Art Therapy With Clinical Depth
Art therapy in Houston led by a master’s-level art therapist who is also trained in Somatic Experiencing. Creative, body-aware clinical work for trauma, anxiety, and the experiences words cannot reach yet, integrated into your treatment plan at Heights.
01Master’s-Level Art Therapist
02Body-Aware Creative Work
03No Art Skill Needed
04Private Pay · Superbills
What It Is
Some experiences are stored without words. Trauma especially tends to live in image, sensation, and fragment, which is why the most important material often cannot be said, at first, but can be made: drawn, painted, shaped, arranged.
Art therapy is a clinical discipline, not an activity. A trained art therapist chooses materials and prompts deliberately, attends to the process as much as the product, and uses the artwork as a shared, external place where difficult material can be approached safely. The image holds what would be overwhelming to hold directly, and that distance is the mechanism: you can look at, step back from, and change a drawing in ways you cannot yet do with the memory itself.
No artistic skill is required. The point is never a good picture. The point is what becomes visible, and workable, once it is outside your head.
The Evidence
Art therapy is an established master’s-level profession with its own graduate training standards, and its research base supports it as a meaningful component of trauma, anxiety, depression, and addiction treatment, particularly where verbal approaches stall. Reviews consistently find benefits for emotional expression, distress reduction, and engagement, and trauma-focused practice increasingly pairs image work with body-based methods, which is exactly how it is delivered here.
We are precise about its role: art therapy at Heights is one modality inside a clinical plan, integrated with talk, somatic, and skills work rather than replacing them. We will not quote a session count before an assessment.
Who It Helps
When the worst of it cannot be narrated yet, image-making gives it a first, safe, external form.
If you can analyze your own story fluently while feeling none of it, materials bypass the script.
Making something for what was lost gives grief a shape and a place to live outside the body.
The making itself regulates: rhythm, texture, and focus quiet a loud nervous system.
Identity, shame, and hope are easier to work with when you can actually see them on the page.
With a therapist trained in both, the image and the body inform each other in the same session.
The Session Arc
01
Arriving in the body before the materials, so the work starts regulated.
02
The art holds what words cannot yet; there is no skill requirement and no grading.
03
Exploring what showed up on the page with your therapist, at your pace.
04
Connecting what surfaced to your treatment goals and the rest of your care.
What To Expect
A session usually moves between making and meaning. Your therapist offers a starting point matched to where you are: a material, a prompt, sometimes just a choice of color. Then you work, and the room stays quiet enough for the work to happen.
What follows is not art critique. You and your therapist look at what appeared: what surprised you, where your body responded while you made it, what the image seems to know that you had not said out loud yet. Because your therapist is also trained in Somatic Experiencing, those body responses are worked with directly rather than noted and passed over.
You never have to explain a piece, show it to anyone else, or keep it. Some of the most useful sessions end with something torn up on purpose.
Where It Fits
Art therapy runs through our levels of care as both individual and group work. In Individualized Intensive Programming, it can be sequenced deliberately with trauma processing. In PHP and IOP, art therapy groups give the week a different register: slower, quieter, and often where unexpected material finally surfaces.
It pairs naturally with Somatic Experiencing, with the same clinician, and with EMDR when images become targets for processing. This page sits alongside our trauma and PTSD treatment program.
Who Delivers It
Art therapy at Heights Behavioral Health is delivered by a master’s-level art therapist holding a Master of Arts in Art Therapy, who is also trained in Somatic Experiencing. That combination lets image work and nervous-system work happen in the same chair.
Clinical care is led by Joni Ogle, LCSW, CSAT, who has been licensed for more than 37 years and specializes in trauma and co-occurring conditions.
Guides and Resources
Plain-language articles from our clinical team on art therapy, trauma, and the experiences that are hard to put into words.
Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy: What Actually Happens at the Ranch Internal Family Systems: Why Therapists Keep Talking About Parts Somatic Experiencing: Trauma Treatment That Starts in the Body Ready When You Are
A confidential conversation about art therapy at Heights and where it fits in your plan.
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Common Questions
If you do not see your question here, call our admissions team at (877) 549-5102 and we will walk you through it.
Heights Behavioral Health is a private-pay, out-of-network practice. We provide superbills so you can pursue out-of-network reimbursement if your plan offers it, and we can verify your benefits before you commit. See our admissions page.
No, and it genuinely does not matter. Stick figures work. The therapeutic action is in the making and the noticing, not the craftsmanship, and nobody is grading anything.
Yes. Art therapy is a distinct master’s-level profession with graduate training standards, and here it is delivered by a clinician holding a Master of Arts in Art Therapy. It is not an activity hour. It is psychotherapy that uses image and material as its language.
It belongs to you. Pieces are kept private, discussed only with you, and you decide what happens to them. Nothing is displayed, shared, or interpreted behind your back.
Trauma is often stored as image and sensation rather than narrative. Making gives that material an external, controllable form: you can approach a drawing, step back from it, and change it. Paired with somatic work, that becomes a way to process what direct talking cannot yet reach.
It depends on the role the work plays in your plan: a companion to trauma processing, a primary expressive channel, or part of a group schedule. We will not quote a session count before an assessment.
Art therapy here is led by a master’s-level art therapist who is also trained in Somatic Experiencing, so sessions can move between creative expression and body-based regulation as needed. It is a clinical modality inside your treatment plan, delivered with the same documentation and coordination as every other therapy we offer.
Our admissions team answers seven days a week, from 8:00 am to 7:30 pm Central Time. Call (877) 549-5102 to talk with a real person about what is going on, your schedule, and whether our programs are the right fit. If you reach out after hours, leave a message or send the consultation form and we will return your call as soon as we open. If this is an emergency, call 911. If you or someone you love is in a mental health crisis, call or text 988.
Clinical Review
Written by Joni Ogle, LCSW, CSAT, CEO of Heights Behavioral Health, and clinically reviewed by Deborah Darnell-Drake, LCSW-S, ACSW, LMFT, Chief Clinical Officer. Heights Behavioral Health provides licensed outpatient behavioral health care for adults in Houston, Texas, delivered by master’s-level clinicians and licensed professionals. This page is intended to explain HBH services and does not replace an individualized clinical assessment. Last reviewed October 2026.
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