Art can sometimes seem like a daunting and exclusive hobby.

But hospitals like UK health care want people to realize it's a healing process that everyone can benefit from.

The integrative medicine and health program.

There is using art therapy to treat patients minds and bodies.

That on this week's Arts and Culture segment we call Tapestry.

This is the art therapy Barbie.

Barbie actually worked with the American Art Therapy Association to get an idea of what to put in the design.

We're a lot like a mental health professional, so in art therapy, we are able to process with the patient and things that they're struggling with and dealing with their mental health.

And then we use art to kind of help them express that as well.

So in a different way, instead of just like using words, we can have that visual interpretation as well.

When we create are a lot of the time, both the verbal and the non-verbal parts of our brain are actually processing a lot of things that are going on.

So a lot of times when I work with patients or there's a lot of some extreme emotions that might be happening, there might be trauma that happened there.

There might be very, very big moments in their life that they're trying to process.

Even while they're in the hospital.

They're dealing with that anxiety or that depression that comes up when they are dealing with a new cancer diagnosis or something like that.

And so it helps them to process those difficult changes in their life.

Art kind of allows the story through our mind to be put on either a canvas or a mask or sculpting or whatever the media might be to kind of be able to handle that process thing a little bit easier.

Our art materials can impact how the patient like expresses themselves.

So if a patient is very like emotional, if we hand them paint, paint is very fluid.

It doesn't provide a lot of control.

So if they start to use paint and they're very emotional, that may ramp that emotional state up.

So giving them something more controlled, hearing that emotional experience for them, like a color pencil or a pencil, will help them gain control of that.

So it kind of depends on what we want to do with them.

Right.

Like if we want them to express that emotion, great, we'll probably get into paint or something more fluid.

But if we want to help them game back that control or composure, we would give them more restrictive material.

So in my bag, I always have like a range of things.

I'll have like the color pencils, the pencils I have clay, which is very kinesthetic and that can like help people let out a lot of anger or aggression and just like heavy feelings, like pushing that clay is just very therapeutic for a lot of people.

And then I have like matchmaking, which can help people portray like how they feel.

They look on the outside and then on the inside what they're dealing with.

When our bodies under stress, of course, that's not good.

That's not it's kind of counteracting the healing process for what their medical diagnosis is.

And stress can actually exacerbate symptoms and it can actually create more anxiety, depression, even more physical pain symptoms, too.

And so with our being able to relax themselves a little bit better or being able to have a space and time to connect with those emotions and being able to let those go or to have a moment just to feel them and then process them, I think it really helps with, you know, their physical treatment and can help when they leave the hospital as well.

The UK Integrative Medicine and Health Program also offers various other therapies for overall wellness, including music therapy, yoga, massage therapy and more.