The effectiveness of art therapy on the self-esteem of adolescents’ with depression

“Depression” is one of the neglected psychological disorders’ in the Adolescent Population. Immediate treatment options are available in the form of medication, individual psychotherapy and family therapy, yet the nature of such therapies as well as the stigma attached to mental illness, hinders the adolescents’ compliance to treatment. This study aimed to find if Art therapy (visual arts)could be used an effective alternative intervention method to treat depression. A quasi experimental design was used. In the pre-test phase, Beck's Depression inventory-II and Self-esteem questionnaire was administered to 30 participants (15 boys & 15 girls); out of which 22 participants (12 boys & 10 girls) who met the criteria for depression moved to the intervention phase, which included 10 sessions of varied art intervention techniques for a period of 2 weeks. The questionnaires were re-administered in the post-test phase. The following results were obtained after analysis using the “Paired sample t-test” & “Wilcoxon signed ranks test”; the self-esteem scores of the participants increased(t= -7.907, p=.005), the depression scores of the participants decreased (z=-3.708, p=.005) in the post test phase respectively. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed that 75% changes in the self-esteem scores can be attributed to the intervention provided in the form of art therapy (η2=0.75). Also 84% of changes in the depression scores can be attributed to the same (ɤ= 0.84). Based on the obtained results, “Art therapy” can be considered as an effective alternative to treat depression in Adolescents’.