Depression Diaries: Healing Through Artistic Expression

Depression is an affliction that most households know silently. It has an indirect influence on our lives. It impedes our psyches like an iceberg does to the landscape in its own dredging wake. Healing can be done in our own time as well, and we have to move our own mountains. Diaries have been shown time and time again to be a helpful practice in mental resilience outcomes. They function on an internal scale, deeply personal and internally direct. The experience of depression phases in and out, leaving one disoriented internally. Journaling provides rigidity and a place to delve into the deepest self. This can be exhibited in day-to-day actions as a short list or a small note to self, expanding forthwith. In today’s Depression Diary, we are looking at artistic expression as a path for healing. Sit back and read along. This should take 5 minutes—a reclamation of your creativity.

With something as elusive and self-protecting as depression, we humans have made many tools to liberate the psyche. Today, the oldest of these tools will be discussed. It has been clinically attuned in recent decades but continues to provide effective treatment for the unspeakable. Depression often brings with it a sense of isolation and numbness, making it difficult to communicate that one needs assistance. Through art—whether it's painting, drawing, writing, music, or dance—individuals can externalize their inner turmoil, transforming intangible emotions into something tangible. The evocative nature of art is not solely reserved for the beholder but for the creator as well. A mystic poet of influence throughout the ages wrote, “We carry inside us wonders we seek outside us.” Rumi understood that no matter what lay outside us, we ultimately feel from within, and a reaction is felt and elicited internally. Inside is where the magic is. We are the decision and wonder we seek. Art is very much about living this truth out. Art can be a precise or imprecise endeavour, but it is always an expression.

Art allows one to be immersed in the present moment. Depression is often noted as an impediment, a weight overbearing and unrelenting on one’s human condition. Art is positioned to be an alleviation from this. Consider the following quote from the American Art Therapy Association, a leading authority on the subject, released in About Art Therapy (2018):

“Improve cognitive and sensorimotor functions, enhance self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, improve social skills, reduce and resolve conflicts and distress, and advance societal and ecological change.”

Art therapy clinically opens our experience to the world. It has even been shown to help with traumatic instances such as strokes and statistically improved depression, stress, and anxiety measures, as studied by Alwledat et al. (2023). So much talk about art and art therapy, but what can science tell us about making science out of art? Can we delineate a protocol? Others have asked, and in 2016, a consensus was probed.

Blomdahl and researchers aimed to explore what the main aspects of art therapy in clinical settings are considered to be by experts, specifically for patients with depression. They surveyed 18 occupational therapists, experienced and educated in art therapy. These therapists answered 3 rounds of questionnaires, and assertions were ascertained as either within consensus or outside of consensus. More agreement was found within theoretical frames of reference—the potential theories at play in therapeutic art—than in clinical practice. Art therapy was agreed to be an opportunity for patients to express themselves verbally and indiscriminately through art. Art tasks must be primed and aimed to address depressive thoughts, feelings, life experiences, and physical symptoms.

This has been an introduction to artistic expression as a tool for managing depression. We hope that this leaves you informed and calm! If you are struggling with mental health, it is important to know that you are not alone.