By Morgan Blair, LPC — licensed professional counselor specializing in eating disorders, trauma, neurodivergence, and LGBTQ+ affirming care.
You may know that something is affecting you while struggling to put the experience into words. Perhaps you process things internally, need time to understand what you are feeling, or find that talking only captures part of what is happening. When conversation does not come naturally, a therapy approach that depends heavily on verbal expression can feel limiting.
Insight may not be the missing piece. Sometimes, the parts of your experience that need attention are difficult to reach through explanation alone. They may emerge more naturally through an image, a letter, a story, or a few marks on a page. When that door opens, it can feel like the therapeutic process is becoming effective.
In this article
When words stop getting you anywhere
Some experiences are difficult to put into words. Trauma, disordered eating, and deeply rooted beliefs can shape your emotions, physical reactions, memories, and patterns of behavior. You may understand how a particular response developed yet still feel unable to change it in the moment.
Talking can also create distance. You may be intelligent, articulate, and skilled at explaining yourself, yet still describe a painful experience without fully connecting to its emotional impact. This distance often reflects a strategy you developed to stay composed, maintain control, or protect yourself. At these moments, therapy needs to offer more than conversation.
What art, writing, and storytelling can reach
Creative work eases the pressure to find the perfect words. It offers another way in to explore experiences that feel complicated, contradictory, or too difficult to approach head-on.
A drawing can hold anger toward your body and grief for what it has endured, both at once. A letter can surface something you’re not yet ready to say aloud. Putting a feeling on paper creates just enough distance to examine it together, without requiring you to stay fully immersed in it.
Storytelling can also help you separate from a problem. When an eating disorder or anxiety is given its own voice, motives, and patterns, you can begin to see it as something that affects you, but not something that defines you. Creative work does not replace conversation. It expands the ways we can understand and work with your experience.
What this can look like in therapy
Some sessions may consist primarily of conversation. During others, you might draw, write, create a visual timeline, or map the parts of yourself that seem to want different things.
We might write a letter from the perspective of your eating disorder so we can understand what it believes it is accomplishing for you. You might spend time painting and then talk about what you notice in the finished image. When a verbal account of your history feels flat or disconnected, we may organize important experiences through colors, symbols, or images instead.
These exercises are invitations, not prescriptions. You decide what we use, what you share, and what remains private. We can adapt the process to your comfort, communication style, and pace.
Why this approach can fit creatives and neurodivergent clients
I came to this work through art before I came to it through psychology. I hold a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling, and those two parts of my training have never felt separate.
Many of the people who find me are artists, writers, and creatives. I also work closely with people who are autistic or have ADHD, often identified only after years of masking or adapting themselves to meet other people’s expectations. They may have left previous therapy feeling misunderstood, overly analyzed, or labeled as resistant.
A conversation-centered format can be demanding when speaking spontaneously, maintaining eye contact, or organizing an experience into a linear explanation. Creative approaches allow more flexibility. You can move while you think, and explore an idea through images, patterns, fragments, or loops.
You do not have to be good at art
Artistic ability is irrelevant here. Stick figures work. Scribbles work. Choosing three colors and placing them on a page can be enough. The point is not to analyze your work or tell you what it “secretly” reveals; this is a tool, and you are the authority on what you create and what it means. My role is to stay curious, notice patterns alongside you, and ask questions that deepen your own understanding.
At Unpolished Journey, therapy is creative, collaborative, and shaped around the person in front of me. I’m Morgan Blair, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Colorado, working in person in Lakewood and online with clients across Colorado navigating eating disorders, trauma, neurodivergence, and identity. My practice is queer-affirming and neurodivergence-affirming from the first session forward.
Healing does not have to look polished or follow a predictable timeline. If talk therapy has given you insight but you still feel disconnected from real change, another form of expression may help you reach what words have not. I offer a complimentary consultation where you can share what’s felt stuck and learn more about how we might work together.
Frequently asked questions about creative therapy
Do I need to be an artist for this approach to work?
No. Artistic skill is not part of the process. You can work with stick figures, scribbles, collage, words, or simple color choices. Many clients have little or no art experience when they begin.
What happens in a creative therapy session?
The structure depends on what you need that day. A session may involve conversation, drawing, collage, writing, storytelling, or visually mapping an experience. We then explore what you noticed during the process and what the work means to you. You always have a say in which methods we use.
Does this work through telehealth?
Yes. In addition to my office in Lakewood, I meet with clients located in Colorado and can also guide clients online. You can use simple materials you already have at home. Paper, a pen, and a few colors are enough to begin.
Is this still clinical therapy?
Yes. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor, and my work draws from narrative therapy, Internal Family Systems-informed work, somatic awareness, and expressive practices. Creative exercises provide another way to engage in the therapeutic process; they are not a substitute for clinical care.
Can we still use traditional talk therapy?
Absolutely. Creative work is an option, not a requirement. Many clients move between conversation and expressive exercises depending on what they are addressing in a particular session.
By Morgan Blair, LPC.
Her clinical work focuses on eating disorders, trauma, neurodivergence, identity, autism, ADHD, and LGBTQ+ affirming care. Her training includes ADHD and autism assessment, emotion-focused family therapy, and narrative, somatic, and expressive approaches.
References
Frisch, M. J., Franko, D. L., & Herzog, D. B. (2006). Arts-based therapies in the treatment of eating disorders. Eating Disorders, 14(2), 131–142. https://doi.org/10.1080/10640260500403857
Griffin, C., Fenner, P., Landorf, K. B., & Cotchett, M. (2021). Effectiveness of art therapy for people with eating disorders: A mixed methods systematic review. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 76, 101859. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2021.101859
Pennebaker, J. W., & Beall, S. K. (1986). Confronting a traumatic event: Toward an understanding of inhibition and disease. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95(3), 274–281. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.95.3.274
Stuckey, H. L., & Nobel, J. (2010). The connection between art, healing, and public health: A review of current literature. American Journal of Public Health, 100(2), 254–263. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2008.156497
White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. W. W. Norton.