Can Arts Really Heal? How Pre–Post Checks Show What Changes

When we say “arts heals,” it can sound vague or dreamy. In arts-based therapy, we actually track change in clear, grounded ways.

Before we begin, we use simple pre-assessments to understand:

- What you’re going through right now

- How you’re feeling in your body and emotions

- What you’d like support with

This can look like:

- Short rating scales (for cognition, behaviour, body, emotional, mood, stress, sleep, anxiety, etc)

- Guided questions about daily life, relationships, or work

- A quick check of how safe or overwhelmed you feel

As therapy unfolds, we use arts—drawing, movement, rhythm, voice, storytelling—not to judge the “quality” of the art, but to notice:

- What themes keep showing up

- How your body holds or releases tension

- Where you feel stuck vs. where you feel more free

After a set number of sessions, we do post-assessments. These mirror the starting tools, so we can compare:

- Have your scores on cognition, emotions, anxiety, low mood, or stress shifted?

- Are you sleeping better or feeling less on edge?

- Do you feel more choice, more voice, more grounding?

Sometimes, the changes show up as:

- “I don’t shut down as fast in conflict.”

- “I can name my feelings a little more clearly.”

- “My body feels less tight after sessions.”

By combining pre–post assessments with your lived experience, arts-based therapy stays:

- Evidence-informed – grounded in tools that can be tracked

- Creative – using art to reach places words can’t fully go

- Personalised – shaped to your pace, culture, and story

The arts itself holds the process, and the pre–post checks help us see, together, what is slowly shifting beneath the surface.

Come, let’s nurture the plant within together…