
Increase your understanding of 'behavioural activation' and how art can be used as a way to change your mental state purely through the commitment to action and the feeling of enjoyment and achievement.
2)Regulate
Emotional ups and downs are inevitable in life but sometimes it can feel too much.
Art can be used to create a feeling of calm or to energise depending on your emotional state simply by choosing different art materials and different types of activities.
3) Express
I encourage you to express yourself using creative means.
It can be difficult to express ourselves sometimes and so making art can be a way to authentically express a thought feeling or experience without worrying how words might be received by others.
4) Explore
Being able to explore different aspects of ourselves and the world is essential in life and especially important when in pivotal times of development and experiencing life transitions.
The use of images, symbols and metaphors can allow different insights to be revealed with new meanings.
5) Empower
Feeling empowered using art isn't about making high quality images and artefacts but more about making connections to ones self and recognising the stages along the journey.
Creatively recognising achievements can feel less awkward for people sometimes and having an embodied sense of where heading can be significantly more powerful than just talking or writing about achievements and goals.