Art Therapy Interventions for Mental Health in Children and Adolescents

Art therapy encompasses a range of structured and experiential interventions that engage children and adolescents in creative processes—such as drawing, painting, sculpture and collaborative media—to support emotional expression, social connection and coping. Delivered in clinical, school and community settings, these interventions are tailored to developmental stage, cultural context and individual need. Core objectives include the reduction of anxiety, depression and trauma symptoms; enhancement of self-esteem and emotional regulation; and the promotion of resilience and interpersonal skills. Art therapists draw on psychodynamic, humanistic and cognitive-behavioural frameworks to establish a therapeutic alliance and to activate mechanisms of change such as externalisation of inner experience, symbolic processing and play. In recent years there has been growing emphasis on scalable, community-based models that harness local arts and cultural resources, as well as on embedding art therapy within educational systems to provide preventive and early-intervention support. Evaluation efforts have focused on both quantitative symptom measures and qualitative accounts of psychosocial well-being, underscoring the importance of mixed-method designs and transdisciplinary collaboration to capture short- and long-term outcomes.

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Art Therapy Interventions for Mental Health in Children and Adolescents publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in art therapy interventions for mental health in children and adolescents across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Art therapy: A psychotherapeutic intervention in which creative art processes are used under professional guidance to support emotional, cognitive and social development.

Participatory arts-based programmes: Structured group or community initiatives that engage children actively in art creation to foster mental health and social cohesion.

Therapeutic alliance: The collaborative, trusting relationship between therapist and client that underpins effective intervention and supports client engagement.

Psychosocial well-being: A holistic state encompassing psychological health and social functioning, including emotional resilience and interpersonal relationships.

Mechanisms of change: The underlying psychological and relational processes—such as externalisation, symbolisation and communal support—through which art therapy produces therapeutic effects.

References

1. Supporting youth mental health with arts-based strategies: a global perspective. BMC Medicine (2024).
2. Practitioner Review: Effectiveness and mechanisms of change in participatory arts‐based programmes for promoting youth mental health and well‐being – a systematic review. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2023).
3. Art Therapy for Psychosocial Problems in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Narrative Review on Art Therapeutic Means and Forms of Expression, Therapist Behavior, and Supposed Mechanisms of Change. Frontiers in Psychology (2020).