The Impact of Creative Arts Therapy

Jas Milam, ATR/BC

Registered, Board-Certified Art Therapist

Owner and Founder • Daily Practice Art, Art Therapy, and Wellness

 

 

For more than 20 years, Jas Milam has helped her clients put emotions to paper, canvas, wood panels, and more – though her life as an artist extends well beyond that. As the owner and founder of Daily Practice Art, Art Therapy, and Wellness, she believes that visual art can help save lives. Mostly because it helped to save hers first. 

“I have identified as an artist since childhood – painting, drawing, and sculpting my way through school,” Milam explains. “It was only natural that I would use art in my own healing from addictions, pain, and injustice in my 20s. I discovered that the art never lies! Art and therapy saved my life. I knew of art therapy and returned to grad school so I could learn more and help others who ‘speak art.’ I am still learning and still painting.”

 

 

Because engaging in visual art therapy promotes neuroplasticity – the brain’s capacity to reorganize through new neural connections – and stimulates the brain’s regions linked to emotion, memory, and creativity, Milam is able to help clients manage addictions, anxiety, stress, and depression, as well as increase their awareness of self and others. 

“Art is a language,” she says. “It accesses a different part of the brain/consciousness, getting us in touch with parts of ourselves that yearn to be heard from. Things we don’t know that we do know – that we need to know. We do talk some in art therapy, but some things are best ‘said’ without words.”

Though some people may shy away from art therapy because they are not artistic, Milam says art therapy is for everyone.

“You do not have to have talent or training to benefit from art therapy,” she explains. “Stick people or drawings tell amazing stories! Also, premade imagery – such as stickers, photographs, and collages – work well for beginners and ‘non-artists.’”

 

 

Whether in-person or online, individual, couple, or group sessions begin with conversation, drawing, and feedback with Milam. If it’s a good client-therapist fit, her weekly or biweekly sessions follow with a set curriculum, card check-ins, client-driven art therapy, and occasional homework. No matter what art therapy sessions look like, she encourages seeing a professional.

“Because art therapy is such a powerful and healing modality, it is important to make sure you access a registered, board-certified art therapist,” Milam finishes. “There’s an important old adage – if something can heal, it can also harm.”

Kennedi Bryant, MT-BC

Board-Certified Music Therapist

Director of Music Therapy • Chattanooga autism center

 

 

When Kennedi Bryant began singing at the age of 4, she never knew that her voice and musical talents would help to heal the minds, souls, and bodies of others. Now as a director of music therapy at the Chattanooga Autism Center (CAC), she – along with her ukulele and piano – helps patients to build social skills, refine cognitive and fine motor skills, as well as learn mathematics and how to follow directions.

Though Bryant says that traditional talk therapy and music therapy have the same end goal, the unique modality of song and instruments can break through social and mental boundaries – allowing clients to enjoy therapy and increase the likelihood for healing. 

 

 

“Our clients are often excited to come to music therapy, and just that alone directs them in the right direction of healing and mental wellness,” she says. “Making music is extremely enjoyable, and for them, it appears that we are playing instruments, singing, dancing, and playing games. Which in a sense we are, but we are also working on specific, non-musical goals that are individualized to that client, and they may not even be aware that we are working on them.”

Utilizing evidence-based interventions with songs like “Five Green and Speckled Frogs,” Bryant helps patients to activate both sides of their brains simultaneously, promoting stimulation and growth. For this reason, music therapy is excellent for those with anxiety, depression, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Bryant loves that the field allows her to combine her love for music and helping others to orchestrate successful treatment plans.

“One client’s goals may be to increase their articulation in speech, and I, as a music therapist, may use the drum to work towards that goal,” she explains. “The client is having fun singing and playing the drums, while I am facilitating our playing and singing to increase the articulation of that client’s speech. The client’s enjoyment of playing the drums also helps meet secondary goals such as emotional regulation and increasing self-esteem. It’s just a wonderful therapy that everyone can enjoy.”

 

 

Outside the music room, Bryant often presents at local schools, universities, and conferences about the science of music therapy. She says she hopes to mend misconceptions about the field and the services that music therapists provide.

“Music is a universal language, and everyone can benefit from music therapy,” Bryant finishes. “I wish people didn’t see music therapists as someone there to perform and have a good time. We are not performers; we are trained therapists that are there for a very important and specific purpose.”

Lexi D’Ambrosio, MA, ATR-BC

Master of Art in Art Therapy & Counseling and Board-Certified Art Therapist

Owner and founder • come as you are art therapy

 

 

With an elementary art teacher for a mother and a hairstylist, builder, sculptor, welder, and musician for a father, Lexi D’Ambrosio says her fate as an arts therapist was unavoidable. Though she admits it wasn’t until her late 20s when she decided it was “time to pivot in a dedicated way.” 

“I graduated from a small liberal arts school outside of Asheville, North Carolina, with a bachelor’s degree in studio art,” D’Ambrosio explains. “However, it took exploring different avenues like being a birth doula, being exposed to the realm of interior design, and later baking as well as hospitality before I found and landed on art therapy as a profession. Overall, I knew that I wanted to be of service to others.”

 

 

After earning her master’s in 2021 and board certification in 2024, D’Ambrosio combined her childhood and college experience to create her own private practice: Come as You Are Art Therapy. With paint, pencils, clay, collage, and more, she now helps individuals to express emotions that may be difficult to describe verbally.     

“Art speaks by evoking an emotion, or several!” she says. “It uses the elements of design to communicate experiences or states of being that can’t necessarily be articulated into words: line, shape, color, pattern, etc. It’s also highly symbolic and archetypal, pulling on imagery that is reiterated across time and cultures. This nonverbal means of communicating is what I find especially beneficial about the expressive therapies.”

Research shows that art therapy engages body-mind integration – interactions between neural, physiological, and psychological systems – and promotes healing while also helping to restore an individual’s sense of identity. For D’Ambrosio, this is what makes art therapy so powerful.

 

 

“In the process of creating, you are engaging with the self, learning more about yourself and the beliefs, emotions, and even physiological sensations you hold,” she explains. “And with that awareness comes the freedom to choose what, if anything, you’d like to do with it: release/surrender it, transform/transmute it, destroy it to make something new/different to put in its place. It can be a deeply empowering process that allows for not only agency but a newfound sense of confidence.”

When she’s not assisting with counseling programs at Baylor and UTC, leading arts and wellness workshops for the Girls Leadership Academy and The Chattery, or creating community murals – including a grant-funded tribute to the Devia Family – D’Ambrosio focuses on self-growth to better serve her patients and community.

“I believe that in order to truly be a mirror for others and be of service to the best of my capacity, it is pivotal, as a therapist, to develop an extremely intimate relationship with the self,” D’Ambrosio finishes. “Being aware of my own triggers, traumas, biases, limited perspectives, etc. helps me to set it all aside and truly say to the person across from me, ‘I see you.’”

Chyela Rowe, PhD, RDT/BCT

Doctor of Philosophy and Registered, Board-Certified Drama Therapist

Manager Of Arts Therapies And Well-Being • Chi Memorial – CommonSpirit

 

 

Chyela Rowe has always loved to dance, act out scenes from movies, and explore her world through the creative and performing arts. So much so that she knew she wanted to work in the mental health field by age 15 – hoping to “create a new type of therapy” with theater. To her surprise, though, drama has been established as a mode of creative arts therapy since the 1970s.

“I learned about drama therapy during a college capstone research assignment,” she says. “The earliest written protocols for theater as a healing practice date back to the Greek theater around 500 B.C., and it is known that dance, role-based performance, and music have always been part of healing practices in indigenous cultures worldwide.”

Research shows that traumatic events and chronic stress raise cortisol levels, disrupting the brain’s executive functioning system, which can make it harder to talk about or recall experiences. For this reason, drama therapy can help individuals to process their pain with the help of storytelling and role-play.

 

 

As the manager of arts therapies and well-being at CHI Memorial, Rowe uses drama as an active, experiential approach with hospital patients and staff to explore their emotions, set goals, and strengthen relationships – creating a space for catharsis, problem-solving, and personal growth overall.

“This is where the therapeutic goals are different from, say, the goals of an art class where participants make an artistic product for the purpose of public admiration and critique,” Rowe says. “In drama therapy, we have an ethical responsibility to protect participants from a public viewing or critiquing of the products of their sessions.”

Rowe says she felt isolated when her family moved to Chattanooga 15 years ago, as she was the only drama therapist and knew of only one other creative arts therapist in the region. For the past seven years, she has worked strategically to build collaborative relationships and highlight the importance of creative arts therapies. Now, Rowe and CHI Memorial have created a printed directory with more than 30 local board-certified creative arts therapists.

 

 

“People affiliated with our arts institutions like the Hunter Museum, AVA, Arts Build, Barking Legs, Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Chattanooga Ballet, Pop-Up Project, AIM Center, Public Art Chattanooga, and many others were really helpful in learning how artists and creative arts therapists can partner to meet the mental and social health needs in our community,” she says. “CHI has been a leader in demonstrating how having full-time board-certified creative arts therapists on staff in a medical hospital can support health outcomes for patients, increase well-being of our staff, and support community health through outreach, education, and training the next generation of creative arts therapy students.”

On December 1 of this year, Rowe hopes to continue to shine the spotlight on drama therapy as the president of the North American Drama Therapy Association.

Lauren Peterson, MS, BC-DMT

Master of Science, Board-Certified Dance/Movement Therapist, and Registered Yoga Teacher

Journey Mental Health

 

 

At age 21, Lauren Peterson didn’t realize how much dancing had benefited her mental health until she took a year-long break from the creative arts. Now, as she helps her patients to reconnect with and feel more at home within their bodies, she is grateful for the realization and how it eventually led her to pursue her career as a dance/movement therapist.   

“I would have never guessed that dance would have been my major coping skill and profession when I was younger,” Peterson says. “Long story short, I got intimidated by the arts in my college theater and photography program. So, I stopped taking arts-based classes, and my mental health tanked. However, I was desperately seeking movement outlets that weren’t traditional exercise (which had become compulsive for me). I didn’t know at the time that I have a brain that craves and needs movement to regulate myself.” 

 

 

Dance therapy as a mental health profession began in the 1940s and includes the use of dance, movement, and somatic (body-based) awareness in session. Using movement, Peterson can help individuals recognize how trauma is stored in the body and nervous system and create a space for healthy release.

“Creativity is worthy of practicing for holistic health,” she explains. “We don’t necessarily need to create a dance that we would perform on stage because the intention is to let movement help the client to move through, feel, and process their emotions. Sometimes there is a great deal of verbal processing and insight in those discussions. Sometimes the client leaves feeling better in their body and better emotionally, but, after working with their body, the insights for breakthrough come later in the form of a dream or a powerful thought they have while brushing their teeth.” 

 

 

Lauren loves that dance therapy now allows her to help others process the same struggles that she experienced. In fact, she invites individuals with trauma, disordered eating, body image issues, substance use and disorder cravings, anxiety, depression, or symptoms of living with ADHD and autism to join the dance.

“I’m passionate about making sure people know they can dance just for themselves and ultimately how powerful that can be,” she finishes. “Despite being one of the only dance therapists in town, I think we have a great opportunity to learn different ways of dancing and connecting to the body. Chattanooga has a beautiful dance and arts community, and I think the more people that understand the arts and creativity can benefit them holistically, the better!”

Jordan Wood, MT-BC

Board-Certified Music Therapist

Erlanger behavioral health hospital

 

 

Jordan Wood says he can’t remember a time when music wasn’t a part of his life. His family has always been musically inclined, but he admits he hadn’t thought of it as a profession until he learned about music therapy and how it could help individuals in physical rehabilitation.

“Music has been ingrained in me since birth,” Wood explains. “But I was first drawn to music therapy when I read an article about how it could be used to help people in rehab hospitals for strokes, traumatic brain injuries, or other neurological conditions. I have always loved music, but finding a career where I could use it to help others in their recovery process is such a special opportunity.”

 

 

Though that was the start of his journey, Jordan says he found even more purpose in music therapy when his best friend’s child was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To try to help his friends and their child in their journey, Wood and his wife came across several articles that pointed to music therapy for support – ultimately discovering that the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) had a program for it.

Graduating in 2024 from UTC, Wood is now a board-certified music therapist at Erlanger Behavioral Health Hospital where he helps patients with ASD, depression, anxiety and stress, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychosis, grief, substance abuse, and more. Here, he has learned that the power of a patient’s favorite song can be the mental breakthrough that they need to heal. 

“I think creative arts in general offers an opportunity to engage our minds in unique ways,” Wood says. “People are not always able to express themselves whether it is a developmental delay, an emotional block, or a neurologic condition or trauma. However, people relate emotions and memories to certain songs and artists, and it can provide a much easier way to express themselves when they feel like they don’t have the words.”

As Wood helps UTC students with their practicum, he hopes more people come to understand the depth and power of the field.

 

 

“We are an evidence-based practice that has been around professionally since the 1940s,” he says. “Music therapy works with cognitive goals, communication and language skills, physical and motor skills, emotional and psychological needs, sensory regulation, medical rehab needs, neonatal care, behavioral issues, social interaction skills, and even end of life and palliative care goals. For many, music therapy can be an impactful process.”

Living in Chattanooga for more than 15 years now, Wood and his family want to see music therapy and its life-changing impacts grow within Chattanooga.

“I would love to see Chattanooga grow and become a beacon for all types of creative arts therapies,” he finishes. “I think Chattanooga has a deep-seated passion for music, and I would love to be a part of building the knowledge of music therapy here.”