Application Research Of Painting Therapy In Promoting College Students’ Self-consciousness

Self-consciousness is an individual’s awareness about himself/herself and his/herrelation with the objective world. It is a multidimensional, multilevel psychologicalsystem and the center of personality-regulating system. Self-consciousness is connectedclosely with the development and the growth of individual. The sound self-consciousnessplays a role of guiding, encouraging, self controlling and self adjusting during anindividual’s development and growth. However, the unhealthy or distortedself-consciousness is usually the source of psychology puzzles and problems. Collegestudents are in the significant period of dramatic advancement, rapid development andgreat improvement of their self-consciousness. An important method to form the soundpersonality of college students is to help the students to understand the characteristics andthe main contradiction of self-consciousness in this period and cultivate their good andright self-consciousness.The painting therapy enables people to present their inner subconscious thoughcreative painting, a nonverbal expression way. During the process, depressive emotionsand conflicts are let off and mental satisfaction is achieved. The diagnosis and treatmentare made according to the psychological projective theory. Dating back to the ancienttimes, our ancestors have painted about their mood with their great mind to convey theinformation of life. It is amazing and breathtaking to see the exquisite drawingsconcentrating human emotions and wisdom, such as the paintings on mottled wall of acave, the buried terrines and porcelains in courtiers’ graves and the sheepskin which hasunderwent thousands of years.But, the history of scientific painting therapy is only sixty years which originatesfrom the establishment of unique Art Psychotherapy. In China, the actual academicresearch and application of scientific painting therapy started in the1990s. Currently, it ismore applied in medical institutions and less in the mental health education andconsulting. As for the need to improve the importance of college students’self-consciousness and the need to develop the theory itself, on the base of former researches and driven by the strong glamour of painting therapy, this study attempts toexplore the applicability and functional quality of painting therapy to the advancement ofstudents’ self-consciousness though group guidance.The literature search summarizes and reviews the concept, development course,theoretical foundation and the action mechanism, theory genres, current situation ofdomestic and abroad research of painting therapy. The theory research lays a solid basisfor practice application. It also further promotes the development and improvement ofpainting treatment technology in the practice.The empirical study adopts the method of the experimental group vs the controlgroup.22college students are divided equally, after pretest, into the experimental groupand the control group. The group counseling of painting therapy is carried out eight times,once a week, each lasting for1.5hours on the experimental group.It takes questionnaires and interviews to get the results. The results indicate that thegroup counseling of painting therapy can improve college students’ self-satisfaction,self-acceptance and confidence, so as to promote their mental health development andoverall personality growth. In addition, it sums up the application feasibility andcharacteristics of the group counseling of painting therapy.