"With Licensure, we can acknowledge a facet of psychotherapy and allow alternative ways to process outside of talk therapy to assist more clients and patients we serve as well as create more opportunities for services providers especially in those high need or rural areas where resources are limited."

-Jessica W.

"When words may be difficult to identify, the art materials have been an essential tool that provides a journey into a sensory experience, self-exploration, meaning, knowledge, and healing."

- Rachelle M. 

"[Art therapy is] a way to non-verbally express her emotions and feelings, which are sometimes hard to put into words." 

-Parent

"Art therapy is an important tool for individuals to comfortably communicate what’s on someone’s mind that could not express properly with words."

-SL

"Using art, I explored difficult things for me with my words. It not only gives me confidence but also helps me drive myself to be a better human being. With art, I personally can say that it has saved my life. I love expressing myself using art and helping the supporting clients use art therapy. As an art therapist, I love my job, and I love supporting my clients using art."

-Bethani K.

"It helped her open up to her therapist, especially in the beginning.  She can be guarded and self-conscious, but art is a language that she can understand and engage with.  Over time, she and her therapist spent more time talking and working through issues in the more traditional way, but art was the vehicle that got them to that point."

-Parent

"[Art therapy] allowed me to reconnect to my creativity and see new possibilities for my own life. Art therapy helped me reconnect with younger versions of myself and begin to find healing for those younger parts of myself.  And, art therapy opened a new career prospect for me, blending my artistic self with my desire to be in a helping profession."

-Lauren G.

"[My child] will mentality process a session better if he get to work with [art] while he talks."

-Parent

"I believe art therapy is very important and deserving of its own State licensure because the research supports its effectiveness. Expressing feelings can be difficult for some, especially when trauma is involved. Art Therapy allows client expression in a more creative way instead of the more traditional verbal process. This process helps others to better understand their feelings more clearly. The nonverbal approach to understanding the self allows clients to explore what may be underneath the surface."

-Anonymous

"When people are in crisis and at a crossroads in terms of their physical and psychiatric health, I have witnessed how they have experienced connection, meaning, healing, acceptance, and relief within themselves due to working with an Art Therapist. Art Therapy has the power to uplift the human spirit by promoting hope, peace, and compassion during these troubled times."

- AE

"[Art therapy] has been a game changer. Her ability to identify and manage her anxiousness with the resources she has been given has allowed her to return to her life as a healthy, active teenager."

-Parent

"We believe in the power of art therapy from a neuroscience standpoint as well as it creates significant improvements for people's mental health.  I believe that art therapists deserve their own licensure because of the in-depth education and training one takes to embark on a career in art therapy."  

-Melanie V.

"...Before art therapy, my emotions took over and drove me to rage many times at home and in the workplace; however, through art therapy I have learned to listen to my body, recognize triggers, and utilize art therapy to gain control over my emotions so I don't spiral out of control. Licensure for Clinical Art Therapy in the state of Minnesota is something I support 100% because I have seen the effectiveness it can lend in calming the inner spirit."

-RK

"I have worked with Art Therapists for over 15 years in a partial hospital and IOP and have referred many adolescent and young adult patients to art therapy.I have seen over and over how art therapy can help with the healing process of many mental health disorders:) There are so many persons struggling with mental health who have a difficult time verbalizing their story and with art therapy they can be more non verbal and expressive...through art...of this emotional pain until they can share more. Also art expression is healing in itself as a medium of emotional pain through art💥"

- Laura K.

"During the last 10 years, I have worked as a Therapist and a Chaplain in healthcare with patients experiencing acute physical and psychiatric distress. Over the past decade, I have had the pleasure of working with 3 Art Therapists as colleagues on the Psychiatric Units. I have witnessed how the offering of Art Therapy has a magical effect on patients and staff in a hospital context. It promotes healing and the development of the spirit through the exercise of creativity and expression. I barely make it through a day at work without hearing a patient describe their appreciation for the chance to work with our Art Therapist. It is clear to me that patients have found Art Therapy to be a sacred process that restores hope."

-AE

"I am from a small town in Iowa. I did not have access to mental health or dyslexia supports, however I did have art class. I was in love with making art in high school and found that it was the way I could most easily express and process my inner world without ever talking about it. That led me to getting my undergraduate degree in Studio Art and Business and almost a decade in production ceramics before I made the switch into a masters program to merge art with the depth psychology of individual psychology. Art Therapy is a uniquely supportive therapy that I can offer now because a clinical track for the full masters exists. My credentials I received through the full masters program also allowed me to apply and get accepted into a doctoral program to further my abilities. I consider it my vocation and that it is the way I can engage my community in a supportive and deeply creative way."

-NB