If you have an illness, physical or mental, the doctor will help. Time heals all wounds, but until time, pills and counseling kick in, what do you do while you're waiting? How do you relieve stress from everyday pressures? How do you ease the pain, distract your mind, and soothe your soul? If you're like me you craft.
In the craft-making process conscious issues may be expressed through bodily actions, such as a calming routine like knitting. The mind has time to go through and organize what has happened and plan for the future. Occupational therapy, the idea that working could be physically and psychologically beneficial for trauma patients, began during World War I as treatment for wounded and shell shocked servicemen. Wounded men could stitch while sitting in bed so they learned arts and crafts like basket weaving and painting. For the war wounded, work that could be done while seated, were particularly useful, and embroidery, cross-stitching and other needlework developed fine motor skills and coordination, invaluable to men with injuries and the painful ticks and tremors of shell shock. Sewing was both physical therapy and a welcome distraction from their suffering.
Craft may act as a filter and distraction to our negative thoughts by maintaining a positive mood in cases where we need to direct our thoughts in a positive direction, or represent them in as unthreatening a manner as possible.
Researchers have shown that crafting can be useful in achieving a physical improvement in heart rate and respiration, reduce pain, help us discriminate different emotions including anxiety, depression, and motivation, and also improve communication. When crafts are applied in a therapy process, the focus is in the craft, in the activity itself and in the emotions, experiences and language connected to it. The handicap, illness, pain and sense of unworthiness or some other issue that is considered a difficulty, are all put aside. It can be said that craft can appear as an area of life that individuals can fully control according to their own terms, so that it supports the sense of control in life. Craft can help us with a feeling of attainment in situations where all the other areas of life are uncontrollable.
It can also educate by enhancing knowledge and skills that support us in our everyday life, like fending for ourselves and social coping. As well as helping to develop or sustain physical health it gives satisfaction in life and a sense of meaningfulness. Besides learning new or developing skills, the relaxation, improved moods and satisfaction of producing an object can also mean restructuring a sense of worth. The recreation increases the life quality and wellness by giving pleasure. There is no such thing as right or wrong in crafts, making the item, not the end result, is paramount. So at the end of the craft experience, everyone comes away with their masterpieces.
While using crafts cannot do everything, it is an important and valid treatment among other treatment activities. Crafts are a way of valuing and giving to yourself. They allow you to express what's inside. If crafting helped the wounded in WW1, 100 years ago, why should we be surprised it that it would help in this century!
I would recommend crafting on prescription!