Art therapy, sometimes called creative arts therapy or
expressive arts therapy, encourages people to express and
understand emotions through artistic expression and through the
creative process. Humans have expressed themselves with symbols
throughout history. Masks, ritual pottery, costumes, other
objects used in rituals, cave drawings, Egyptian hieroglyphics,
and Celtic art and symbols are all visual records of self-
expression and communication through art. Art has also been
associated spiritual power, and such artistic forms as the Hindu
and Buddhist mandala and Native American sand painting are
considered powerful healing tools. In the late nineteenth
century, French psychiatrists Ambrose Tardieu and Paul-Max Simon
both published studies on the similar characteristics of and
symbolism in the artwork of the mentally ill. Tardieu and Simon
viewed art therapy as an effective diagnostic tool to identify
specific types of mental illness or traumatic events. Later,
psychologists would use this diagnostic aspect