The availability of adult colouring-in books seems to have exploded across Australia over the last six months, but professionals have questioned the use of the term ‘art therapy’ on some of the titles.
Jo Kelly, president the Australian and New Zealand Arts Therapy Association (ANZATA), said the adult colouring-in books were not art therapy.
Dr Kelly said the adult colouring-in books were “a fad”, but that it could be an activity that some people would simply enjoy doing.
“If it’s the first step towards making a bit of time for yourself, to give yourself a bit of a zone-out period, there’s all benefits to that,” she said.
“But to sort of suggest that it’s a sort of creative art expression, you’re actually using other people’s designs – why not make your own?”
Dr Kelly said art therapy was formalised as a profession in late 2006.
“An arts therapist is a qualified, trained individual who helps people and uses creative processes,” she said.
“It is a postgraduate profession – that is the minimum international standard.”
If [colouring-in] is the first step towards making a bit of time for yourself, to give yourself a bit of a zone-out period, there’s all benefits to that … [but] you’re actually using other people’s designs – why not make your own?
Dr Jo Kelly
Dr Kelly also works as an art therapist in high schools with teenage students.
“What 15-year-old wants to talk about their problems?” she said.
“[But] if you say, ‘hey, let’s do a picture, let’s create a picture, let’s do some clay, let’s make a dream weaver, let’s make a book’ – then once you’ve engaged somebody – whether it’s a teenager, a child, or an adult – you start the building of a relationship [for them to talk].”
She said children were naturally creative, but somewhere along the way that could get lost.
“If you do meet a two-year-old, their natural expression is dance, play, create,” she said.
“By the time that two-year-old gets to high school, they have been socialised in a certain way.
“Those students that have been told or they’ve had a bad experience with some creative expression and art-type of activity, by the time that two-year-old becomes an adult, it’s amazing the number of people who go ‘I don’t have a creative bone in my body, I’m not artistic’.
“Somewhere in their lives, that notion of themselves as a creative human being has been stunted.”
Colouring-in invokes ‘happy memories’ from childhood
Jane O’Sullivan, the coordinator of the masters in mental health at the University of Queensland, agreed that adult colouring books were not art therapy.
“The colouring books certainly have a great place for people to be still and switch off from their everyday life and it’s something that a lot of us have happy memories of as children,” Dr O’Sullivan said.
“You can take it with you anywhere, and [some books] give you space to create something else when you’re thinking about it.
“It’s a nice technique really that some art therapists sometimes use as a way to get started with someone, but art therapy is a lot more involved than that.
“The kind of art therapy we’re talking about is where you have a working relationship with somebody who is hopefully objective and safe and confidential and you can work through some issues with them using art materials.
“I think if someone was to say colouring-in books are art therapy, is not accurate. But at the same time, I think they have their place.”
[Colouring-in] is a nice technique really that some art therapists sometimes use as a way to get started with someone, but art therapy is a lot more involved than that.
Dr Jane O’Sullivan
Dr O’Sullivan said she would encourage people to buy a blank journal after a colouring-in book experience.
“Blank canvas can be really daunting first time round – I think to me that is sort of the next step as well,” she said.
“While I really enjoy using a [colouring-in book] myself, it’s a little limiting.
“Whereas colouring-in will always have its place for people who do feel very nervous about having to create something themselves and feeling pressure, it gives them a boundary and a nice comfortable way to start.”
Social media sharing creates connection between artists
Art therapist Claire Edwards contributed to an adult colouring book as part of a community art project in Victoria.
Ms Edwards, who is a lecturer at the University of Queensland’s masters of mental health art therapy program, also works as an art therapist in private practice and for a community organisation.
She said a woman in Victoria who had a lung transplant wanted to raise money for transplant patients when they were in recovery, as some patients had to live in Melbourne near the hospital for quite a long time.
The woman was an artist and she started working on the book as a community art project through social media.
“She put a call-out for artists and illustrators to contribute to a colouring-in book for adults, which has been produced,” Ms Edwards said.
Ms Edwards said the book, Breathing to a New Technicolour Dream Book, had been out for about six months.
“We all contributed drawings for free so all the profits go basically straight to the transplant patients … in Victoria,” she said.
Ms Edwards said one of her drawings that had been coloured in by someone else was shared on social media.
“It blew me away when I first saw the drawing I did that someone else had coloured in,” she said.
“Then I could compliment her on what she’d done and she complimented me on the drawing and it was just a nice connection.
“We’ll probably never meet each other but it’s just kind of a different conversation I suppose.”
Colouring-in has ‘stood the test of time’
Ms Edwards said she had mixed emotions about some adult colouring books being titled art therapy.
Now adults have got permission to do this thing that has really been the domain of childhood in the past.
Claire Edwards
“I would definitely take on board the mindfulness aspect of it because I think there’s more to mindfulness then sitting and meditating,” she said.
“There are lots of ways we can be mindful in everyday life … because for me, it’s about focussing on where I am now, what I’m doing, and not running off in lots of thoughts in my head and ignoring the present.
“When [colouring-in books are] referred to as art therapy, I think that’s a little more controversial.
“It can be part of art therapy but it doesn’t really substitute for a therapeutic relationship.”
In a technology-driven world, Ms Edwards said colouring-in had “stood the test of time”.
“Now adults have got permission to do this thing that has really been the domain of childhood in the past,” she said.
“This is part of the attraction of the colouring books for adults – it’s kind of ironic, because of lot of the children would prefer to have a tablet in front of them … although that’s not to say that kids [still] don’t enjoy it.”