I’ve never done anything especially creative in proper therapy, but I was exposed to crap tons of it when I was inpatient—at least one hour-long “group” each day was some kind of art therapy or expressive therapy.

I am terrible at visual art but I was so bored that I ended up trying lots of different stuff. I haaaaated making pretty lil inspirational quotes or cards with “coping techniques” listed on them, but had unexpected success filling notebooks with angry pastel scribblings and god-awful poems, and with drawing stick figure comics. The scribbling was mostly just catharsis, but the stick figure comics somehow helped me express some stuff that I couldn’t verbalize straight up. I did a whole series of Id/Ego/Superego comics where the three stick figure characters would interact with each other. It was all very tongue in cheek but also helped me sort out things e.g. yes, what I really want to do is refuse to get it if bed or speak with my psychiatrist but also I know that that approach won’t help anything.

I don’t know how well I would tolerate that kind of thing in a therapeutic dyad, though—I guess the artsy stuff feels a little erm scientifically non rigorous so I’d feel wary of a t who insisted on my participation in such a thing.