Art and Healing: Using Expressive Art to Heal Your Body, Mind, and Spirit

This book is an inspiration! The material is presented simply, clearly, and in a logical progression. Ater reading the first few chapters, which talk about how to use the art and healing process, and the differences in expressing emotions verbally and through imagery, I felt I had a much better understanding of the topic and the confidence to try the process for myself. One of the things I especially like about it, is that it contains plenty of anecdotal work with clients and includes the artwork that came out of their process (which helped relieve the insecurity I felt about my own art ability). At the end of each chapter, Ganim gives the reader exercises to try at home, along with guided visualizations to help relax you into each exercise. Then she provides self-dialoguing questions to help you understand what your images might mean. I found this book the next best thing to taking a workshop on Art and Healing. The only thing that would make it better would be to offer audio tapes with the guided visualizations on it, which would make it that much easier to work on this at home.

Just what I needed for my class

This is a very good book to help anyone learn about expressive arts and to use them for healing of self or for others. Simple and yet deep at the same time. Ganim takes us on a jouney and show us how to approach our emotions through the art work. The examples of visual pieces are just wonderful.Excellent for individual work, group therapy, and most definitely children. This book is a very fast read and you may find yourself flying a little to fast through the pages...but I would have to say this is a worthy book to any clinician or client who want to gain understanding for themselves and others.

An excellent book. Very practical.. It is the prelude to Gamin and Fox's Visual Journalling text. The book is practical and helpful. I have used the process suggested in my work with healing results.

What an inspiration! I highly recommend this new edition! It's even better than the original printing.Don't wait to order your copy.

In an increasingly complex world, I have come to find that Art Therapy is just as vast, with many different schools. I love Barbara Ganim's approach to art as a personal practice for emotional expression, self-discovery, creative development, and just plain fun! It's not in the same vein of art as psychothereapy, although I'm sure there are cross-overs.Art and Healing is a book that meets you where you are. With a great many number of exercises that you can do in whatever order you like whenever you want. Before I wrote this review, I found myself diving into the Healing the Body section because I recently started a medical treatment that I have conflicted feelings about. Barbara made me realize that attitude has a huge influence on my body's response to treatment and her exercise helped me ascertain the feeling-images that I am currently holding. What stress I had! Through a series of drawings, I have created an image that directs my body and mind to work in harmony with the treatments.I highly recommend this book for anyone who is looking for a guide to self-healing through the arts.

The beautiful thing about this book is that anyone who is interested in personal transformation through art may find guidance and inspiration in these pages. Barbara leads one to discover the healing power of creativity within regardless of whether or not one has any experience creating art. Anyone can experience the healing power of art and Barbara eloquently describes how. As a clinical art therapist, I have utilized Art and Healing for inspiration and ideas as well as for my own well-being. Indeed, this book along with  Visual Journaling: Going Deeper than Words  inspired me to professionally pursue my passion for art and healing.

Ms. Ganim's wealth of experience, fluency in art, and intuitive understanding of the human experience comes through in this book. Case studies and excellent color plates help to put life into the points and exercises she gives. There is a tendency to hyperbole and sometimes what seems too good to be true may be just that. But I concede that tendency to anyone who is enthusiastic about their work. This book is made to be used. The exercises are doable and procede in a logical, stepwise fashion. No one needs to be an artist to benefit from these exercises. Ms. Ganim's definition of healing as opposed to cure puts this work in perspective and gives it validity. I would highly recommend it to anyone seriously looking to experience healing in mind, body, and spirit.

This is so concise and helpful, with amazing pictures. A beautiful book