Are you battling mental stress from work or family? Sick from fighting diseases? The Swiss town of Neuchatel is offering its residents to get relief through art for free with a doctor's prescription.
Mental stress has become a pervasive issue in modern life, affecting individuals from all walks of life. Art therapy has emerged as a powerful tool in managing stress and promoting mental well-being.
What is art therapy?
Art therapy is a distinctive approach that helps people to use creativity and self-expression to support their mental health. The therapy encourages creative expression through painting, drawing, or modelling.
Art therapy provides individuals facing emotional, physical, and cognitive challenges with new pathways toward understanding and self-expression.
People need not be artists to benefit from this form of therapy.
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The main goal of art therapy is to improve people's mental well-being.
What Neuchatel offers
The local and regional authorities are covering the costs of museum prescriptions issued by doctors. The prescriptions are provided for those who doctors believe could benefit from museum visits.
The project began based on a 2019 WHO report finding that arts can boost mental health, reduce the impact of trauma and lower the risk of cognitive decline, frailty and premature mortality, among other upsides.
It is a known fact that art can relax the mind, and it is sort of a preventive medicine.
Neuchatel council member Julie Courcier Delafontaine said so far around 500 prescriptions have been distributed to doctors around town and the program costs very little.
If successful, local officials could expand the program to other artistic activities like theatre or dance, Courcier Delafontaine said.
She also hopes that one day the Swiss national healthcare system cover culture as a means of therapy.