The Art of Transformation: Parallels Between Art Therapy and Shamanism

Across time and across cultures, humans have turned to images, symbols, movement, and ritual to make sense of suffering—to tend the soul, to bring back what was lost.Today, these ancient ways still echo in modern spaces of therapy and creativity. For me, the parallels between art therapy and shamanism are more than metaphor—they are alive and felt in the quiet moments of deep listening, in the images that emerge, in the trust that something meaningful will unfold.

A Language Older Than Words

Carl Jung once wrote, “The soul speaks in images.” In both art therapy and shamanic traditions, image is more than decoration—it is communication. Shamans journey into the invisible realms with symbols and vision, and art therapy invites that same journey inward: through shape, colour, and form, we give presence to what may not yet have words.

As Cathy Malchiodi reminds us, art therapy isn’t about being “an artist.” It’s about allowing creativity to become a bridge between feeling and understanding. “Art expression is a way of accessing and expressing emotional experiences without relying on verbal language” (Malchiodi, 2012).

The image becomes a map. A mirror. A doorway.

Witnessing, Not Fixing

Mircea Eliade describes the shaman as one who has endured a symbolic death and return—one who journeys into darkness not to escape it, but to learn how to guide others through it.This resonates deeply with how I see the role of the therapist: not as someone who has all the answers, but as someone who listens, who witnesses, who knows how to sit gently beside what’s hard.

Erich Fromm spoke of the difference between having and being—between control and presence. “Being refers to the experience of aliveness and authentic relating,” he wrote (Fromm, 1976). In both art therapy and shamanic practice, we are invited to be present, to relate authentically, and to trust the process.

Entering the Liminal

Whether through drumming, trance, dance, or image-making, both shamans and artists enter altered states—not to escape reality, but to access deeper layers of it.

Carl Jung called this active imagination—a way of engaging with the unconscious through symbol and story, a dialogue between ego and psyche. “Active imagination requires a deliberate dialogue with the contents of the unconscious... which transforms and integrates psychic energy” (Jung, 1966). In the therapy room, this might look like a sudden insight during painting, a tear shed over a collage, a breath finally released while moving clay between one’s hands.

These are threshold moments—just as sacred as any fire ceremony or vision quest.

Ritual, Reconnection, Repair

Both shamanic ritual and art therapy create containers for transformation.A session can be a ritual. The art materials can become sacred tools. A piece of torn paper, a found object, a scribbled mark—each holds the potential to reveal, to express, to release.

Malchiodi (2020) notes that “sensory-based experiences help integrate traumatic memories in a non-verbal, body-aware way.”This, too, is the essence of shamanic practice: working with the body, the psyche, and the spirit together—not as separate parts, but as one interconnected field.

In the End, a Return

What both art therapy and shamanism understand—what I see again and again—is that what we call healing isn’t about fixing what's broken. It is about remembering. Reconnecting. Returning to something sacred within ourselves.

Whether it’s with paintbrushes or feathers, symbols or silence, we are all seeking the same thing: to feel whole, to feel connected, to know that our stories, our pain, and our transformation matter.

📚 References

• Eliade, M. (1964). Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton University Press.

• Fromm, E. (1976). To Have or to Be? Harper & Row.

• Jung, C. G. (1964). Man and His Symbols. Dell.

• Jung, C. G. (1966). The Practice of Psychotherapy: Essays on the Psychology of the Transference and Other Subjects. Princeton University Press.

• Malchiodi, C. A. (2012). Art Therapy and Health Care. Guilford Press.

• Malchiodi, C. A. (2020). Trauma and Expressive Arts Therapy: Brain, Body, and Imagination in the Healing Process. Guilford Press.