Whole Child Counseling

Aug 157 min read

3 High-Impact Art Therapy-Inspired Activities to Transform Anger

Guest blog post by Erica Curtis, LMFT, ATR-BC

Anger is on the rise. Before a few years ago, I had never seen signs in businesses reminding costumers to “Please be nice” or that “Aggression of any kind will not be tolerated.” I now see such signs regularly. Even before 2020, both national and international polls showed that anger had been increasing (see, for example, Gallup 2022; Hensley 2019; World Economic Form 2019). People reported feeling angrier, more often than in the past. That trend continues today. And grown-ups who have not yet learned what to do with their own anger will surely fall short in guiding children in what to do with theirs.

‘Anger management’ can no longer be seen as a specialization in the field of mental health. Regardless of your clientele’s typical demographics and needs, you will inevitably encounter anger in your practice. It may be loud, intimidating, disruptive, or destructive. Or it may be so repressed that it is hardly detectable. It is therefore important that we all develop an expansive understanding of anger as well as creative, versatile tools that can help our clients soothe or harness anger for meaningful change.

Let’s begin with the following activity to start getting to know anger.

Art Therapy-Inspired Activity #1: Get to Know Your Anger

1. Invite your client to make a scribble to represent their anger’s energy. Instead of ‘anger’, use your client’s own words, like frustration, disappointment, annoyance, ‘meh’, or other.

2. Encourage them to consider anger’s size, speed, and intensity. It may be a tiny dot or a thick scribble. Perhaps it is quick and short or has a slow build that grows larger and larger.

3. Suggest your client consider not only what it looks like, but how it moves and changes over time.

4. Once complete, invite your client to ask their scribble what it wants your client to know. What important or helpful words would the scribble say? Allow your client to add words and phrases or help with writing.

5. Encourage your client to describe their image and words.

Don’t Just ‘Manage’ Anger.

Aside from getting to know anger in its various forms, it’s important to also develop a framework for relating to anger.

Personally, I previously didn’t have much interest in relating to anger at all. I tend to be a generally conflict-avoidant person and my professional interventions were limited to tools for containing and de-escalating anger. I could normalize it, challenge cognitive distortions, teach relaxation strategies, and replace unhealthy behaviors, all to mitigate anger’s potentially harmful nature. In short, I could help clients manage their anger, if I needed to.

But, in recent years I decided it was time to approach anger with more curiosity and creativity.

How might anger be helpful? When might calming anger be counter-therapeutic? How can we distinguish between times anger needs soothing and times it needs awakening? Once awakened, how can we safely direct anger toward positive change?

Adopting a more creative framework helped me realize that relating to anger by “managing” it was too restrictive. Looking at anger as a management task limited my ability to answer these questions. What’s more, the framework of “managing anger” also restricted my clients’ options for how they viewed and related to their own anger.

We can help clients work with anger in more nuanced ways by exploring the most beneficial relationships that they can create with their anger. Try this activity.

Art Therapy-Inspired Activity #2: Relate to Anger

1. Invite your client to illustrate their relationship with anger. This can take any form but if your client needs more guidance, suggest they imagine a make-believe pet.

2. Next, brainstorm words together to describe different ways of relating to their animal, like controlling, comforting, managing, leading, teaching, ignoring, and so forth.

3. Ask your client to select two or three different words to illustrate. Consider asking them to select words that seem the most and least helpful.

4. Invite them to draw themselves in relation to the animal in these different ways. For example, “comforting the dog” and “training the dog.” Stick figures, simple shapes, or cut-out pictures work.

5. Compare and contrast the illustrations. Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of different ways of relating to the pet. Discuss how this might relate to the topic of anger. Explore benefits of using different approaches at different times.

But Why Art? Providing Expression Within Limits.

Art has many innate qualities that are particularly useful when working with anger.

Art provides access to the emotional world when language is impaired due to high emotional states or emotional shut down.
It makes it easier to form new perspectives when anger takes an external, physical form.
Art allows us to physically manipulate an emotion that is otherwise tricky to grasp, redirect, or transform.

Art is also naturally expressive while having built-in limits that are informed by the art prompt and materials. Because of this, art is ideal for clients to practice expressing anger without overwhelming themselves or others.

When it comes to anger, balancing self-expression and self-regulation can be particularly tricky. Anger is energy so without sufficient limits, anger may quickly escalate. This can result in harmful behaviors or shut down and withdrawal. However, when a client exercises expression through scribbling, for example, along with self-restraint by staying within the paper’s boundaries, they are already practicing self-regulation required to safely encounter and communicate about their anger.

Some clients will need more limits than others to comfortably connect with anger.

Consider the size of paper you provide, for example. A sticky note provides tighter limits than a large sheet of paper.
Stick with materials that restrict movement and mess, such as pencils and markers, unless you are specifically trained in indications and counter-indications for using more expressive materials like paint. The messier materials are, the messier emotions can get.

You can also give prompts that provide an added layer of containment, such as the following art activity.

Art Therapy-Inspired Activity #3: Express Anger Within Containment

1. Invite your client to draw a see-through bottle or other type of container that holds anger. Suggest they consider its size, shape, and how clear it is. Welcome the addition of an optional lid. Is it open or closed?

2. Next, ask your client to pretend they are peering into the container and see anger inside. Invite them to add colors, shapes, symbols, or words that represent the angry feelings inside the bottle.

3. Ask if they would like to add anything outside the bottle. Ask if the bottle needs anything else now.

4. Invite your client to describe what they drew. What do they wonder about the contents of the container? What would happen if the container were open? What happens to anger when the container is closed?

Get Creative

Getting to know anger, clarifying optimal ways of relating to anger, and creating containment to safely explore anger, all lay the groundwork for unlimited possibilities to harness anger for positive change.

We can help clients mobilize anger in the service of goal pursuit and achievement. We can help clients comfort anger when it speaks about deep hurt. We can examine anger as an informant about unspoken needs or harness it to set limits or clarify values. Poached it, scrabble it, fry, or bake it. I invite you to get creative about how you look at anger and to help your clients do the same.

For more creative guidance and ready-to-use art activities to work with anger, please check out the book, Working with Anger Creatively: 70 Art Therapy-Inspired Activities to Safely Soothe, Harness, and Redirect Anger for Meaningful Change.

A Note About Art Therapy

Art therapy is a master’s level profession that requires graduate and post-graduate supervision by a board-certified art therapist. While only Registered (ATR) and Board Certified (ATR-BC) Art Therapists can facilitate art therapy, anyone can benefit from incorporating theories and tools from the field of art therapy into their own practice as art therapy-informed or arts-based interventions. For more on art therapy, go to: www.ArtTherapy.org

Books by this Author

Curtis, E. (2024) Working with Anger Creatively: 70 Art Therapy-Inspired Activities to Safely Soothe, Harness, and Redirect Anger for Meaningful Change. London, UK: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Curtis, E. (2022) Art Therapy Activities for Kids: 75 Evidence-Based Art Projects to Improve Behavior, Build Social Skills, and Boost Emotional Resilience. Oakland, California: Rockridge Press, 2022.

Curtis, E. & Ho, P. (2019) The Innovative Parent: Raising Connected, Happy, Successful Kids through Art. Ohio: Ohio University Press / Swallow Press.

About the Author

Erica Curtis is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Board-Certified Art Therapist with a private practice in San Juan Capistrano, California. Erica is an award-winning author, internationally sought speaker, and has been cited in over 100 media outlets including PBS, The Boston Globe, USA Today, The Guardian, and Elle. Erica serves as core faculty and curriculum developer for The Arts & Healing Initiative and is the admissions consultant for the art therapy graduate department at Loyola Marymount University. Erica has served multiple terms on the board of directors of the American Art Therapy Association and is a past president of the Southern California Art Therapy Association, from which she received the highest recognition, Honorary Life Member. Erica has collaborated with industry giants like L’Oréal, Capital One, and The Getty Center on creative mental health initiatives. She is a subject expert for the CA Board of Behavioral Sciences, for whom she consults on standard of care in disciplinary cases brought against therapists. Her books, “Working with Anger Creatively”, “The Innovative Parent”, and “Art Therapy Activities for Kids” can be found anywhere books are sold. For more information or to connect with Erica visit http://www.TherapyWithErica.com or IG @ericakcurtis.