For people suffering with chronic pain, it can feel like the pain is taking control of their livelihood, quality of life, relationships, behavior, mood, thoughts, and even personality. It is well known and documented that the decreased function and emotional suffering that often accompany chronic pain can lead to depression. Patients may get stuck in unhealthy behavioral patterns and unintentionally reinforce their pain.

As a complementary practice, art therapy lends itself particularly to pain management, since pain is difficult to express in words alone. Elaine Scarry expressed this well in The Body in Pain: the making and unmaking of the world. She writes: Physical pain is not only resistant to language but also actively destroys language, deconstructing it into the pre-language of cries and groans. The imagery and materials used in art therapy contribute an entirely new language of communication and understanding. This visual imagery may arise spontaneously or by suggestion, may originate in dreams, movies, figures of speech, and more.

The management of chronic pain requires an integrative approach, such as art therapy, for optimal outcomes. Treating the emotional aspects of pain is as necessary to managing the pain condition as is treating the physical symptoms. Patients’ cognitive processes and emotional states have a great impact on their perceptions of pain, pain tolerance, and beliefs about their own functioning. Treatment using art therapy directives decreases physical and emotional stress, and allows one to harnesses the power of their own mind to help heal their own body and spirit. Those suffering pain can regain control over their emotional and physiological responses that, when left untreated, can intensify pain. This mastery cycle in self empowerment enhances feelings of wellness and causes symptoms of depression to abate. Patients can overcome the search for unrealistic solutions and re-engage with their lives.

Patients do not need to know how to draw or "do art" to participate.

Utilizing the Relaxation Response
One particular art therapy directive and relaxation technique utilizes guided imagery, the mind-body technique of conscious meditation, whereby physiological changes take place allowing the body to relax. Activating the relaxation response results in decreased physical and emotional stress. Patients then can allow themselves to be drawn into the often profound experience, and to be assisted in achieving balance of mind, body and spirit so often in disequilibrium due to pain. Over time, this practice may act synergistically to reduce and manage the severity of a chronic pain condition.

Mechanism of Action
While it is unclear from a neurological standpoint exactly how art therapy works to help alleviate pain, it apparently has the ability to unlock frozen brain circuits that may help in reexperiencing pain - altering pain’s pathways and one’s experience of the pain.

No Need to be Artistic to Participate
Because art therapy is a relatively new, somewhat unfamiliar treatment option, patients may be hesitant to engage. However, patients need not know how to draw or do art. They need only be receptive to the process. The combination of imagery with the spoken word (talk therapy) creates a dynamic energy that is exponentially powerful - much more than the sum of its parts.