One of the things I love most about my profession is the ability to manifest.

I’m not just talking about dreams and aspirations, but literally about the opportunity to manifest—to turn a thought, idea, or feeling into something tangible, real, something with a concrete place in the world.

When we seek therapy, we’re essentially looking for our own place in the world—a real and also emotional space where we receive listening, understanding, validation, and help. This is true in the vast majority of situations in all our lives. Psychotherapy is a very abstract thing, so it’s not always easy to connect with it or understand it (even from within). Many therapies, especially at the beginning, are characterized by patients feeling misunderstood, unclear—to themselves, to the world, and to me. There is an initial fear at the start that what is experienced or felt will not come across as it really is. It’s a truly awful feeling that sometimes discourages those considering seeking help.

Another challenging aspect that can deter people from therapy is the feeling that the language is somewhat worn out—that therapy is a situation where clichés often creep in. A lot depends on the words we choose to use, and that’s not always easy. Even if at some point we feel relief, sometimes it’s hard to sustain it emotionally over time. Talking helps, but sometimes it’s not enough, and then there arises the need to do, to act.

In art therapy, you can do, and even if it’s small or symbolic—it might create a big difference.

To avoid staying in the abstract, here’s an example:

Sometimes, after some time—when the therapeutic relationship is more established, the initial embarrassment has disappeared, and a pleasant feeling of trust and connection gradually emerges, something you can build on long-term—suddenly someone comes with something broken. Something real, an object, jewelry, a piece of clothing. Even a small electronic device. Regardless of the therapy or the topics that came up so far, just something exactly broke.

“I saw you have special glue/thread and needle/some metal part just like this/cardboard that might fit perfectly/anything else in the toolbox—maybe since I’m here you could fix this for me? I was really sad to part with it.”

Oh, just give me such opportunities… This is exactly the moment when I offer we fix it together, we think together about a solution that’s good for the one asking for the repair of the precious item—maybe there’s a way that wasn’t thought of before and is worth a look. We are still with the object itself, not immediately turning it into a clatter of deeper meanings, because again, the broken thing requires repair and it’s not related to therapy, after all. It just so happens there is something here that can help with that.

Maybe it will remain a completely concrete thing, a punctual help with something, a closure. Or maybe not. Maybe it will be a springboard to a shared experience of connection between a physical object, mundane as it may be—and a life experience, memory, thought, meaning that the thing holds in your life. Maybe we will understand in retrospect what role that thing had here, in this somewhat laborious, therapeutic situation. What it enabled and what part it played in the overall process. What it allowed to be said that was hard to say without it?

A few years ago, I worked in a boarding school with children and teens who were removed from their homes by court order for their welfare. Many of them did not connect at all with the concept of creation, art, and even less liked sharing feelings in conversations. But there is one thing that all, without exception, loved to do with me—cast a hand or leg in plaster.

What’s to love about that? Everything! The process itself, the warmth of the plaster on the skin as it dries, the many layers of wrapping, the repetition, the immersion in this calm, quiet act, so different from the intensive routine in the boarding school. The highlight: leaving the room with dramatic cries of “Ouch! It hurts! I broke my hand! Come sign this for me quickly!” and shortly after a line of interested kids forming, most skeptical and familiar with the trick, waiting their turn to use it themselves knowing they too will get to run such a line of interested peers.

Even though it was a game—it was also an opportunity to shout out loud “It hurts!” without apologizing or explaining. An opportunity to ride the wave and let a moment of truth emerge through a complex reality filled with many challenges and a thin layer of armor and protection. Through the play of the fracture, the experience of asking for help, the path to healing, and ultimately—in the repair of the imaginary fracture in the body—there was a strong expression of the difficulty, the emotional break—and also the beginning of the way forward, with the hope for repair.

We all have something to fix, something we put aside or put in some drawer and said, “It’s probably lost.” Maybe we threw it away or passed it on with a “travel warning”—it’s broken and needs repair, maybe it will work for you someday but it’s probably not for me. Unlike the simple repair of the object—the connection between the act of repair and life reality is done in a measured and gradual way, which, as mentioned, does not seek to find meanings beyond but allows the matter to reveal itself in time. It is a delicate stitching act that requires investment and a unique adaptation based on listening and deep familiarity, so that the connection will be appropriate, relevant, and durable over time.

The ability to create connections between the here and now that takes place within the therapeutic encounter and the broader essential life experiences that affect our wellbeing is one of the important cornerstones of psychotherapy. The special power of art therapy in particular lies in the ability to manifest abstract mental contents through action and material and give them space (literally and figuratively). The sensory and tangible experience of manifesting mental contents can effectively initiate processes of change that might have remained inaccessible if they hadn’t been given a real place in the world.

The possibility to reflect on such content after creating it in material also allows the development of hope and belief that it is possible to change the current life reality, and that there is someone who can safely accompany you on the way.

It is an enormous privilege for me to be in this position, to have the honor of accompanying people on the way to a place they want to be, sometimes also helping them understand where they might aspire to arrive.