Art Therapy is an effective way for clients struggling with addictions to begin to gain access to the full range of their feelings, emotions and ideas.  It helps them to verbalize and start to withstand, past intolerable affects.  As their understanding expands, they are able to acknowledge the necessary changes they must make in order to live a drug free life.

Counsellors choose individual clients for art therapy that have difficulty expressing themselves verbally.

Art therapy bypasses the potential manipulation of the spoken word and focuses them on the issues that need to be explored and understood in order to facilitate a change in their behaviour.

The therapeutic alliance that forms in individual art therapy offers the client support and encouragement as they begin their journey to build a more cohesive self.

Lia Falzon, DTATI

A graduate of the Toronto Art Therapy Institute and resident art therapist since 2005.  She is a candidate at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute and has a private practice.