W.Va. therapist gets to the heart through art

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Barbara Schwartz-Arevalo gives an angry, unresponsive child crayons and paper. The child won’t tell parents, teachers or therapists what bothers her, but the picture that emerges from her drawing gives Schwartz-Arevalo some clues.

The colors red and black might indicate anger. Muddy colors like brown and blue might mean sadness. The images drawn offer even more insight.

“Monsters and mouths with sharp teeth, eyes popping out of faces in children’s drawings, those are huge red flags. They’re like an alarm going off,” Schwartz-Arevalo said.

Schwartz-Arevalo is an art therapist. She guides troubled children and adults or those with disabilities to convey their emotions or issues through the art they create.

Schwartz-Arevalo teaches an entry-level art therapy course at West Virginia State University, where she hopes to establish an art therapy concentration program. Traditional art students usually have two postgraduate options: establish themselves as a studio or commercial artist or teach art.

It’s a choice Schwartz-Arevalo faced after she graduated with a studio/fine arts degree from Marshall University in 1983. She didn’t think she wanted to teach or to establish herself as an artist, so she enrolled in the art therapy graduate program at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

Read more at whiotv.com