LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines  — A children and youth wellness center here is lobbying mental health professionals to incorporate art in their therapeutic methods as they gained partnership with a US-based group to train local health counselors on art therapy.

Psychologist Marylendra A. Penetrante, director of the Children and Youth Wellness Technical and Advocacy Center (CYWTAC), said art could be used to treat emotional disturbances, adjustment problems or even severe mental health problems.

“We have it here but not all (therapists) are trained on this method,” Penetrante told the Manila Bulletin yesterday.

Art therapy, said Penetrante, is a form of expressive therapy that uses art materials. It is combined with traditional psychotherapeutic theories and techniques with an understanding of the psychological aspects of the creative process, especially the affective properties of the different art materials.

“For the past eleven years as a psychologist, I have seen the effect of arts when integrated in the therapeutic intervention plan for clients,” she said.

Penetrante said that art therapy, an international accredited treatment process, is based on the belief that the creative process involved in artistic self-expression help people resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, manage behavior, reduce stress, increase self-esteem and self-awareness and achieve insight.

Albay-based CYWTAC partnered with Global ARTery, an art-based consultancy that offers individual and group art therapy, therapeutic art workshops around the world.