In 1942, British artist and army veteran Adrian Hill discovered the therapeutic benefits of drawing while recovering from tuberculosis in a sanatorium. As he later recalled in his book Art Versus Illness, the pencil drawings he made became “a form of escape which would combine the virtues of a creative and curative value.” Art therapy, the phrase Hill coined, would go on to become a popular branch of mental health care. Today, therapists use clients’ art as a projective technique—a way of getting them to express emotions that might otherwise go unspoken.
As creative arts therapist Melissa Walker explained in a TED Talk on the subject: “There is an actual shutdown in the Broca’s—or the speech-language area of the brain—after an individual experiences trauma.” Drawing is...