In an Age of Screens, Art Therapy Researchers Seek to Prove Hands-On Creativity Is Essential for Well-Being

Many of us have experienced a mental and physical boost from doing something creative, such as hitting the dance floor or knitting a scarf. But even if these benefits are obvious intuitively, proving the value of arts-related therapy scientifically is a crucial task for practitioners and scholars in the field.

What would it take to make the arts and creativity a pillar of well-being, alongside good nutrition, exercise, and sleep? Lately, that’s a question on the mind of Marygrace Berberian, a longtime licensed art therapist, clinical associate professor of art therapy, and director of the graduate Art Therapy program at NYU Steinhardt.

“Human beings were creative out of evolutionary need, to create the resources we needed to survive, such as tools for hunting, vessels for carrying water, cave paintings as maps. We strayed from that as industrialization happened, and now we have put ourselves behind these screens, and that is more problematic,” Berberian says. “So the question is really how do we get back there?”

Berberian and colleagues in medicine and creative arts therapy from around the world will explore this topic at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Healing Arts Week Research Symposium, Re-Imaging Health Through the Arts, that NYU Steinhardt and the Jameel Arts & Health Lab are hosting on September 22 as part of the UNGA Healing Arts Week.

The conference includes sessions on youth mental health, brain health and memory care, civil health and social connection, veterans services, and technological innovations, as well as a keynote address, “Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health,” presented by Daisy Fancourt, a professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at University College London who is the director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre on Arts and Health. Many NYU scholars and professors, including Deborah Damast, Alan Turry, and Nisha Sajnani, co-director of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, will participate alongside researchers and practitioners from universities including Harvard, Drexel, and Johns Hopkins, as well as institutions from the United Kingdom and Singapore.

During her career as professor and clinician, Berberian has worked with children enrolled in New York City public schools, with asylum-seeking migrant families, and with individuals suffering from degenerative diseases and other acute illnesses. Her research has focused on both mental health and physical well-being. She has collaborated with NYU Tandon School of Engineering, NYU College of Dentistry, and NYU Langone.

Ahead of the conference, Berberian spoke with NYU News about the importance of using empirical research to bolster what she has learned in her 30 years practicing and teaching creative arts therapy.

Why is this question about considering the arts and creativity central to well-being—alongside food, sleep, and all the other well-documented factors—something you’re focusing on right now?

That question makes me think about how early human beings were creative beings. My ancestors would sew together, make bread together, cultivate, build, and paint together. And we’ve strayed from that. We have been deprived of the joy of being able to use the interceptors of our hands and feel that reward circuitry. When you touch clay, there's a sensation that comes from your fingertips right up to your brain, and it gives you pleasure from the release of endorphins. There's so much good that happens to the body when your hands are able to create something. And we're not doing that. So for me, the idea of the arts being part of a holistic plan for well-being and wellness is us going back to what we've always known.

Why is it important to marshal scientific, empirical evidence to prove the thing you know from your practice?

I can tell you that this has been a transformative experience for so many people regardless of their ability, regardless of their developmental age, regardless of their level of functioning, from very young children to my 95-year-old participants. Anecdotally, I've known that for so long, but now we have the science to prove it. 

We need more research that shows the outcomes in a very quantitative way, in a scientific way, in a broad, systematic way. The people who are in charge of making policy rely on this data. Insurance companies use them when they’re trying to determine coverage. They want to know: is this protocol effective based on quantitative evidence? Even though I have collected thousands of testimonials from participants, none of that carries the same weight. The best way that we can show our value compared to more established mental health professions is by using the same language.