Art Therapy and Wellness Programs for Vets through Museums

Art therapy with military active duty and veterans has been an important part of their healing throughout MTFs, VAs, and even in the community. One such program is Art for Vets that is offered through an art museum in New Hampshire. Interestingly, one of my former supervisees, Jackie, was interviewed for this article as she talks about how art is an important part of healing for service members and veterans from trauma, moral injury, and other issues that stem from military service.

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/11/29/museums-therapeutic-art-programme-helps-military-veterans-find-their-voices

Museum’s therapeutic art programme helps military veterans find their voices

Art for Vets initiative at Currier Museum of Art in the US encourages personal expression under the care of a full-time art therapist

Kimberly Hatfield

29 November 2024

The Currier Museum of Art consulted veterans for its 2013 exhibition Visual Dispatches from the Vietnam War, where they also acted as tour guides. This project was a catalyst for the ongoing Art for Vets programme

Photo: courtesy Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire

“If I feel depressed and I need to redirect, acrylics are going to be good because it’s longer term—acrylic is a paint you can go to and do some work on to self-regulate,” says the retired army special operations major David Potter, a 28-year veteran who served missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa. Repeated blast exposures caused brain injuries in combat for which he received the Purple Heart, but which also devastated many aspects of his life. His road to recovery has included both traditional and alternative therapies to heal his body and mind.

Potter has been participating in the art and wellness experiences through the Art for Vets programme at the Currier Museum of Art since his full-time move to Manchester, New Hampshire, in 2020. He has found great satisfaction in creating his own colour palette, watching the canvas absorb his paints and developing the skills of an artist. Beyond these hands-on skills, he says the programme helps veterans better understand their own emotions, learn new ways to self-regulate and engage in a hobby that helps redirect them if they are struggling.

Potter is not alone. A recent study found that one in five veterans from the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from serious depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is estimated that one in four in the US military face mental health challenges. And more than 485,000 service members were diagnosed with traumatic brain injury between 2000 and 2023.

“There’s a lot of challenges and a lot of isolation,” says Lucie Amaro Chmura, the Currier’s art therapist. While not all veterans struggle with mental health issues, many find re-entry challenging. She says that the military community has a shared experience that civilians cannot comprehend. “Part of the way I developed the programme is really to support more connection with the community, within the veteran community but also to support integration within the non-veteran community,” she says.

The Currier is one of very few museums to offer veterans and active military members a suite of free programming under the care of a full-time art therapist. While the museum is cautious to label them as wellness—not therapy—programmes, its monthly family days, seasonal workshops, virtual sessions and weekly in-gallery and in-studio art experiences continually provide a place for veterans to feel seen and valued.

The art is not incidental. The hands-on classes range from expressive creations using collage and objects found in nature to mixed-media memoir. They often work off a theme, but Amaro Chmura emphasises that the goal is less about output and more about the chance to self-reflect, build skills and share.

Jacqueline Jones, a board-certified art therapist and founder of Flourish Momentum, developed clinical art therapy services for military members suffering from traumatic brain injuries and psychological distress at the Intrepid Spirit Center at Fort Belvoir in Virginia and the Invisible Wounds Center at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

Jones explains that art is an important tool in healing from invisible wounds. Trauma can disrupt areas of the brain that process words, leaving the sufferer unequipped to verbalise their challenges and manage overwhelming feelings.

“But what you resist persists, and what is genuinely seen and met and heard naturally transmutes and shifts,” Jones says. Art therapy allows the essence of what needs to be addressed to come out. “It provides a pathway to resolve what is underlying the conditions someone is seeking to improve. I have had clients refer to art therapy as the ‘scalpel to the soul’. It provides a direct route to what is the underlying issue. Long term, it helps them create a shift deep down that helps them resolve the grief or trauma or moral injury.”

Vietnam veterans forged the path

Art for Vets was founded more than a decade ago after an incredible misstep, says Kurt Sundstrom, the Currier’s senior curator of collections.

Around 2012, Sundstrom planned a Vietnam war photography exhibition to explore the lasting power of images such as Eddie Adams’s prisoner execution and Nick Ut’s napalm girl. He reached out to members of New Hampshire’s veteran community—proportionally larger than in most states, at 7.7% of the overall population—for input. The meeting did not go well.

“They were pissed,” Sundstrom says. The photographs in the show, iconic for their depictions of the senseless brutality of war, fuelled an anti-war, anti-veteran sentiment then, and reopened wounds for those veterans.

Sundstrom rebuilt trust and asked the group to take the lead on contextualising the show. Visual Dispatches from the Vietnam War ran for around three months in 2013, with Vietnam veterans serving as tour guides and then meeting regularly at the museum. The Currier, which prides itself on community engagement, recognised a population with an unmet need.

Today, around 270 individuals from all branches of the military are enrolled in the Art for Vets programme, with a retention rate of 98%. Through the monthly Vets Family Day, which includes free lunch and activities, an additional 600 veteran family members participate annually.

Potter, who also participates in the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association, says art is “a cool vehicle” that connects him with fellow service members while exploring other aspects of his identity. “It helps me to get a new skill to either regulate myself or to improve my self-esteem, and also to redefine myself as a civilian.”

• The Art for Vets programme at the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire

Neuropsychologist Discusses the Benefits of Art Therapy and Therapeutic Art

I have mixed feelings about this article. They interview a neuropsychologist who touts the advantages of art therapy, and how it is helpful as a clinical treatment, especially with anxiety.  She posits that artists are likely to be more open to art therapy because of their familiarity with the materials, but I have found often that artistically-inclined people can actually be the most resistant (changes how they do art with the introspection involved, for instance).  She even quotes some research about how art making for 45 minutes can reduce anxiety, which is great that she is familiar with the study.

Later in the article, however, they switch to discussing art-based hobbies that you can pursue on your own at home and have the same effect as art therapy.  That is a fine line because similar effects can be felt, but they don't get into the difference of making things creatively that have a therapeutic effect and what art therapy is by definition, which is clinical treatment facilitated by a credentialed professional to address specific treatment issues.  In fact, at the bottom, they include the suggestion "Want to try art therapy at home? Check out these artistic kits to help you get started."  I just hope it doesn't mislead people into thinking they can knit or paint themselves out of a severe depression on their own.  Those kinds of approaches I would rather call therapeutic art making.

Regardless, I'm happy for some positive reports about art therapy in the news. Perhaps I'm too strict and sensitive on this issue, so if you have your own opinions on the article, sound off below!

Does Art Therapy Really Work? We Asked a Neuropsychologist

written by AMY LAWRENSON

 UPDATED JAN 29, 2020

Paint brushes

PEXELS / DEEANA GARCIA

Art therapy is a creative way to tackle anxiety, but does it really work? We live in a society where low-level (and sometimes full-on) stress and anxiety is a daily given. From the constant sensory overload of social media, an ever-increasing inbox and the pressure of an almost always-on social life, we're more stressed and anxious than ever. And those niggling feelings are hard to tame. According to the American Psychiatric Association, almost 40 million Americans have an anxiety disorder (yes, you read that number right), while around 40 percent of the population admitted to feeling more anxious in 2018 compared with the year prior.

Art therapy has been used since the mid 20th century as a way for people to use creative exercises like painting and drawing to enhance feelings of mental well-being and to promote healing. Of course, you can sign-up for a pricey pottery or jewelry-making class, but finding something that you can do easily at home is a great way to get going too. And while art therapy may sound a bit out-there, it is, in fact, a legitimate form of therapy. Anxiety UK tells Byrdie that "most arts and crafts, such as knitting or baking or similar activities, are mindfulness activities which are a proven way of helping with stress, anxiety and/or anxiety-based depression."

Intrigued? To find out more about art therapy and how you can reap the benefits, we called on Dr. Sanam Hafeez to get us up to speed, so keep reading.

MEET THE EXPERT

Dr. Sanam Hafeez is an NYC-based neuropsychologist and faculty member at Columbia University. She is also a member of Byrdie's Beauty & Wellness Review Board.

Byrdie: Could you tell us about art therapy and whether or not it actually works?

Dr. Sanam Hafeez: Art therapy (AT) as a treatment option for anxiety is regularly employed in clinical practice, but scientific evidence for its effectiveness is lacking since this intervention has hardly been studied. Art therapy has been used for about 50 years.

Byrdie: Can artistic pursuits help everyone dealing with stress or does it only suit people who are naturally artistic? 

SH: People who are artistically inclined will likely be more readily open to it. For those who are not, there might be some initial resistance. Nothing about art therapy is “results” oriented or has any element of competition or evaluation. Once those are not “born artists” realize this, they tend to be more open. Art Therapy is used to improve cognitive and sensory-motor functions, foster self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, enhance social skills, reduce and resolve conflicts and distress. 

Therefore, it is suited to almost alone open to the process.

Byrdie: Why does art therapy help people feel relaxed?

SH: Results of a 2016 study published in the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association found that just 45 minutes of creative activity can reduce your stress, regardless of artistic experience or talent. It fosters relaxation because when you are focused on creating, it takes your mind off things, even if you are just doodling and not painting like Picasso. It can put you into a “state of flow” which is a near meditative state. It calms the nervous system, encourages self-expression and self- awareness. It also gives me time to themselves in a relaxing environment.

When you are focused on creating, it takes your mind off things... It can put you into a 'state of flow' which is a near meditative state.

Byrdie: When looking for an art-based hobby, have some things been proven to help more than others? 

SH: Aside from art, there are similar types of (non-sporting) activities that can have the same effect as art therapy, such as knitting or crocheting, writing, gardening, playing a musical instrument and volunteering with animals.

The most important thing is to choose something that you enjoy so that you will be engrossed in the activity and stick with it. If your mind is focused on an activity, there is much less space for your brain to be anxious.

If you have tried painting as a means of art therapy and didn’t like it, don’t give up. The next time, try pottery, collaging, digital art, textiles, or perhaps jewelry making. There are many different types of art. Find the one that best suits your interest and diverts your anxiety.